Pre-nationals float

I got out yesterday for about 4 hours:

Launched at about 1200 off of ASC; it was an offshore breeze with about 10 knots on shore and 5-15 on the water. I have kept the kick up rudder but substituted the bolt for a S/S pin as the hinge and have also made a better lock down system which worked fine – useful since I’ve nearly had IC’s get away from me while mucking around with rudders on the downwind leg. I ran out of the bay and got myself sorted out in the boat then beat back into shore, my impressions were:

• I was sitting too far aft, so I moved the carriage to just over the aft edge of the c/b
• I had forgotten my gloves
• My mainsheet didn’t seemed to run freely on starboard tack, and the plank didn’t slide all the way on this tack either.
• The Main seems very full in the head

I chucked in a few tacks then decided to come in and address some issues and get my gloves. I went over my mainsheet and found I’d fastened the pulley on backwards (meaning it had to twist a long way to get to stbd tack), I also fed all my control lines to a piece of elastic on my seat (so I could pull them all to me while on the end of the plank). I laid the boat over and tightened the top two battens as there were some creases running up-down over those areas.
After doing this and getting my gloves on I launched again but the wind had dropped off to under 5 knots, the boat sailed along nicely but I was having major issues getting the battens to pop across (needed a massive amount of Cunningham and a bit of vang to do it). All the control lines to the seat looked messy but actually worked quite well (we’ll see if it does when racing); I also let off the leeward stay downwind for the first time since completing Flatpack and the boat seemed to respond positively.
Unfortunately with no other boats on the water I still have no real idea of how fast the boat is, but she is slipping through the water nicely and feels good. I am concerned about how full the main looks, and may run it up the mast tonight to see what other adjustments can be made- worst case scenario is that I will have the old AUS018 main if it looks like being a super windy series. I think I have goofed with the plank/carriage, with one end being wider than the other – I will sand again tonight, but I think I need to have a good look at this (unfortunately after the Nationals) to see what I might have done wrong and how I fix it. So, tonight is a quick rig and check, then a wash and pack up of the trailer ready for Pete to drive over Wednesday.