Colin Helliwell

Are you suggesting/querying that your number was called therefore you assumed you had fully finished? From my point of view, when on Finish Line duty, the 'calling of number' is for the person writing it down, not for the skipper. I may be incorrect there - but maybe an interesting question of interpretation/expectation...

Hmmm, yes - is that at 4", or 2", and/or w.r.t. boat speeds and distance from shore....? At what point, whilst essentially RoW, do you have to back out (of your position of strength) so as to avoid R14 infringement yourself. And just hope to be able argue the t*ss later? I often hear debates along lines of: "but we didn't touch" , "yeah cos I took avoiding action" - and thats on 'simple' port/starboard or mark room. Given that luffing is a standard and permissible defence tactic, it does seem open to a lot of subjectivity for us. (Fortunately I don't even manage to understand all the rules, let alone try to write them....)

Our rules are at least 'clear' and defined at great length, compared with maybe F1. Mostly makes sense, on calm considered reflection, on a Monday night. But in the heat of the moment on the weekend..... 🙄 (Yes, there's no ideal lol)

I shall be interested in the answers from those more knowledgeable than me, but my take on it would be that one always has an obligation (even when in the right) to try to avoid a collision. And it sounds like the other two were unable to do that themselves. (There's lotsa rules, I've only briefly read, about being disabled). The question it most raises in my mind is "did you infringe on anyone?".... I guess someone behind you could have benefitted if you had done turn/turns (one for each of the boats, if you hit both?) I got moaned at once for clipping someone who was hooked on a (non-course) buoy - ironically, in doing so, I freed them up!! 😆

I know of one being developed by a fellow member - phone app + BT speaker. I think it'll also have buttons to announce things like 'Black Flag'. I think he said he expected it to be ready for Beta testing etc in matter of weeks/months - I know nothing about the 'commercial' side of things. I've not seen him on these forums, but if I have his contact details somewhere I'll let him know about this thread.

I've recently acquired a second-hand [boat with a] 290ES & self-tensioning drum. It's been in regular use without any problems as far as I know. But it sounds really noisy to me, compared with simple types of winch servo - a right ol' screech as it spools in/out. Is this normal? I don't recall other IOMs/RMGs (except maybe one) being particularly rowdy. Manual says the acetal gears are self-lubricating, tho it might have some metal gears too. Could be a bearing (it does to me have the sound of a car's failing alternator or water pump....) Such a pita to remove drum and extract it - or, more accurately, to put it back together again lol - so I'm reluctant to mess with too much 'on a whim'. Maybe its normal.... Any thoughts/experiences/ideas? Thanks.

Absolutely agree re. non-English speaking participants. And re. 'One Five', even at lower level. (Tho it's mostly if the Finishing Team didn't do that, when I'm on the Fleet Board, that I'd be wincing 🙃)

Not at all a legalistic point-of-view, but precise wording of Hails seems a bit overly an&l to me - at a club level certainly. I often hear "xx tacking for the bank" - for sure its wise and important for L to state their number, but the message is pretty clear regardless of precise phrasing. And W should be well aware of L's upcoming need for room to tack anway, so any disputing a hail due to the wording would seem churlish or even 'gamesmanship' to me... But hey, I just do this sport for fun....

Off-topic to the winch itself - sorry! But this (from a connector manufacturer) might be of general use to people on the subject of wire sizes.

Lots of 3d activity happening with things like the Alioth - very interesting. But anyway, as there's therefore probably many people here with such knowledge, what's a good choice of material for UV resistance? White is fine, no great strength needed, but would be outdoors 24/7, ideally for years at least. ('Painted' would be an option)

Those hollows didn't look "wetted" to me, even heeled. (Unless keel falls off.... look out for that unfortunate GBR... very LeBon/Drum). I wondered if its to create additional buoyancy at the gunwhales when heeled.

"Furthest mark" is of course subjective, but I use a DX6i on both my yachts, with a AR410 in my DF95. (Up high, towards the deck of course). Not had problems.

From perspective of being an Engineer, my gut feel would be stick with replaceable lead-acid. Integrated lithium great in theory, but what cost when the battery ages...? And if, like us, the weekly charging is only solar, a non-integrated battery at least gives you the option to have a spare. (I also stopped buying all-in-one hifi systems in the 90s, in favour of individual pieces lol)

"Simplified manners from pros towards beginners" can also sometimes be useful.....

Just looking at the rules I have to hand, the rules about hollows seem to apply to "the undersurface" of the hull, not the topsides. I am though curious why the viss has those. Certainly looks different; a fellow member said to me "ugly" lol. Fortunately I'm not yet competent enough to need to worry about hull shape.... 😁 Nonetheless I found the coverage - close-ups, and experienced commentary on how/why - massively instructive. Well done Gladstone

Short of some F1-style fiasco, how does 'significant advantage' get defined? I recall the (excellent) coverage of IOM Worlds showed a fair bit of top mark carnage where an innocent got a secondary/tertiary clouting - knocked head to wind and/or onto the mark themselves, and lost several places recovering/atoning, whilst the original infringer had taken their turn and continued merrily on?

