Barda came with a suit of really tired Sobstadt sails that served us well for a season and a half. However it was getting very hard to ignore not only the poor shape shape aloft but also the holes. Every time we went out something else split and it never ceases to amaze all aboard that the main actually held together through some fairly serious channel squalls.

When Jayne Clout, our trusty sail repair genius left for sunnier climes and we started hoisting more duct tape than sail cloth I had no choice but to get off the fence and make some sail wardrobe and loft choices.

After talking to Revolution, North and also Dolphin I finally settled on a quote from Ed Hill of the south coast Quantum loft. Ed was hugely enthusiastic from first contact and came up with the right cloth balance between performance, promised longevity and cost (oh and Quantum were able to supply a bright orange storm jib to us in time for our first Royal Escape Race).
After Ed Hill sloped off for some trans-atlantic 'cruise' (click here for details>>), Barda’s order was passed to Peter Kay, the loft proprietor, who over the years has designed sails for three British Americas Cup challengers, numerous IOR, IMS, and IRC champions, and several one design European and World championship winners. He also spent 14 years with North Sails UK as chief designer and has won many titles in dinghies and keelboats, at National, European, and World Championship level.

So hopefully Barda’s new sails will be the mutts nuts.

We took delivery too late in the season to do much around the cans and the sails went up for the first time across the channel in a race to Dieppe. They look great and took us there and back in some style, followed a few weeks later with the Pactolus Race to Fécamp. The new bright green Code Zero was especially effective and caused much consternation amongst the fleet when we hoisted it and tore off for the horizon.

Both return trips found us being absolutely pasted by the weather and I was really pleased that we’d specified a proper deep 2nd reef. However to get these sails running right we need time on the water which we simply didn’t get before Barda had to come out for her winter refit.

Once we are launched we’ll start some intensive tuning and I have great hopes that we’ll finally be able to change gears with the breeze. For the record Quantum built us a new main long with numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. For off the wind there’s a new lightweight running kite and for that narrow slot between white sail reaching and our existing medium and heavy weight reaching kites there’s the bright green code zero.

We shall see...

Quantum Sail Design Group Web: http://www.quantumsailsgbr.com