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| Overview In 2001, we started the year with an easy introduction to racing through the Berkeley YC Chowder races. We then started the YRA's ocean series in order to prepare for the longer offshore races. In addition, we are doing a few of the bay-races in order to improve crew-work and short-course racing.
2/9/02 BYC Midwinters #4 (6th of 6) Crew: Doug, Dave, Tiffany, Jay, Lance, Manuela, Louis, Chris, Jon Best Moment: Totally beat at the end of it ;-) Things to Learn: Boathandling, tactics (thinking ahead) Distance: 8.8 miles
Ok, we got our butt's kicked. Conditions were some of the most difficult we've experienced so far. Very gusty winds, changing up to 20 degrees within a minute. These tough conditions were extremely challenging, and made simple jobs difficult, and difficult jobs, well, veeery difficult ;-) So what can we learn from it?
Tactics: In hindsight, what happened was semi predictable. Basically a front was moving through, meaning that the winds were going to be very variable. Also, when a front moves through, the wind typically shifts left (more to the west), just as we saw happening on that first spinnaker reach. If we had known/expected this, we would have gone high initially after the first windward mark, especially since the chute didn't go up right away. This would have made the reach much easier once the chute was up. It's important that we also realize when conditions are tough, and budget extra time for each maneuver in these cases. In tough conditions, when we all are working somewhat on the edge, things will go wrong. So we need to take it especially slow, and plan accordingly.
Boat handling: Both upwind and downwind we faced some challenges. Upwind, our tacks were sub-optimal. Clearly, the #2 at the top of its range didn't make things easier. The #3 would have been substantially easier to tack, since it doesn't have to go around the spreaders. However, the #3 would have been too small in the lulls, so going with the #2 was the right choice, but only if we can get good at tacking the #1/#2 at the top of their respective ranges (practice, practice, practice ;-). One thing we may want to consider is to keep all sails ready down below, so that we can do a peel easier/quicker.
Downwind boat handling poses substantial additional challenges, since many more of us are involved. We need to practice the preparation for setting/dousing to get faster at that. In the absence of significant waves, such as on the bay, it probably pays to pre-rig everything for a starboard-pole set, and leave the forward hatch unlocked/spinny connected. That way, we can double check stuff on our way out, and set quickly even if we have to tack onto the layline very late on the upwind leg. If we know the first chute leg is a reacher, we should position the pole low from the get-go, so that the chute will fly. So on a reach, pole low, outboard end lower than inboard. On a run, pole mid-height, and ends even.
We might benefit from knowing a bit more about the maneuvers, and what works and doesn't work in a given set of conditions. A good example of that is the takedown, which will vary depending upon what point of sail we are on. Wow, as I am writing this, I realize how really cool this last race was! We learned soo much! Actually, as an aside, at the NorthU tactics seminar, Andrew (the instructor - multi J24, Melges, etc. national & world champion), said that the winterseries on the bay is some of the toughest sailing around anywhere - much more difficult than the summer. So there you have it. Heads up, we are learning!
1/12 BYC Midwinters #3 (6th of 8) Crew: Erick, Doyle, Badru, