| Date | Event/Topic | Reporting in |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday Nov. 2 | Opening Day, Christian Becker Trophy | Dave Nelson reports, with comments from Jocko and Tags |
| Sunday Nov. 9 | Fall 1 | Jimmy Bowers reports from 2nd place,with comments from Dave Nelson |
| Sunday Nov. 23 | Fall 3 | Steve Braverman does the honors this week |
| Sunday Nov. 30 | Fall 4 | Turkeys all blown out Saturday. Flying Sunday in 20mph. Jimmy and Dave report. |
| Sunday Dec. 14 | Mass Bay I | winning team Paul & Gaelen, with Chad Demarest |
| Thursday Jan. 1 | Broo Bowl | Steve Braverman |
| Sunday Jan. 4 | Fall 7 | Steve Braverman, speaking from a Laser |
| Saturday & Sunday April 17&18 | Nationals | Chad Demarest and Steve Kirkpatrick |
|
Here are some of my thoughts on last weekend.
We were sailing in a somewhat confined area with Snake Island being a concern on the starboard side of the first beat. My first thought was to not get too close to Snake Island because I thought there was less wind there early in the beat. Also, I did not want to get stuck in bad air close to the island without any room to tack and clear my air. In the first race I wanted to start at the pin end, but since it was the first race of the year and I was not feeling totally confident in my boat handling and starting skills I wimped out and started more towards the windward end. I got squeezed off and had to tack and ended up having my worst race of the day. In the second race I decided to go with my original plan and start at the pin. We ended up winning the pin and going hard left. During this race there was a little more pressure on the left side and the strategy worked out great, we won the race. For the remainder of the day we never managed to get the awesome start that we got in the second race, but we were able to keep our air clear and the work the shifts to our advantage. Again, I tried to favor the left side taking shots over to the right when a shift came through. I thought there were some big velocity differences up the first beat. I tried to tack only when I had enough breeze to get me across the pack. Downwind, strategically, I wanted to favor the starboard side (near the docks). This put you on the outside for the leeward mark rounding, but I think there was a little more pressure on that side of the course at times. Sometimes I could not execute this strategy because I had to keep my air clear by going high into Snake Island, but whenever given the opportunity I would try and sail towards the docks. Sailtrim - I was using a 2 year old "Ched" Mainsail with 2 blocks behind the mast. During the pre-race tuning I only had 1 block behind the mast. I noticed that the sail looked a little full back at the inboard end of the battens. To smooth this out I decided to put another block behind the mast. Jim can point a lot higher than me most of the time. He is the only person sailing with the "Benji" mainsail. I think his sail is deeper than the "Ched" sail that most of us have, allowing him to close off the leach much easier. If I buy a new sail this year I'm thinking about switching over to the Benji sail. Anybody have any thoughts on the Ched vs Benji sail design?? What are the advantages of having a flat sail vs a full sail? Dave Nelson |
|
from John MacRae: Dave's thoughts are good, and I wish I could have figured out his conclusions more quickly instead of reading them here! Nice sailing. On the Benj vs. "Ched" sails: I have converted the other way, to the Ched from the Benj. I like the Ched and it performed very well at the nationals in April and at other times I've used it. On setup, we have found two small blocks behind the mast and keeping the traveler all the way down in all conditions helps with speed and pointing. However, I should mention that Zach Orlov noticed that we had more lower pre-bend last week than anyone else with those two blocks. I don't necessarily think that's bad, but we're going to watch that closely because I didn't feel super-fast (we were all rusty and my centerboard handle was leaking badly, so who knows?) Anyway, the Benj sail (as was the case when it was a Banks sail) showed super speed when we had one a couple of seasons ago. Linda and I could get it to go pretty well early on, and we all know what Jim and Myrna can do with it. However, partly because of the material (which seemed lighter to me) and partly because of its fuller cut, we found that it aged quickly and, when it did, it really performed poorly. Perhaps the cloth blows out more quickly, making the draft ultra-deep and much harder to trim. I'm not sure. If you can afford to get a new sail every year and can figure out the trim, I think it's a good sail. However, the Ched is a little flatter and therefore easier to trim in many conditions, and I think it may have a longer life than the Benj. My favorite sail was the Geoff Moore Shore cut from about 5-6 years ago. Alas, Geoff now also works at North and that pattern, as I understand it, no longer exists. But that old sail is not bad, even today. |
