Day 4 Canadian Nationals

Great soaring weather today but a flooded airport forces another scrub of the day. ย ๐Ÿ˜ข Huge thanks to the SOSA club for hosting this contest. ย They are doing everything they possibly can but a glider contest on a wet field will completely destroy it, and thatโ€™s simply not worth the cost. ย So we have Friday as a backup day, 5 remaining possible flying days, and must get 4 competition days in to have a valid contest. ย Obviously I am a guest so no biggie, but itโ€™s still hugely valuable for me to fly with the excellent Canadian team pilots leading up to the US 18m Nationals in Uvulde, TX in a couple weeksโ€ฆ

Canadian Nationals Contest Day Three โ˜”๏ธ๐ŸŒง๏ธโ›ˆ๏ธ๐Ÿ’งโ˜”๏ธ๐ŸŒŠ

Itโ€™s still raining and the SOSA field is wet. ย As you can see from the radar a huge amount of rain has fallen last night and this morning with obvious effects on the soaring conditions moving forward. ย Also an issue if the grass airport doesnโ€™t dry out before tomorrows gridding process. ย They may have to call a potential great weather day if the field is so wet cars and gliders will damage the field. Enjoyed yesterdays short flight. ย Learned my K2 batteries (vintage 2017 and 2019 have expired) do not deliver reliable stable power anymore as my voltage quickly fell from 13.2 to 11 in an hour. ย Fortunately Dave S of F1 Corp had new K2 batteries here on site! ย All set for Uvalde in August. Sean 7T  

Day 2 Canadian Nationals

We launched today (both classes) at 2pm! ย But it was weak (barely soarable at first) and the days weather window was extremely tight with a forecasted collapse of soarable weather by 5pm and a minimum required task distance of 140km (to get a valid day per the Canadian rules). ย Dave Springford completed the task, but Joerg Stieber had to start his sustainer motor. ย So it was just barely achievable. ย I flew 50km out to the first turn and headed home to fight another day despite both classes tasks being cancelled. ย A good trial run but no need to risk a land out. Tomorrow questionable, then GREAT post cold front soaring weather all next week! ย Fingers crossed. Sean  

2023 Canadian 18m Soaring Nationals Day 1

Day 1 - Cancelled on the grid. ย FLAT TIRE DRILLS   โ€ฆA bit of fire smoke, a bit of 30kph SW wind (which here just W of Hamilton and just N of Lake Erie which will eventually wash out the SOSA area of thermals so the launch window is time limited), and an approaching strong line of frontal storms described as a โ€œsquall lineโ€ by weather services, resulted in a fairly early call of the day by our expert past champion CD (Contest Director) Ed Hollestelle. ย The sniffer (single pilot launched before the full launch is opened to check the soaring conditions) was seeing 30kph at 2000 AGL and was struggling to find 2 knot climbs and not be blown into the Kitchener class C airspace which guards the NW (and Toronto the NE).   To make matters worse, we had flatted our trusty main tire ๐Ÿ›ž (original I believe) as we pushed the glider its final few inches into our grid position creating a high pressure race against time for an expected noon launch time (around 11:15am). ย We had to move the glider in front of us on the grid forward, and get our trailer positioned in order to use our trailers cradle-jack to lift the main wheel off the ground and begin the replacement process. ย The German engineers who designed the ASG29 wheel and brake system received several course words from team 7T as we learned under pressure how to disassemble the main wheel/brake assembly. ย Huge thanks to Jerzy S (XG) for lending us his spare complete main wheel assembly and saving us from having to change our tire and tube. ย We would not have made the launch without that kind gesture. We got very wet in our โ€œwing water puddleโ€ which we were forced to dump in order to get the glider up on the trailer. ย Some muscle from the other pilots helped this process. ย Most of the process was easy, but getting the brake assembly and axle lined up and back onto the wheel fork is extremely tedious. ย Itโ€™s a rubics cube of positioning 5 parts in sequence and is NOT in the manual. ย Fing Germans. ย ๐Ÿ˜‚ After the task cancel meeting we got to do it all over again. ย We had to change the tire and tube on our hub so we could return the spare the XG. ย That process was far easier with the experience of the grid change. ย Huge thanks to TF for the help on all of this!   Todays weather looks like another cancel, and itโ€™s already wet, and the misquotes are vast. ย Hopefully it will dry out now. ย More as soon as I have something to report. Follow the contest โ€œofficiallyโ€ here on SOARING SPOT - https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/canadian-nationals-2023-rockton-2023/ (Great to see the Canadians (thanks Dave!) adopting the global standard for contest scoring and reporting rather than creating an obscure, unusable, and unfindable outdated website for scoring and reporting like the Soaring Society or America defiantly doesโ€ฆ ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ)

