A dream week at Pichlingersee Regatta 2017

Posted on by csokasails

Finally we arrived safely back home from Pichlingersee Regatta 2017. I hadn’t got time to write in the blog last morning because races started 1 hour earlier than the previous days. In the F5-M Euro Cup stage we had great wind on Saturday morning, almost top A rig conditions, so the organizers were able to make 5 rounds (race for A and B group) in these great conditions. After that the wind stopped, and there was just one more round in breeze. On Sunday we started in slow wind, but it became stronger, so both days were great for racing.

On the first day in stronger wind conditions I know that I had to push as hard as possible because I may had some advantage against swing rig boats. I pay attention well and I won 5 of 6 races and made one second place. For the next day I have to just pay attention to Ivan Ermakov on the second place and Pavel Novotny on the third to manage the gap between us on the less risky way. I got some weed that day too but everything went well and finally I won F5-M. Pavel finished second and Ivan third, but there was some amazing races between them. Congratulations to them, it was great to see their performance!

The performance of the other Hungarian RCsailors:

9th place: Horváth Zsolt

10th place: Csóka László sen.

11th place: Országh Tibor and 11th with the same score Kiss Miklós

Sometimes they struggled with set up problems, and Miklós has lots of technical issues, but I think it was a big step to compete at Pichlingersee for the World Championship preparation for both of us.

If I look back on the whole week, it was great to test all the boat I would like to use at the Worlds, and mentally this good performance makes me confident after some bad moments with set up problems and poor performance of my own Ten Rater. Finally at Pichlingersee it seems most of the problems gone.

The organizers made a great job, a big thank you for them for the Regatta! I hope we will compete there next year too. 😊

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

F5-E ended, Novotny won, I’m 2nd, Országh 3rd

Posted on by csokasails

The F5-E is also finished at Pichlingersee Regatta. The wind conditions were really great, we also have to use the A and the B rigs both days. Second day there was a little rain but luckily not so much.

Finally Pavel Novotny won the F5-E competition with an outstanding performance. After the first day both of us were on the lead. Yesterday the beginning of day he won the first race in front of us, so I fall back to second. After two rounds I reached the lead again, but at the 9th race I made a big mistake, and in the last one I collected some weed from the lake. Pavel didn’t make any mistake in these races, so finally he won the whole competition. I think he is one of the favorites for the NAVIGA World Championship.

Jens Amenda and Max Lehman were also really strong, but Amenda hasn’t got a B rig, so he losed so much in bigger wind conditions. Max collected lots of weed, so the luck wasn’t on his side this time. The surprise was Országh Tibor from Hungary who reached the third place. I was really happy about it, that he made so great performance here. He get to the third place just after the last race. So when me and him went to the score board to watch the final standings, he would like to ask the judge why he isn’t in the list. I said him look upper, and upper on the list. 😃

Final standings in F5-E:

Today will be the race of the F5-M Euro Cup and it seems we will have great wind again.

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

 

F5-10 ended, it’s time for F5-E

Posted on by csokasails

Finally the wind arrived for the second day of the F5-10 at Pichlingersee Regatta. We started in breeze but after that it became stronger (we just used A rig, and wasn’t the boarders of it 😃), so the organizers could make 14 races. I think we had a great day.

For me it was awesome, I reached finally the first place of the F5-10. Previously I afraid that if the wind come I will struggle with the sail which is optimised for the new 0.8 waterline NAVIGA rule, but with I right set up everything went well and it was insanely fast. I should say that in bigger gusts it became slower, and the original sail would be better. My father finished finally 7th and Országh Tibor finally 9th in the F5-10.

Today we will have the first day of the F5-E. Much more wind predicted than yesterday, so we will have a lot of fun. Maybe we should use B or C rigs. I’m really excited what will happen. There are 44 competitors on the entry list, so it will be a strong competition with really good RC sailors.

Final results:  http://rc-segeln.dyndns.org/?page_id=969&type=R$tag=Pichlingersee%202017%20-%2010 

Gallery of yesterday: http://rc-segeln.dyndns.org/?page_id=5177

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

Pichlingersee F5-10 First Day

Posted on by csokasails

The first day of the F5-10 wasn’t so windy. 😀 Until lunchbreak we hadn’t got races, but after that some breeze came and it was able for the organizers to make 2 races. In my mind for these conditions the two most important factors were boat speed management and strategy.