|
from John Tagliamonte: Although I'm just a boatless has-been, not competitive since '97 or so (well, maybe '98 Turkey Bowl) I'll chime in to generally echo Jocko's comments, assuming sail design hasn't changed radically in the last few years. In 8 knts plus and some chop, I found the Benji sail to have the most punch/power and pointing ability due to its fuller top third and sensitive upper leach. The Ched North I used earlier, and the Geoff Moore Shore I used later were easier to trim and fine for lighter air and flat water, but weren't quite what was needed for slugging it out on a long, full-hike beat at the Nationals. Having said this, the sail mattered less than great teamwork with your crew, "muscle memory" boat handling, and a perfectly smooth, ultra-stiff boat & blades ... not to mention the racing stuff. Wishing I was there... Tags (ex-610, 549, 682, 684) |
|
Jan did a nice job writing up the weather conditions; thanking the race
committee; and complimenting the chefs. Great job everyone! In terms of
racing strategy, it was a tricky day that was made tougher by the outgoing
current. The current tended to create a mid-line sag and caught me a
boat-length below the line on several occasions. Most races were decided on the first beat. The trick was adapting your race strategy to the changing breeze and current conditions. The leaders of the first couple of races tended to start toward the pin end and came out of the left-middle of the course. Even though there was more adverse current to the left, there were 15-20 degree lifts and plenty of breeze which more than made up for the current. As the afternoon wore on, the wind lightened (fewer big lefties) and the current strengthened. The leaders tended to start closer to the hut and came out of the right-middle of the course. One note about adapting your race strategy to fend off someone close to you in scoring for the day. First, you need to keep track of the scores of people finishing near you and then you should only act on this knowledge during the last race. Otherwise, you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture (i.e. getting around the course as fast as possible). On Sunday, going into the last race, Dave needed to beat us and put a boat in between us. Knowing this, I chose to set up right to leeward of him at the start and was determined to pinch him off us we went off the line, thus putting him in the second row. We executed the plan perfectly. The problem was that he was free to tack out to the right side of the course (the favored side!) while we got pinned out to the left middle of the course. He crossed us by several boat lengths at the first crossing and went on to win the race and the day while we struggled to get back to 3rd. In this instance, I lost sight of the bigger picture. I should have started to windward of him!! There weren't many passing lanes downwind as long as you kept people from rolling over the top. The second and third beats were generally mellow except for a few random 25+ degree shifts. If you kept your head out of the boat and got a little lucky you could survive these legs. My basic strategy was to work left on the second beat (toward the airport) to get out of the current and to work right on the third beat (toward CPYC) to get out of the current - didn't always work to perfection (i.e. random wind shifts). Maybe Dave and Stephanie have some other thoughts (three bullets!) but that's what it looked like from inside 717. Jim Bowers |
|
from Dave Nelson: Here are my thoughts on Fall 1. I agree with Jim that the first beat could make or break your race. In the first race I got pinned out to the left by John Pratt. I didn't want to go hard left, but had no choice. I guess we got lucky as the wind came in nicely out of the left hand side and we went on to win the race. I'll take a little luck once in a while. Interestingly, I did not factor the current into my decision making at all, but focused mostly on the wind. In one race we got a big jump on the fleet by the first windward mark. About halfway up the first beat of this race we tacked on a huge (auto-tack) right hand shift and proceeded to tack on all the little shifts thereafter. This launched us to a big lead at the first mark. On the downwind legs, when we were far enough ahead to not worry about clear air, we sailed as low as possible. This seemed to help us extend our lead. We made a couple of big gains on the 2nd beat (after the second mark of the no jibe course). Both times we gained by going hard right and approaching the 3rd mark (starboard rounding) on the starboard tack layline. There were some big right hand shifts and velocity to be had over there. I thought it was just a coincidence that Jim was planted on my lee bow of the last start. My only thought was that the right side looked a little better, so I started closer to the Hut for this particular race. I'll have to keep in mind the big picture from now on. |