2023 DF95 Globals Results

Finding these results is EXTREMELY difficult considering the importance of this event in RC Sailing. This post is mainly a bookmark for me on this blog. It is amazing how people are allowing corrupt, censorship and propaganda ridden social media sites to be the repository of their information. Those of us with a brain have been moving away from social media for years for these reasons, and innumerable others... Craig Richards, 2023 Globals Champ. Darn good sailor, great teacher, Bravo Craig! https://www.sail-world.com/news/262191/DF95-Global-Championship-overall Overall Results: PosNatSail NoHelmPts1GBR5Craig Richards462GBR51John Tushingham653USA142Peter Feldman1024AUS719Chris Dance1145SWE121Michael Collberg1296USA111Sean Fidler148.37USA155Mark Golison1528SWE301Thomas Enwall1659GBR87Shaun Priestley21510SWE1Magnus Bood22611GBR33Mark Dicks22912NOR190Odd Ornulf Stray24213GBR20David Potter24414FRA49Gerald Rogivue26815NED180Tjakko Keizer27016SWE93Rolf Andersson28517RSA85Roy Gardener31118GBR12Buzz Coleman319.819SWE15Peter Freden34020USA11Brig North35021AUS272Richard Fisher35322GBR84John Brierley36423GBR83Ken Binks418.624GBR214John Taylor43425ITA130Paolo Cappa46026GBR840David Fowler46827GBR330Dave Burke49328SWE58Ulf Lindberg51229NZL23David Lindsay52330RSA6Bruce Schnell52331USA101Chuck LeMahieu52532SUI43Gregoire Pilly531.333GBR358David Adams55034AUS36John Wyatt572.735GBR46Mick Chamberlain606.936AUS801Phil Burgess60937USA720Reichard Kahle61438IRL52Martin Gray61439FRA82Erwan Le Bot617.340USA466Gary Winton648

DF95 Globals Summary (After two long days)

