105 rocket, 6.6m koncept, 35 pepweed.  Nice early start with Evets Mal and Mike, all going for a bit of distance, but Dunderklumpen here didn't charge his gps so it switched itself off at 43nm. Bugger. Sailed for another hour unbeknownst. Still had a ball over behind Coodanup doing some long runs until the wind got a bit patchy.

Nothing wrong with the gps just the owner

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Distance machines were still out when I left, wind dying tho

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forecast looked good for Alphas and NM, these were my main objective, didn't take the big board with me.

As usual wind didn't live up to forecast, so had a go at backing up evets.

Started off OK, on the thommen and 6.0, but as wind dropped off, spent a lot of time dogging.

One of these days I'll get a distance attempt right.

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Hardies Run, WA, AU

arrived at 545 as forecast showed light winds at 5 becoming 19kts gusting to 22 kts all day

F2SXL 7.8RS and choco 40 wedy for  a few kms,

wind picked up and changed to Iso 105 RSS7.8 and JP36 weedy until 8am  , felt great but wind was increasing and as distance (300) was the aim I came in to change for more comfort. discussed the day with Alby as I rigged Iso 86S, RSREvoII 7.0 and jp31 weedy.

Had a dolphin come and swim beside and under me for a while... gold

Used this up to 1030 and 100kms. Had worked up wind to go for an hour only to find wind dropping. Pity because this combo was beautiful to sail. Had been overcast the whole time with a little rain.Pepe on the water with Mal but did not see them as I was past the scientific platform.

Decrep on water from 1030 ish, I put 34 Talon on Iso 86 and sailed for an hour, fin too small for this sail so found it hard to point and suffered terminal spinout on a couple of occasions. changed back to Iso 105 RSS7.8 jp36 at 1130

wind died around 1230 so off the water for lunch. started again around 145 with Iso 105 and RSS7.8 9 which I had derigged at 8 as forecast was for wind all day.

looked dodgy even for a pb at 4 pm as wind was not co-operating, at 6 pm wind died altogether and could not waterstart for 10 minutes. Surely I would not be only a few miles from a pb and have to stop. Wind came in in patches and i kept going. I had decided to keep sailing while there was light as I have previously missed out on 200 kms just because it was an hour from dusk. The wind kept picking up from 7 pm and was overpowered towards the end but kept at it. Was really happy to pass 150 Nm pb and keep going to 162 Nm (300kms) wanted to get more as I knew thre were a couple who had stopped just past 300, shortened my runs in case wind dropped or I injured myself so at least I could walk back, sun went below the horizon ut still light on the water so kept going even though runs of only 60 metres. I finally came in confident I had passed 300kms, could have sailed another hour or more if there was light, the time was about 7.45 pm.

Congratulated on the beach by Decrepit (thanks for hanging around Mike) and then packed up, used torch for this as it was dark , wind got stronger and stronger for the only time in the day, twice I had trouble controlling sails as I derigged. The strong wind did not know it was due at 1400.

Really happy to get the 300 at last after several attempts being thwarted by cramp or lack of wind. Drinking very often from my camelback is what I think prevented cramp, just lucky at last with the wind

Had messed up loads of gybes before I realised I did not need alphas, I was trying to turn as tight as possible on 105 and kept falling off, as soon as I widened the arc I increased my success rate. 1 big crash trying to adjust my adj harness lines, boom kept slipping down so harness line often wrong. Think I have a problem with my cleat alowing the rope to slip.

Today I have sore finger tips and back other than that no problems, had the wind behaved as per forecast a day on the 86 and 7.0 would have been tremendous fun, that can come another day.

going through my mind was a tune from a post by Snides from a while ago...... love this theme for those commited enough to distance sailing (and thanks to my wife for looking after our 3 children for an entire day while I do what I love)