|
Guess i'm on the hook to write some observations about today's racing. That'll teach me to finish second. John Pratt and Mike Birmann -- it would be awesome to get some of your perspective here too, since you followed us all day in a whaler. Dave, Stephanie, any thoughts as well? Oh, here goes. First, it was great weather, and awesome to see so much activity in our fleet, and at the club. The racing was fairly tight as well. Boat setupChed North main. 3 x 1/8" mastblocks behind the mast.Headstay firm, but not cranked. This worked very well early in the day, but I think it hurt me in the last two races as my sail was too full as the breeze slightly diminished. Cunningham. pulled some of the ugly wrinkles out, but left some wrinkles ... We felt pretty fast early in the day both upwind and downwind. Towards the last two races, I felt like I was strapping the sail a bit, and that makes me think my headstay was just little too tight for the lightening conditions. StrategyWe kept it really simple. Get off the line, keep our air clear, be able to tack and gybe when want to, sail on the lifted tack, and keep the boat moving forward.When tuning up before the first race, we noticed a little more velocity on the Winthrop side. So we won the pin in the first, and favored the left the first two races, which seemed to work fairly well. I made a couple of mistakes up top, and let a few boats slide in there. By the third race, the left got awfully crowded, the puffs over Winthrop weren't as frequent, and we felt sailing middle-right towards Snake Island for the last two wasn't a horrible move. Staying near enough, but out of the crowd, we could stay in touch with the pack, yet tack when we got a header or a puff, and not get forced to tack when someone else thought they got one.... Because we couldn't sail through the start-finish line on the run, we had to make a call pretty early whether to gybe at the weather mark or not. Sailing to the right of the mark closest to Hatch, seemed to have the best angle early, and we favored that because we thought it was the shortest course. This was a very risky move, and I was sweating a bit, because we were outside a huge pack of boats which had gybed early. Had any of them made the slightest gain and got an overlap, we would have been pretty screwed. In the first race, we followed Shan & Diane, who had the same idea we did and they won the race.... We made our gybe-or-not-to-gybe call based on whether we were ahead or behind the nearest pack of boats, where the next puff was coming from, where most of the breeze was, and believe it or not, where the rhodes 19s were.... OopsLike Jim & Myrna two weeks ago, we lost track of the score. If I'd been keeping track, I would have know that we were tied with Dave & Stephanie going into the last race... This might have changed our game-plan slightly, and would have tried to stay closer to them, and hope we were just a hair faster, or played the shifts a hair better. C'est L'vie.... They sailed really well on sunday, and have sailed well thus far this season.B? They kept it simple too. But they got off the line a little better, and played the shifts a little smarter than we did. Kudos to them. Etc.Cindy and I have been sailing together for many years now, and we have learned how to communicate with each other.We talk about strategy before the race. Throughout the race, she helps me execute the strategy, feeding me information about the racecourse, the wind, and other boats, while I focus on keeping the boat moving fast forward, tacking on the shifts and doing boat-to-boat tactics. She also does a great job constantly looking at the bow, and the weather mark, and is never shy about telling me if we are sailing away from the mark. Downwind, she calls the breeze behind. Time, distance, where other boats are, how far, windshadow, and whether we or they are gaining. I try to focus on keeping the boat driving fast-forward, and only look back when she asks me too. It's no coincidence that we started sailing better when I started listening to her more.... She also did an awesome job in the crew race, which makes me think that if I gave her the helm more, we'd win more races.... that's all I can think of. Mike? John? Dave? Stephanie? |
