I can’t help it. Yesterday I was out sailing in Japan on our newly refurbished X-99 yacht. There is no doubt she is a lovely boat and we are going to have a lot of fun competing in her on the club scene here in Japan. We sailed quite a difficult wind yesterday which intermittently dropping off to 5 knots true then jumped up to 20 knots true with the windex in a state of constant flux as it spun all the way round the clock a half dozen times. Still, all in all we had some great sailing for a couple of hours when she decided to blow steady 15 knots out of the south. Once it decided to blow we just headed off to Awajishima and beat upwind as fats as we could before turning her head around and popping the spinnaker all the way home. Felt a bit like and Ocean racer for a few moments.
Next week, Sunday January 17th, we will line up wit the rest of the Kansai Yacht Club Whitesail fleet for the first PHRF race of the year. Our boat is ready and the crew practiced. Who knows if we get some wind we may see the speedo hit a regular 6.5 knots upwind and maybe an occasional 12 knots down the hill and don’t get me wrong this will excite me as it always does. However what would it feel like to be on Pleomax breaking the speed record for crossing the North Sea in a beaufort 8-8? Check out the videos. The first Video is a news-report and has some nice helicopter shots. But it’s the next Video that impresses me. The video is shot from a sailing boat running at about 8 knots. Pleomax goes past it as if it is parked.
1. Pleomax Sailing news report. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eljLQr-WgY&feature=related
2. Pleomax leaves these gusy looking on in disbelief. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eljLQr-WgY