-in short a fairly complete shitshow of many, many fouls and 3-5 general recalls every start, and a 10-15 minute delay after almost every A and B fleet race to sort out the inevitable 2-3 formal, unresolved protests. The organizers and RC are doing a fantastic job of managing the protests and running the races, itโ€™s the sheer volume of contact, fouls, and protests that is causing me to reconsider here. These boats can take a huge amount of punishment. And with that I think the fleet takes far to many โ€œlibertiesโ€ฆโ€ To put it more succinctly, this is a joke. DAY ONE, GREAT UNTIL IT WASNโ€™T: Day one went well until a SWE sailor (121) chose to come into the weather mark in A fleet on port, in strong A rig breeze, in a suicidal effort to cross a solid line (virtually bow to stern) of 6-7 starboard tack boats (including me). It was like a Kamikazee attacking a ship really. He had absolutely no chance and rather than tacking early he dove down straight into my boat at the last second in a impossible effort to duck and hit his victim (me) nearly bow to bow creating a massive head to head collision with our keel fins. Another boat was also effected. We then, of course, locked together and drifted into the shore, with him sawing the sail winch constantly for 3-4 minutes trying to get the boats to break apart. My boats rudder, keel fin, keel bulb, and hull were all damaged as the boats banged into the sea wall for several minutes (mine of course along the wall) on the other side of the pond before being rescued by a powerboat. He then chose not to withdraw and tried to get out of the protest (went to the hearing, tried to get away with it) creating another 10-15 minute post race delay. I WASNโ€™T ALONE: He was also involved with another protest which he lost before my protest was heard, which he also lost. Apparently that happened before my incident. This guy is a special one. I was in 7th place at that time of the foul, on a clean, conservative starboard layline. I was in a very good overall position at that point, but the redress โ€œawardโ€ ๐Ÿ† did not save me from being driven down to the dredded โ€œB fleetโ€ which is even worse that โ€œA fleetโ€ in terms of fouls. DAY 2: That brings us to Day 2. Fortunately I was allowed to replace my keel fin (at my expense). My rudder was loose and I had to work to fix it in the morning. Somehow my boat seems to leak now, not sure why. Keel trunk seems loser. The breeze was up today and the wind slightly diagonal across the long rectangular (30 degrees right of straight down) pond creating a bit of a one sided racecourse were the best wind is on the left edge and starboard tack is the long tack, 70/30, minimum. The starting line extends across most of the width pond but the windward or boat end is considerably closer to the windward shore and sits in a slight hole essentially. This improved slightly during the day as the wind backed left slightly, but you get the idea. This creates a lot of congestion. Iโ€™ll talk more about the port end starts and the room to tack circus ๐ŸŽช clownshow off the lee sea wall which occurs every race tomorrow. FORESTAY BOWSIE SLIP: In the first race of the day (B fleet) my forestay bowsie slips slowly during the race and I end up having no forestay tension (and therefore height). I was in 6th(ish) around the weather mark and had an fairly good shot at advancing to A. Up the second upwind it began to losen and worsened more throughout the race. I fell back slightly and missed the top 6. By the end of the race itโ€™s hard to go upwind or tack. I wasnโ€™t really sure what was happening. As soon as I took the boat out of the water and measured after the race I could see the mark had moved ยผ inch +. Brand new rig with 120 lb line. What a PITA. BACKSTAY BREAKS: For the next B race I round the weather mark in 6th (again and easy position to advance) and after being hit by a port tack boat (who actually did their turns) fairly hard in backstay (spinning me down and forcing me to almost miss making the weather mark) while on starboard tack going into the weather mark. The wind was increasing now and was fairly close to C rig conditions. Shortly after turning downwind and with the boat just a few meters in front of me a strong gust hit and the bow went down, the boat stopped, and the backstay broke. I actually heard the โ€œping!โ€ The knot didnโ€™t come undone, the line itself broke at the crane. I wonder if the port tack boat that had just hit my backstay in full force in top B rig conditions had anything to do with it? Lots of sideload. So, the backstay dragged along in the water behind the boat. Downwind I went with the sails trimmed in slightly to provide some rig support. I lost many places. At the leeward mark I sailed to the shore and retied the backstay which took 20 seconds and that was enough to basically be last. After relaunching I did not have enough backstay, and had to again sail to the shore and add backstay. Ultimately, I was last in B fleet and sent to C fleet. What a costly foul that was on day one. Now my redress score was basically useless. Any chances of a good score at the regatta were gone. FOULS Oโ€™ PLENTY: The amount of fouls here, and recalls, has been eye opening. And the damage a foul can do to a competitor at the right time can be significant. Obviously, I am not really enjoying this event. Letโ€™s be honest. I feel it is a shitshow. I think RC sailing has a real problem with the sheer volume of fouls committed at this level. More importantly, the sport has a problem with quantifying the net effect of the foul. It often seems the advantage is with the guy who commits the foul. He she gets the potential benifit of โ€œbanging it in thereโ€ and if it all goes tits up often can do a quick circle and be right behind (or ahead) of their victim who was playing it safe. For example, hitting a starboard tacker, knocking him into irons near the weather mark, he now cannot lay, loses 10-15 boats in the total process, doing a circle and (immediately or eventually) passing him. Iโ€™ve seen this scenario occur several times here (and Iโ€™m hardly watching any races) and nobody is calling the boat which commited the foul to relinquish an advantage over the victim boat. Itโ€™s exhausting just watching this happen and itโ€™s really not very fun to partake inโ€ฆthere are dozens of other similar scenarios taking place. Perhaps 24 boats on the line is a bit too much. Iโ€™ll make the best of the rest of the sailing, assuming it doesnโ€™t get any worse. But this is really not the most enjoyable racing. Itโ€™s more like trench warfare. And I think everyone knows it.

e-Medina 2m F3Res Maiden Flight

V and T joined me for the โ€œmaidenโ€ flight today. The e-Medina (ARTF) was very easy to build, easy programming, excellent flying qualities. Needed literally zero trim. Slight to moderate down pitch with spoiler deployment. Needs a little elevator mix to use in competition.

2023 Soling 1m NCR

This was my first time sailing the RC Soling. Fun boat. A little quirky, but good fun. Huge thanks to Mike and Peter Feldman for offering to loan me their spare boat and to Mike for fixing it up for the event. It was perfect. http://www.suncoastmodelsailingclub.net/Regattas.html Iโ€™m #129.