by Jim Bowers:I wasn't very psyched about sailing when I got to the club and was looking at the 20+ mph puffs rolling over the airport. However, we made the right call by sailing and it really didn't seem that bad on the water. In fact, I was looking forward to a fourth race before it was cancelled.We tried a new sail that didn't want to flatten. We tried pulling the outhaul and cunningham tight and used plenty of vang but just couldn't get the sail to go fast. Additionally, the top wouldn't twist off. The end result was not being able to hike the boat flat through the puffs. Even with the strong wind, the current was the main story of the day. It forced many people over the starting line early and provided a conveyor belt up the first beat. My sense was that you wanted to get far enough left to get into the current but not so far that you couldn't tack on the shifts (i.e. middle left). The starboard tack layline at the top of the beat was golden. The current provided a nice starboard tack lift. The real challenge here was calling the layline and not over standing the hut (races 2 and 3). Downwind was all about keeping your lane open while not getting suckered into going too high. My highlight of the day was the Patriot's game - Go Pats! |
When I first arrived at CPYC there was no question in my mind that we could
sail. However, the wind picked up quite a bit around 1pm making me re-think
the decision to sail. However, once on the water things were fine. |
|
From Paul: My $0.02 - please excuse any spelling mistakes and thanks for having us! After chatting w/Franny in the morning we decided to tighten our rig - We dropped the pin position 1 hole and needed to pull a fair amount on the Halyard to pin it. One 1/4 inch block behind the mast (standard position for us in just about any breeze). Upwind we felt it was fast to have the centerboard angled slightly aft, we sailed with as much vang as Gaelen could put on and kept our weight as far back in the boat as possible. We used a new Quantum sail compliments of Will Welles (very fast). We were looking for a fairly flat sail but w/enough power to get through the waves. We were fairly tight on the cunningham (no wrinkles) and maybe 3-4 inches on the outhaul measured from the mid-point on the foot to the boom. I measure head stay tension by measuring the height of the boom off the transom. We were 4-6 inches off the transom with the main trimmed in hard, traveler all the way down. Footing through the waves seemed to work the best although we tried to take advantage of flat spots to gain height or for tacking. Boat speed was the key yesterday, from a tactical standpoint we kept things simple. We didn't feel one side was favored so we focused on the shifts and tried to sail on the lifted tack as much as possible. Downwind we didn't change things too much - Gaelen was quite clear she had no intentions of capsizing so the board stayed down and the vang stayed on! From Gaelen: quick take on yesterday: Yesterday was one of those days when it's actually super-fun to be an IC crew. The Duxbury location is great, with a huge sailing area allowing for long first windward legs, that's open to the east, giving us good waves in the breeze we had yesterday. I think that the key for us was boatspeed. There wasn't really a favored side so far as I could see, but there were shifts and it was important to sail on the lifted tack as much as possible. Crew weight was key to boatspeed in the waves. I found myself moving almost constantly when we were sailing upwind. I was also hiking aft to help keep the knuckle out of the water. It was especially important to be hiking out and aft around the windward marks to help the boat head down without putting the bow under a wave. The only time I didn't do this it was noticeable. I may get myself in trouble with this, but there were some big gainers to be made (especially downwind) with well-timed ooching. The drive home was also an adventure. Thanks for having us! Observations from Chad Demarest: I did an informal poll of the top boats to find out what made 'em tick on such an extreme day. Here's what I learned:
|
|
Thursday was one of the more fun IC sailing days I have had this year.
It was a good 15 to 20 knots, and pretty warm. We felt pretty good,
didn't make too many huge mistakes, and had some pretty good speed,
both uphill and down, and had a couple of nice rides.