First we had to pay attention for the wind shifts to react on them, but really slowly with the rudder. It was better to trim the sail first to follow the shifts (I mean to go on the same direction when the shift comes, just react on it with sheet out or in the sail) if it was possible. This way it was possible to avoid losing much from the speed, which is more critical in the Ten Rater in these conditions than in other classes I compete. Or maybe it is just with the Walicki Ten Rater, but I realized that rudder movements causes so much speed loss, much more than I expected. The strategy was also really important yesterday. The wind shifted all the time and if you weren’t on the right side in the refreshing breeze than it meant the half of the fleet would overtake you.

I like these conditions, so it wasn’t a bad day for me. I forgot to take photo of the intermediate results, but I lead the race. Also my father is around the 2nd and 3rd place. Yesterday Országh Tibor wasn’t so lucky, he suffered from set up problems, but finally he solved the issue, so he could be better today. He is in the middle of the fleet now.

Today more wind predicted, maybe we will have lots of races today. I hope so. 🙂

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

Pichlingersee Regatta 2017

Posted on by csokasails

Pichlingersee Regatta is simply awesome. A whole week RC Sailing racing in the northern part of Austria in several classes, one of my favorite competitions. Yesterday was the racing days for Dragon Force 65 and for Mini 40, and also the day for travel to me and my father. We arrived safely after some hail on the highway, I hope we will have better weather in the next 6 days.

From the part of the Hungarians we will compete in F5-10, F5-E, and of course F5-M which is the part of the Euro Cup. Today and tomorrow we will race in F5-10 (Ten Rater), which will be really exciting because I think some of the guys will test those boats what they want to use at the NAVIGA World Championship next month. Of course I would also like to test my Ten Rater, I just have a few competitions with it what wasn’t enough practice for the Worlds, but I’m lucky that I can compete here against really strong RC Sailors.

We will see what happens. I will try to provide fresh information from the regatta on my Facebook page (Csóka Sails) and also here on the blog.

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

Wind, Waves, Currents, Opatija

Posted on by csokasails

Our trip to Opatija can’t be more different than that I thought it could. Before the competition I saw some forecast and it seemed we will have great wind on the first day almost B rig conditions, on the second day just a little breeze. Even so we had great wind speed conditions for both days, we could use the A rig, there was no need for B. In these conditions we are used to water without big waves.

This time we had really big waves because of special weather conditions around Opatija. The Hungarian guys have never competed on waves anything like this, so it was so much fun for us. It also meant that we struggled in the first part of the race with the boat set up. Also there was big current on the course so it was tricky for us too.

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Photo: Kucsera Balázs

For me it was the same, and on the first day I tried to find the right set up but I didn’t reach my aim. My boat was instable and slower than the top competitors. Second day I pulled to top of the mast a little bit forward and I put more tension on the backstay. Finally I reached quite big stability and also speed. I enjoyed racing so much on the second day. That doesn’t mean that I was great also in racing. 😃 I made lots of mistakes so my performance wasn’t better than the previous day with a slower boat and less mistake. In total I think me and the Hungarian sailors learnt a lot about big wave racing and about the boat set up in these conditions.

Thank you for the organizers from the Opatija Sailing Club, we enjoyed the competition really much despite the weather conditions. We plan to compete here again next year!

The final results:

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Live your dreams!

Csóka László

My best Pichlingersee Regatta ever

Posted on by csokasails

Now I’m sitting at the University and thinking about last week’s regatta. I still not realized completely what happened there exactly. I always hope the best and also worked really hard but I did not expect such a good performance. I dreamed about it but not expected.

After the F5-10 victory on Wednesday I tried not to loose myself psychologically. In the F5-E I reached my aim, after some technological issues I kept my balance and finished 3rd overall. After the two classes I felt really happy, it was already my best Pichlingersee performance ever and the F5-M Europe Cup stage just started next day.

In the F5-M my aim was again to stay focused and not to fall apart. At the first races in light wind conditions I fight with Pavel Novotny and Massimo Morin a lot. Also after the first day we were in the first three places in overall. Second day the wind conditions became stronger, I worried about it, because I knew that there will be changes in the fleet others would be faster. Luckily I hadn’t got speed problems and managed to increase the lead in overall. Finally one of my dreams came true and I won the F5-M Pichlingersee Europe Cup Stage for the first time in my life. Pavel Novotny finished 2nd and Massimo Morin 3rd at the end in a really big battle between them and 4th Max Lehmann.

Thank you for Gyöngyösi Cecília and Országh Tibor who created the possibility for me in travel to compete all the 6 days and also thank you for all your support during the competition!

Thank you for my family for their support!

Thank you for all those guys who helped me before and during the Regatta!

And also a big thank you for those who cheered for me in these six days!