Flying V Ultra Efficient Passenger Aircraft

https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/flying-v Flying-V Flying long distances energy-efficiently The Flying-V In the Flying-V โ€“ originally an idea of Justus Benadduring his thesis project at Airbus Hamburg โ€“ the passenger cabin, cargo hold and fuel tanks are integrated in its wing structure. The design is not as long as an Airbus A350, but it has the same wing span. This allows the Flying-V to use the present infrastructure at airports, such as gates and runways. The Flying-V carries about the same number of passengers -  314 in the standard configuration โ€“ and the same amount of cargo, 160 m3. Project leader at TU Delft, Dr. Roelof Vos: โ€œThe Flying-V is smaller than the A350 and has less inflow surface area compared to the available amount of volume. The result is less resistance. That means the Flying-V needs less fuel for the same distance.โ€ The Flying-V is a design for a highly energy-efficient long-distance aeroplane. The aircraftโ€™s design integrates the passenger cabin, the cargo hold and the fuel tanks in the wings, creating a spectacular v-shape. Its improved aerodynamic shape and reduced weight will mean it uses 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350, todayโ€™s most advanced aircraft. 

2022 IOM Worlds Update #2

Regatta Starts in one hour. Here we go! I have about 5 hours of practice racing under my belt. I feel fast! Lots of tuning help. I love the K2! Very comprehensive and ultra high quality. Faster in light air than has been given credit forโ€ฆ Wind forecast today is very light this am for the all important qualifier/seeding races. 15 boats per heat, first three go to A, last three E. 5 heats. Lots of points at stake. Will be a bit of a crapshoot undoubtedly. See wind forecast below. Yesterday Zonko (current world champ and K2 CTO) and Josip (K2 CEO) started a whats app thread sharing K2 tuning tips. See photo. This was very helpful. The K2 has a very different tuning concept where the forestay pivot height is changed both vertically and horizontally (also jib hounds position) rather than backstay and it is very effective. New concept though. i have spend an hour or so with Zhonko and he is very bright! Wish me luck! Photo of racing area at 7:30 am. Glass! Windy forecast. EO Zonkooutstanding K2 sailor message board sharing tuning tips led by K2 C

2022 IOM Worlds Update #1

New boat. Boats practicing in harbor and Worlds sailing area. View from house! Made it to Split, uneventful travel. Croatia is beautiful. It is now off peak season here and the towns are quite and peaceful

Updating SVEA J 111

Lots of items to fix and repair on this boat since its delivery. 1) no lower lowers installed.2) mainsheet broke with field repair and lost its adjustability.3) no counterweight in jib boom. 4) no gravity protection for sheets over sail winch. 5) extend mast base rail6) extend many servo wires

Follow me the US Team and me at the upcoming 2022 IOM World Championship

October 26 - November 4, 2022 REGATTA INFORMATION Dear sailors, welcome to the pages of 2022 IOM World championship. Please follow our page regularly for information about the Championship, Application procedures, Rogoznica, weather, accomodation and tourist information about ล ibenik-Knin county. http://2022iomworlds.com/

2022 US Sailing Champion of Champions Regatta

https://www.ussailing.org/competition/championships/2022-championship-of-champions/ Thoughts on US Sailing Champion of Champions regatta. 1) amazing format, really cool how we used almost all of the 20 boats in a round robin format. 2) great competition. Many sailors trainer in MC scows for wee pre event. 3) My performance. It was too windy. I was third after day 1 but as the wind increased to over 20 knots over the final two days my 200 lbs was not competitive against 320 on the 17 of 20 boats with two crew!

Going for 100 Miles!

Back in my Ironman days a 200 mile week was common. That was 15 years ago. Since then the milage has slowly drooped off to almost zero although i must admit i forget to use Strava often. But this week I am finally starting to get back into it and measuring my mileage. This week was mostly mountain biking miles on a reasonably hard local trail so many would argue these miles are worth double! The only road ride last week was towing Vaughn around hilly Kensington in his trailer (also hard). So I am feeling proud this morning. Strava Summary

Study finds Michigan drivers BY FAR the best in USA

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2022/06/30/why-this-study-claims-michigan-has-the-best-drivers-in-the-us/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wdiv&fbclid=IwAR3uPW98f2tTvRiS3MYPFaoLqIchfdzIBlybSIIa6FUbEEPo2JiKBMnlN7U&fs=e&s=cl

V11 IOM ready to rumble!

Heading to Newport RI for IOM regionals. All new winch, sheets, and spent an hour + tuning my rig to the mm. hope it helps. Nice to do this in my basement. At least it looks fast! thx Steve Landaue for the online help desk (a good hour or two of his time!).