It was a shame that more boats didn't come out to play, but it enabled us to try some things and really concentrate on a select group of boats.... VangOne of our bigger mistakes on previous breezy days was not paying as much attention to the vang as we should have. So we spent a lot of time Thursday preoccupied with the vang. This helped us not repeat previous mistakes, but also enabled us to make new ones.At the start, we had the vang eased so we could power and depower at will. After the gun, Cindy trimmed the vang so it was still a little loose when the main was trimmed. This enabled us to vangsheet in the puffs. Our big change from the past is that on the final approach to the weather mark, Cindy eased the vang so we could bear off around the mark. After the boat got on its course, and got going, I trimmed the vang accordingly. If it was nuking, I had my leech a little closed (streamer stalled). If it was lighter, I had my leech a little open (streamer flying). We aggressively played both the mainsheet and the vang downwind based on Cindy's calls of the breeze, the wave angle, and where I wanted to point the bow. On the final approach to the leeward mark, one of us trimmed the vang.... However, we had some pretty bad mark roundings because we had a hard time getting the boat flat. It might be better not to trim the vang until we're heading upwind at full speed, like we do on the start. Lesson learned? I'll let you know how this goes on the next breezy day. Rig TensionAfter talking to Dave Nelson, and comparing my rig tension to his, Jimmy's and Paul's, I decided to tighten my sidestays making my first rig adjustment in two years. I have sta-masters, and I tightened them each three faces or 1/2 a turn (I don't know how this relates to the chainplates with the holes that most boats have).I think a tighter rig is good in a breeze, but I may have overdone it and tightened it too much because when I really over-cranked my mainsheet, the rig popped out of column (this hadn't happened on previous windy days). When my rig popped out of column, the part of the mast closest to the numbers 'popped' to weather,and made the rig look like a backwards 's'. It totally flattened out the middle part of the sail, but left the top and the bottom wide open. Looked ugly, had very strange wrinkles, and it couldn't have made for very good flow.... After sailing, I retuned my rig back to its original position. I haven't decided if I'm going to tighten it again just one or two faces for the next breezy day... Stay tuned. Sail was a 3 year old Ched North. We had no mastblocks behind the mast and a pretty tight headstay so that when the mainsheet was cranked, we were still 6" off the transom. Other than the mast popping out of column when I cranked too hard, we seemed reasonably fast, and had decent height. Other NotesAlso, for the first time on a breezy day this year, I went 1:1 on my mainsheet. Not only did I have less crap in the bottom of the boat to wrap around my feet, but I felt like I had much better control of the boat downwind. Thus, I could use less vang downwind, keep the boat stable with a quicker adjustment on the mainsail, and had much better speed. After sailing, my arms were a little more tired than usual, but I guess it's time to go back to the gym.Lots of lessons learned in our breezy days this season, and we can't wait for the next one. -Steve |
|
[Ed Note: Steve Braverman, speaking Brave-ly from a Laser Keep the Laser option in mind when you haven't found crew by Sunday morning.] First I want to thank Todd, Dave B, Warren, Ken, Chris and Jack for hooking me up with a boat for the day, and helping me get going both on the dock and on the water. Was a great day of sailing (any day you can barehand a laser in January is a good day!!!). Very nice to see rejuvenated activity of the Laser fleet. I know Todd, Dave, Warren and others have put in a lot of effort to get more boats out on the line. Good stuff! Thank you for letting me come out and play. Now on to the racing: GameplanMy gameplan was to keep it simple, and not do anything too fancy. The goal was to finish in the top 5 each race and I'd have a pretty good day.The important things to me were to get off the starting line, be able to go where I wanted to go (not get pinned), keep the bow pointed in the direction of the mark, and round the top mark in 5th or better. There was good breeze on the left by the airport, so during my warmup, I sailed on starboard, tacked, went past what I thought was the starboard layline for the green can, tacked, and didn't come anywhere close to making the mark. I could see the current really ripping. Even though there was better breeze, this lead me to believe that left was death early in the day. StartsI did not want to get pinned out on the left early in the day, so I started middle right, no matter which end of the line was favored.UpwindEarly, I played middle right until I got near the top, then concentrated more on the shifts, puffs, and