Week end sea trials

I went to Oslo for some social sea trials last week end.  Four boats sailing south on Saturday, social gathering at Sandspollen over night and back up to Oslo on Sunday.  We had most kinds of weather, from sunny and no wind to heavy rain and quite heavy gusts force 6-7.

I drove all night and arrived in Oslo at 4:06 in the morning, had a few hours of good sleep in Anders' Grinde. Launched later that morning.

Start of our "race" was in very light conditions. Thomas brought Champagne, perfect for the conditions.

The wind built to force 3-4 southerly and we had a few hours of upwind sailing, keeping speeds of 10-11 knots at decent tacking angles.  We had a fight with a beautiful Dutch sloop with sail # NED 27.  We were constantly a bit faster on a slightly poorer angle, which resulted in very similar VMG's.  We put in a reef after a while and was able to maintain our tacking angles better after that. They won.
On the last tack we broadened the angle a tiny bit and Thomas took this video when close reaching single reefed in Droebak Strait.  GPS showed 14,5 knots.

Sandspollen over night.  Excellent company. The fleet in the morning

On Sunday I didn't feel like racing and wanted to relax on the fjord along with the other boats, sailing downwind under main and jib only.  5-7 knots of boat speed.  Pretty moderate conditions.

And some live pictures, captured by Erik in the Grinde

Then the wind grew again and white streaks of foam showing wind direction.  I depowered everything I could (the reefing system, sailmaker's idea, doesn't work when the wind is up, will rebuild to plans) but we were sailing constantly over 13 knots with no options of retreat.  Although the boat felt very comfortable with the conditions I didn't and chose to find shelter under land and remove the main.  We continued under mast and jib doing 7-8 knots.  Problems with the screacher furler was the main reason we didn't use that sail much this day, although double reef and screacher would probably have been a lot of fun.