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Now enables you to control the lower mast bend by use of forestay and shrouds.

All new Rooster Streakers come with their mast step already placed in what we consider to be the correct position to ensure a balanced feel that encourages you to sail the boat upright rather than leaning away from you.   We have improved the mast deck block on our Streakers now so that the mast is held tightly at deck level which allows us to now adjust the mast bend characteristics by means of the fore-stay and shroud tensions.

The sail maker has the problem that there is no spreaders to deflect or control the mast, so mast bend is up to you:

I was discussing some settings recently with some friends and they were interested to find out our exact settings in the Scorpion.  This information is free to all, but as I knew one of them was a good skier  I asked: “would you use the same binding tension on your skis as a man 5 stone heavier than you?”  The answer was NO – -as these might break her leg when She tumbled.  In the same way I explained that masts behave differently when you are hanging out over the side  of the boat when comparing your set up with a crew 3 stone heavier.  At the same time if hiking out is a challenge – then you will need a more forgiving set up to allow your mast to bend as it you were taking more power.   So with an un-stayed rig, numbers can be useless but the following tips are invaluable: Read the rest of this post »

With high pressure to the south west of the UK, & after the gales of the previous week, a light 4-5 knot breeze from the West South West direction greeted the 65 competitors for the first day of the Chichester YC Snowflake winter series supported by Rooster Sailing Ltd and Hawk Marine Products.

An early start of 10.00hrs and a high water just before 11.00hrs the racer officer for the day Martin Orton laid a figure of eight course with the usual committee boat start from the middle of Chichester Lake.

The fast fleet of 18 boats got away cleanly from the slightly port biased line, with the Jason Kirk for Chichester YC in his RS400 leading the fleet to the windward mark, closely followed by the two Finns of John Tremlett from Itchenor SC and Mark Harper for the home club.

Steve and Sarah Cockerill in their Scorpion from Hill Head SC, however made good steady progress in the constant 5 knot breeze and with just over an hour of racing, they and had moved up to second place on the water. On corrected time the RS400 had held onto first place, with the Scorpion second, followed by the two Finns.

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2 days of fantastic winter sailing less than a week apart. Obviously I would have liked more breeze (and possibly fewer moths turning up at the Bloody Mary), but you can’t have everything! Sunshine and a reasonable wind made 2 of my favourite handicap races even better. Read the rest of this post »

Happy New Year to everyone. We had a very windy few days here with winds in Edinburgh over 100mph and the wind indicator on the Forth Bridge going off the scale. My boat is still at the sailing club at Dalgety (the garage is too full of other toys at the moment) and although it got blown over it’s fine. Unlike our house roof and car, which collected the roof on it’s bonnet. Glad it wasn’t my boat, or me in the drive at the time. Read the rest of this post »

At the beginning of December I competed in the Radial World Championships in Perth, Australia. The event was held from Fremantle which is famous for its strong afternoon seabreeze, the Fremantle Doctor. However as is normal at most major championships, the locals were heard to say “the weather is never usually like this”! Day one of racing brought light to moderate winds, not the famous Doctor at all! Personally I was pretty pleased that the seabreeze had not kicked in and managed to score two reasonable results a 19th and a 10th.  Read the rest of this post »

How hard can it be to read the course before you set off?! Richard and I went out for our last sail in the Fireball before Christmas in proper ‘winter’ conditions with Chimet showed gusts of up to 32 knots while we were out. We managed to get into the lead only to realise we didn’t really know where we were going (the same thing had happened at least twice earlier in the series, but did we learn?!). we eventually found the right mark and pulled out a bit of a lead. Unfortunately we hadn’t worked out how many laps, and did one too many. So instead of winning the race and with it the Haying winter series, we did an extra lap, came last and froze ourselves on the extra lap. On the positive side, Steve’s suggestion of wearing my Rooster Dry Top (now superseded by the semi-Dry top) over the top of my aqua fleece worked a treat. Now I have to work on something to stop the ice cream head all trapeze boat helms have to deal with on 2-sail reaches…

Hi I’m Simon Page, I am a light 13 year old from Swanage Sailing Club and this is my first blog since I recently joined Team Rooster. I will be keeping you up to date on my results and training with the 4.2 National Squad over the next year. I ended my first year on the Topper 4.2 National circuit well with fourth at Poole where I had a great first day ending up in third place with a win and only four points off the leader after 6 races. On the second day all of the wind from Saturday had gone, I couldn’t repeat my performance from the first day due to the horribly light winds and was beaten by Ollie Dixon to third place. Then a few weekends on from that was the first of four 4.2 Squad training weekends in a muddy Carsington. On the first day we set off in light winds and did a mark rounding exercise, Dave’s coaching really helped me on my sailing when all the wind decides not to arrive. After lunch we set off with a nice breeze out there, where we did a series of small races including a fun standing-up race which was swiftly abandoned half way up the beat because the wind suddenly died. On the second day we never left the shore due to a blanket of fog  and no wind. The day was built up of highly educating theory and fun and interesting games. Thanks to Dave, Tracy and Andy for a great weekend which I am sure was enjoyed by all.

During the month of may I was at a Topper event where the wind was nowhere to be seen requiring me to use my lighter main-sheet but just in case the wind grew I gave my thicker Rooster Polilite main-sheet to my Dad in the rescue boat thinking it would be safe. At the end of the weekend we left unaware of the main-sheet still being in the rescue boat. With the vouchers I had won earlier in the season burning a hole in my pockets I decided to buy a new main-sheet and I splashed out on a Excel Fusion, a truly posh piece of kit. When it arrived it was everything I had excepted, it was soft, light and easy to handle and it came in a rather stunning red colour. However it soon became apparent that it was deteriorating quickly but worse of all during pre-start in very windy weather the rope was so light it managed to lasso itself to the boom end fitting making the race impossible to start. Now six months later after only using it for events it is stiff and a mottled pink. I would not say it was a bad rope but I do not think it is necessary for a Topper whereas in a high performance boat it may give you the edge. I have now bought a new Rooster Polilite main-sheet to replace the Excel fusion and saved myself £3 per meter and I know it will last me at least a season so I guess I am back to square 1 but just a bit poorer!

This is my first post on the Rooster Blog. My background in sailing is symmetric dinghies, having won the Miracle Nationals a few times and had a reasonably successful Fireball and Flying 15 campaign in the past. Read the rest of this post »

It is always disappointing when your season comes to an end knowing that you probably won’t fleet race for another four months, for one last hurrah I teamed up with Arran Holman and borrowed a boat from Hollowell sailing club for the Rs Feva End of Seasons, we had no intention of turning up as pot hunters we just wanted to race. The Rs Feva being the number one junior two man boat in the UK we were guaranteed a good turn out. Read the rest of this post »