the position chess-game so I didn't get pinned below the layline in the ebbing tide. As the tide subsided, and boats made gainers on the left towards the end of the day, I played middle left for the breeze, and played the same chess-game up top.DownwindTo gybe or not to gybe. Conventional wisdom said not to gybe and to stay in the ripping current. This worked well the first two races, but the third race, Angela lead a pack of boats who sailed really low or gybed, and got ahead and inside of Warren and myself at the bottom mark. That stunk as I ended up outside a pinwheel of 6 boats.So, the last three races, I gybed at the top mark, and it worked out ok. Still not totally sure why gybing early worked -- might have been a better angle with a better apparent, or maybe didn't have to sail through the hole that seem to hover around the starting line. And of course, being inside at a crowded leeward mark is never a bad thing. Lessons learnedI think I had my outhaul a little too loose at times, had too deep of a sail, and ended up with pointing issues. In addition, I too often tried to put the boat into point mode before I was up to full speed, and ended up sliding to leeward and losing the lane I worked so hard for.However, consistency really paid! I kept myself in the game, sailed conservatively, never went for the home-run, and stayed in the top five nearly the entire day. Thanks again! steve braverman |
|
From Chad: Beautiful sailing...breezy and challenging...big shifts...big velocity changes...really a blast all 'round. Temps held up nicely in the high 50's/low 60's both days. It was poorly attended by Annapolis (0) and Larchmont (3, I think) so only 43 boats this year...smallest in a while, I'd imagine. It put the poor locals in a bind b/c they budgeted for 50...$85 x 7 = $595. They turned the raffle into a mix of raffle and auction to try to recoup some money, but I think they are financially bumming. RC work ... got better and better as the regatta wore on. Course length was fantastic. Six races each day, though we were in by 3PM on Saturday (11:45 first gun) which was disappointing given how beautiful the weather was. Saturday the breeze went from 6-8 up to 15-20+ and back down to 8-12. Sunday it started out at 12-16 for three races, went due east and blew in at 16-18 solid for the last three. Mike Funch and Terrence McAndrews, fresh off their Stanley Bell victory, kicked all our butts. At one point they were up by 23 points, but finished w/ a comfortable 10 pt cushion on Steve Kirkpatrick/Julie Batcho. Typical IC Nationals...everyone except Mike and Terrence had a race in the 20's (some, like us, had too many). The top end wasn't quite as deep, but Paul-Jon was third last year and 9th this year in similar, but warmer, conditions...so it certainly wasn't a cake-walk for anyone. As usual, the Annapolis crowd missed a brilliant regatta. My crew made the drive...I don't understand why no boat owners are willing to do it. Something against Massachusetts, perhaps? I guess we'll see next year...in the only Tech meeting news, Winthrop got the nod. |
|
From: Steve What follows is a stream of consciousness overview of my thoughts from this year's Nationals. I will try to cover what I saw in terms of preparation before hitting the water as well as speed and strategy/tactics once on the water. After finishing worse than expected at the Nationals a few times in the 1998-2001 time frame, I decided to make a concerted effort to get the speed necessary to compete on longer courses. Our weekend racing on short courses does not demand the utmost in boatspeed as shifts and smarts can often overcome raw speed. Over two days and 12 long races like we had at the Nationals, speed matters a lot. To be able to be in the hunt you need to have your mast and board in the right place, have stiff and smooth boat and blades and the ability make the sail look good in the range of conditions. This does not mean you need a new boat per se, but you do need a good setup and a smooth finish. Mike Funsch who won was sailing boat #625; an older but refinished and tricked out boat. Steve Benjamin sails an older but redone O'Day and Jim Bowers sails a redone boat that was an insurance write off picked up out of the parking lot after a big storm in Scituate. Both Steve Benjamin and Jim Bowers have won this event three times in these older boats if my memory is correct. So if you can spend some time in the off-season fixing up your boat and blades, it will not hurt your performance. As for us, I can tell you that after getting beaten at the MBSA regatta and finishing further back in the pack than I wanted two weeks prior to Nationals I busted out sandpaper all the way down to 1500 grit and started on the speed prep. I also faired out the dings in the leading edge of the centerboard and rudder from hitting winter stakes and the bottom every time I sailed this winter. Once that was done I buffed the boat and blades twice with Starbrite with Teflon to ensure