I used the clip-on in my early (only a few years lol) IOM days. I fitted a pin in the front, and a hole in mast, to prevent rotation. Over the course of some re-rigging and spar swaps, I've been thru the sailsetc 'aero section' too. Latest re-rig I have simple wire, round tubing, with split pins in the ends. My reasoning: I don't now buy the 'reduced drag' of the aero section, its gonna be insignificant to the whole (it's not an ac75 with deck profile designed by AMG Mercedes!); wire allows rake to be adjusted if you want; steel tubing is cheap, if you wanna lengthen/shorten then its quick cheap and easy. With a known design i doubt you'd realistically need to alter the height. Have it about right and varying the length instead would still allow tweaking for more/less lateral force. In short - simple gives adjustment, even replacement, at low cost and with low hassle. (Most of the mast bend is fore-and-aft - i have my structural engineering text book somewhere lol, but two holes in the side probably cause less weakness than the jib attachment).

I reckon (as with any such rig) that the counterweight is key, so that wind has an influence not just gravity. You can do a quick S turn to help it flick over, but I've also heard that one of the top skippers says better to not waste time/speed doing that and that if it wants to go then it will. I'd think wind strength plays a part too - if light then you could lose out more by trying too hard to coax it over - just keep the boat moving! And of course, don't try to goosewing if it's not actually the right thing for the wind direction anyway... I'd be interested myself in others' thoughts though. Is it better to not sail on a dead run in the first place...?

On the method that LRSC uses? (Which looks approx similar maths as Andrew's) Am trying to pick out an example like that, but coming at it from the other end for example 4th out of 10 scores higher than 4th out of 5, which is harder=rewarded?

Late to the thread lol, but LRSC have been using this method since Autumn '22. (With of course a number of discards, set by the number of rounds in the series). As others mention, a series over 6 months is different to one over a few days (where all entrants are likely to be there 100%), so 'DNC' is a bit simplistic IMHO - especially at Club level. There's a formula we use for it in Excel, but to show it pictorially:

Another thought I'd had before I started - which might make some of the above easier - was to drill out the top hole to separate the 'plate' from the cylindrical body. So I took some measurements of the insert & tube, for assessing hole size/depth and how much room there is to work with without damage. Obviously there's a risk of going so wide/deep as to go into the hull itself - it's hard to measure the curve of the hull aperture. (Carefully with a 9mm bit?) I dunno if it would help the process, but here's the measurements anyway while I'm at it. (Not shown, but be aware that the plate slopes slightly w.r.t. the body). DF95_TopRudder.pdf

This repair is now sorted, so here's my experiences in case it helps others. First off, it looks like the chap in the video was replacing an older version which doesn't have the metal tube linking the two inserts. This makes it even harder than it looks..... I got the un-bonder, and first tried a drop (somewhere out of sight) to check how much it would attack it. Instantly it loses its gloss. On the outer surfaces it's much worse - I suspect the hull has some sort of lacquer coating, which immediately blisters and dissolves. My approach was to put a 4mm screw into the top insert, with a view to pulling straight more than levering. The insert itself gets well and truly 'melted' by the un-bonder. Be careful about over-spill onto the deck. And be equally careful and precise when wiping up excess - the softening of the insert makes it easy to get black smears on the deck 😬 Even with the screw, I got no traction or movement. I tried gently levering around the edges and the upshot was, as for Larry, that the part disintegrated. Leaving me with just the barrel left, which is also glued in around the outside in some spots. More un-bonder; poking at it with a pin (nothing thicker fits down the gap). In fact the insert dissolved more than the cyano so I managed to gouge enough away that I could then lever the rest out with the screw, hoping I wouldn't strain/damage the other insert (via the tube). Some gentle scraping/sanding to clean up the hull tubeway to allow the new insert in fully. New insert fitted using sealant not superglue! Overall, the problem is solved. But not at all easily 🙄

I can 'touch type' on a number keypad, so I find that checking/adding/removing skippers in HMS takes me longer than plugging in the races lol. Does Afleet allow for copying the entrants across from a previous week like I do with HMS, or do they have to be entered from scratch each time? Out of interest, what sorta money did the waterproof tablet cost?

Even after getting Excel to play ball, I sometimes get similar warnings/blocks when I open the original. Since I'm doing it every week I usually start by making a copy of last week's, rename it, and then it always opens without aggro. Plus it'll typically have most of the skippers in already - just go to Program Options and 'Remove all Race Finishes'.

Yikes. Was it the black insert pieces which disintegrated, not the hull itself? Any pointers you can give on "if you try this then it's best to xyz"? Thanks