Well she has finally managed to get out onto the water. With a large amount of work being put in over the last couple of days she finally got a sail in.

The helm felt good but i will pay more attention to it on the next sail and try to work out if the rudder balance of mast rake/centre board position needs changing.

The boat responded well upwind when there was a decent gust, but did bog down a fair bit in the lulls. Though i think with a bit of careful fore aft trimming we will be able to solve this. The hull seems to move quit nicely through the chop while down wind it didn't seem to have some massive urge to nose dive, although we were only hiking (maybe 15-20knot gust) but it did feel quick.

The cockpit layout and rig position so forces the crew to sit further aft in the boat during tacking/gybing etc, which could lead to a problem of the transom sinking a little during tacks etc, which would mean it will be slow out of tacks.

In conclusion I'm very pleased with how the boat turned out and now my crew and I will need to focus pretty heavily on the fore-aft trim and setting up the rig position/rake to make to boat work well.

I'll let you know how she goes against some other boats hopefully next week.