penfold
Well-known member
Sounds like you benefited from too much stability there; wiping out in 50kts with the spinny sheets cleated wouldn't have been fun.
On a Harwich to Ostend race, we started with 15 knots of true wind speed from the NW and the course was exactly SE. We started with full main and spinnaker and by half was across we had passed the largest boat in the fleet, a Nich 43 that had started 15 mintes ahead of us. By this time the log was stuck on 10 knots and the the wind speed indicator was stuck on 48 knots. We were estimated to to be planing at 14 to 16 knots, but we had the kite cleated and had 3 out of the crew of 5 on the helm. The skeg was removed over the following winter.