A new kite!

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In the final act of making sure we were getting 100% of the performance potential from BlueJ, it was time to get a bespoke mid-weight runner made. Prior to this, all of our kites have been hand-me-downs, bought online for around $300. While often without patches or tears, they were usually 20+ years old and soft. I wanted a deep running kite that would hold air. So I reached out to my sail-maker, Somerset Sails.

After a short discussion, we agreed on an 0.75oz AirX tri-radial runner, in solid blue. Was going to look like this:


While it was being made, we did our training and tune-up races with our old kites. Then one day in our crew FB page, our sailmaker posted this picture, saying it would ship that same day!


The UPS page said it would arrive with any luck on Thursday afternoon, right before our race. I tracked it all the way in, and on thursday at noon I happily surprised the crew with this picture:



The breeze was forecast in the 8-12 knot range, perfect for breaking in a new spinnaker, or any sail for that matter. You really don't want too much pressure on a new sail before the glue sets into the seams. On the way out, my friend Dan caught this image of us practicing on the way to the course.



How it it do? Superbly! We won the race wire to wire, both corrected and also line honors. This in front of three quite faster boats. In particular, we were able to keep a J/27 at bay during an entire downwind leg. Here is a short video as we gybe to the leeward mark in front of the J boat.














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