2022 Region 4 DF95 Championship Regatta

Michigan RC Sailing Club is hosting the first-ever Region 4 DF95 Championship in Dundee, Michigan on June 17-19, 2022. The 11 competitors currently registered are some of the best RC sailors from around the USA and Canada. By regatta time we are expecting 20-30 total competitors.For general regatta info CLICK HERENotice of Race (NOR) CLICK HERETo see โ€œWho's Registeredโ€ CLICK HERETo register CLICK HERE We look forward to seeing many of you at the event! if you have any questions email Sean (event organizer) here. Here is a video of our sailing area (Cabela's Lake). https://youtu.be/hxyuqpyfK4o

IOM โ€œGator ๐ŸŠ Roundupโ€ Regatta Sarasota FL Jan 22-23

I had a bunch of fun and knocked some RC sailing rust off my brain. This was a hyper-competitive event. I used a borrowed boat (V9) which was great! The amount of fouls and โ€œincidental contactโ€ on the starting line was extreme and I did not fare well in that area. I had less than perfect boat control at this range and this was an area Iโ€™ll need to work on. That being said, itโ€™s an awesome group, great class of boat, filled with many excellent sailors, and was tons of fun! Iโ€™ll be headed to San Diego in a few weeks for the next IOM event. 2022-IOM-Gator-Round-UpDownloading

Sailplane Stall on Flare: Donโ€™t do this!

In a sailplane, which lands very slow already, there is ZERO REASON, to be dangling on the tail close to stall speed at anytime on final approach, at flare, or at touchdown. The video below demonstrates why. Notice the huge amount of runway still remaining. He was probably tempted to stop before the ground crew, but nearly broke the sailplane, and himself. In fact he may actually have broken the glider, or himselfโ€ฆ https://youtu.be/Em551DIpSv0

Kawa reviews AS33

Kawa impressions of AS33. Not the best choice for Grand Prix unfortunately because the smaller wing area, ala the JS3, ala most modern 18m sailplanes. Shocker. I STRONGLY maintain that it is utterly unfair, illogical that in the a โ€œ600 kg limited 18 meter class,โ€ the SGP managers choose to use โ€œwing loadingโ€ to โ€œequalizeโ€ 18 meter class sailplanes. This makes absolutely zero sense. This is non proportional and nonsensical. It obviously favors the larger wing area gliders (Hi Ventus 3 cultโ€ฆI see your shit eating grins) in the full flight range. Kawa says the 33 climbs โ€œvery wellโ€ but is โ€œunstableโ€ in all axis in turbulence. Says it requires some effort to coordinate. Well, so does any glider (ASG29, Lak17a, etc) I have ever flown (other than the Arcus, which is a bit of a truck) and if a sailplane doesnโ€™t require some effort to balance in gusts then itโ€™s probably slow in the run. Sounds like itโ€™s a good climber. For me, thatโ€™s the key but in this case it should be stronger than the 29 in the glide. Still no objective results from the 33 PROVING itโ€™s performance. Only subjective accounts. https://youtu.be/JZIbqcmvvrQ

Racing cancelled, SUP instead!

Lake Lanier sailing club is a mega complex with more cool boats and classes than you can shake a stick at. Gorgeous campsites and area. It was a perfect day for a paddle. Unfortunately the weather forecast for the next two days looks the same as today (which was cancelled and produced no racing). https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/7625129229

MC Scow Masters Nationals 2021 Report #1 Friday AM

Friday 1130am.Lake Lanier Sailing Club front porchAbsolutely beautiful day but as forecast, light air. The MC Class requires 5 knots to start a race. Itโ€™s going to be difficult to get that here on Lake Lanier today. Glass An older crowd but quite formidable, especially in the fairly forgiving MC Scow

Awesome InReach to OGN integration

I've created and am running a script that gathers Inreach data (Spot soon) and uploads it to the OGN to be visible on any website that gets OGN data. https://github.com/DavisChappins/InreachToOGN if you want to sign up and be visible. In fact, please sign up to help me test the google forms.โ€ https://github.com/DavisChappins/InreachToOGN

Day 1, US 18m Nationals Nephi, Utah

105 mph and I was still 5th! It was a good day, a reasonable task call for the SSA GOBs, albeit very short as usual. Strong crosswinds on landing created some minor excitement. I could have gone much faster but got stuck trying to max out the second turn area. No big deal. Overall a really fun day in which I was very conservative and relaxed, as planned. Tomorrow looks iffy due to an even higher chance of thunderstorms. Results: https://members.ssa.org/ContestResults.asp?contestId=2486&ContestDetailId=24069&ContestName=2021+18%2DMeter+Nationals+at+Nephi&ContestDate=6/29/2021&ResultsUpdate=True SSA website seems to require SSA membership to view the results webpages. What a mess. Promoting soaring to only those willing to pay for membership? I just don't care anymore. Grid, 35 or so 18m gliders plus 30 or so competing in regionals.