a slick finish. In terms of skipper/crew preparation I am of the belief that there is no way to get around the need for physical preparation. If it is windy you need strength and stamina. Under any condition you need to be able to stay level headed (admittedly I do not always find this so easy) which is aided by good physical conditioning. The guys who won are both in great shape; I work out six times a week, Julie Batcho, my crew, works out aerobically about five times a week and does yoga three times a week. Ed Adams works out aerobically three times a week and sails a ton, and his son Luke plays hockey a couple of times a week. The ability to hike hard in conditions like we saw combined with the upper body strength to sheet the main really hard helps your speed. Now on to the good stuff: what actually happened? Saturday the breeze was southerly with shifts 15-20 degrees either side of the median. As the wind was a gradient wind without any real seabreeze influence, there was a discernible pattern to the oscillations. What we found was that after the breeze went through a lull it then backed (went left) and after the breeze came back up it veered (went right). According to Ed Adams he said this is a predictable, recurring phenomenon in gradient winds. This pattern is apparently due to the uneven heating of the land over the course of the day. Sunday the breeze was a northeasterly and was predicted to go east over the course of the day. This was not lost on the RC who habitually moved the course such that the windward mark was further to the right than it needed to be in all but the last race. Chad Demarest and Sarah picked up on this in the last few races and came smoking out of the pin end to dominate in the last few races of the regatta. By noticing this kind of skew in the course as Chad and Sarah did, you can often get big leverage over the fleet early on in the race. This makes the whole big fleet thing a lot easier, so keep your eyes open in the pre-race routine for this kind of situation. With that as a backdrop we tried to formulate a race plan and get our arms around what was the favored end of the line and which way to go in the minutes leading up to the sequence. Two things that really helped once we figured out our overall strategy were to constantly get line sights to know exactly where the line was. Interestingly when we lined up at the boat end to sight through the pin we either found Ed/Luke or Mike/Terrence down there taking sights constantly. Knowing where the line is perhaps the single most important determinant of success in big fleet starts. The second big starting aid was to never, under any circumstance let anyone get bow out to leeward of us. We were far more likely to be OCS with this attitude, but in general we tried to start with blockers obstructing the committee boats view of our bow numbers. It appeared to me that the pin boat was not calling boats over, as they could almost never see the boat end. Therefore by starting with a windward blocker and turning up at three seconds you had a built in shield. As far as speed set-up off the line we left our board all the way forward under all conditions except for the two heaviest air races when it was pushing 18-20 knots. I found that by hiking like mad with the board forward in reasonably flat water we could point higher and go faster than the boats around us. This gave us a lane to use on the beat and once it was established we might kick the board to vertical or slightly raked aft to neutralize the helm. Importantly in the lulls we pushed the board back to forward to maximize our pointing ability. Also of note we tried sitting farther back in the chop, with Julie's upper body behind the thwart and me sitting 12-18 inches back of the thwart in the chop. We left the outhaul on the Quantum sail really loose (8-10 inches at max draft) which seemed to give us better power in the chop and made the whole thing look really nice. On the beats we tried to keep our lanes open, although we were not as good as Funsch, who miraculously seemed to come out of the top left every race on Sunday. Since it was shifty both days we tried as usual to keep the boat on the tack pointing us closest to the mark, except where we needed to get over to a big breeze lane or into more advantageous current (not really that big a factor, although both Chad and I thought it would be). Downwind it was key to figure out which ball was favored to round. We dodged a bullet in one race by not figuring out early enough which ball was upwind and sailed three boatlengths farther to the mark than Jim and Myrna who moved from third to first by going low on the run to the favored ball. In the end (cause I have to go to work now), it was a great event and one with a lot of good sailors. As always I learned more about IC sailing and got to put into practice the lessons learned from everyone in our fleet and particularly the help that Chad gave us while we were struggling at the midwinters. |