Well, not quite yet, but closer with each boat on the line! We had four yesterday: Nat, Richard and Paul from San Francisco. It was fun. Wind increased gradually from not foilable during the first two races to quite foilable for the last two.
The tilt-a-foil was fairly painful in ultra-marginal foiling, and only slightly painful the remainder of the time. It went pretty well uphill and offwind was decent when the too-short original rudder didn't ventilate. Gybes remain tricky with my short tiller/extension but are coming along; remarkable how easy they were with the old foil but old dogs, new tricks, etc.
Rather disappointed to not give Richard more of a run for his money, but well done on his part after not much time in the boat. PS - Richard I have your coffee mug! Nat had a moment of glory being first to the windward mark at one point, only to have his vang implode again on the downwind. Otherwise the CCZ had remarkably few issues for a homebuild. Paul's Mach 2 looks like it has been set up for a pro: nice and high almost immediately and good height control on all points of sail with good speed to go with it.
In terms of lessons learned, it will be difficult to get the current version competitive in the light, but there is another version coming down the pike. I am encouraged enough to stick with the program; this game is sort of like learning to foil all over again and often enough a good gybe or nice downhill run is as satisfying as a whole string of gybes in the old boat.
I particularly like this shot for showing how close the rudder foil is running to the surface; small wonder I have ventilation woes! Goodbye old, hello new:
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