Csoka-eredmeny

All my result from Pichlingersee:

1st place F5-10

3rd place F5-E

1st place F5-M

1st place in Combination of the 3 classes

Csoka-kupak

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

Tricky Rijeka

Posted on by csokasails

Yesterday we arrived back home from 22nd Rijeka’s Regatta. I’m really happy now because I was able to reach my goals. Much more than I expected.

In my previous blog post I wrote about what were my two aims for this Regatta. First I wanted to gain some speed in stronger conditions because I worked hard previously to figure out why I struggle when the stronger wind appear. Fortunately I reached this aim, on the second day with B rig I didn’t feel disadvantage in my boat speed compared to others. More tension on the shrouds brought the expected result.

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My other goal was to finish in top 5. I had never finished better than 7th place on a croatian regatta. The conditions were tricky on this competiton, we had shifty wind all the time, lots of races were abandoned before the first mark because the wind shifted so much. In Hungary we usually have shifty wind conditions, I raced lots of times in these, therefore I didn’t feel bad about it. Honestly I enjoyed the races. Unfortunately this caused that we had just the qualification rounds, and can’t race in golden and silver fleet. The results finally based on the 6 qualification round results.

This time finally I was able to finish 4th in overall, I’m so happy about it! This is my best result ever in a croatian regatta.

For me the IOM spring season in Croatia is over, but I will surely compete there in autumn. Now I’m focusing on the 21. International Pichlingersee Regatta.

Here you can find the overall results: 22nd Rijeka’s Regatta results

Check Compass Magazin’s facebook page for pictures: Pictures on Compass Magazin

Thanks to my girlfriend for her support, and for the awesome pictures she photographed!

Thanks to the race organizers for this regatta! Next year I hope we will compete in Rijeka again!

Thanks to the hungarian team for their support, and for the awesome mood!

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

Battery wars Chapter 1. Update

Posted on by csokasails

Last time I wrote about bad battery detection, and Mr. Nigel Winkley drew my attention to the right LiPo/LiFe battery storage. I didn’t know before about the special method to store these batteries.

I looked for more information on the internet and I can just confirm Mr. Nigel Winkley’s words: “LiPos don’t like to be stored discharged but you shouldn’t store them fully charged either. Good chargers have a program to give that correct charge if you plan on storing over longer periods. When you want to use them again, discharge them before fully charging and they will give you good performance for a couple of seasons racing.”

Here are the sources where you can find more information about this process:

https://www.servocity.com/blog/?p=492

Click to access lipo%20storage%20tips.pdf

I also looked for this program in my battery charger and surprisingly I found it. I tried it with my LiFe batteries, because I will use them just in May. The program worked well, I used the automatic built in values.

csoka-battery-wars-update

At this point I think battery storage function will worth it for me.

Live your dreams!

Csóka László

 

Battery wars Chapter 1.

Posted on by csokasails

Do you ever feel the pain when your battery betrayed you during a key moment at an RC sailing competition? I hope not, because I felt it two times during the years, it was horrible.

So what can we do to avoid this disaster?

In Hungary we are at the beginning of the new season in RC sailing and it’s time for thinking about the batteries. Old batteries can cause suffering at the first competitions if they aren’t in good conditions.

But what does „not in a good condition” mean in case of a battery? There is a method with multimeter to detect the bad cells, but not nearly everybody has this device, and also just a few RC sailors can use it correctly. I don’t like this method.

battery-war-6

I use my battery charger to detect bad batteries. I think this is an easy way and everybody can do it during winter battery maintenance. Just an ordinary programmable charger is good for this which is able to discharge batteries beside the charging function. This is how I detect bad batteries:

  1. Discharge the battery: I discharge the NIMH batteries to 1.0V/cell, in case of Life and Lipo batteries this voltage value is built in the charger.

csoka-battery-war-5

 

  1. Charge the battery: I charge it like in any other normal case

csoka-battery-war

  1. At the end of the charging method check how much mAh got into the battery. Compare it with the real value written on the battery: At this point I have a feedback of the condition of the battery.

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  1. Discharge the battery again.

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  1. At this point I have the full feedback of the battery condition, because I know how much mAh was in the battery and how much could it perform from it during the discharge.
  1. It’s judgment time: In step 5. if the battery performance is under 80-90% comparing to the step 3 than it’s time for thinking about buying a new one. If the performance is above 90% than it is still OK and I just made a battery maintenance with discharging and charging. (In the example pictures the batteries are 700mAh Life 2S packs, at the second discharge the 650mAh discharge value is over 90%, so I should keep that pack.) This case I always charge the batteries again, they don’t like to be fully discharged for a longer time.

I hope this post will be useful for you in RC sailing! In my next one I would like to show which type of batteries I use in my RC boats.

Live your dreams!

Csóka László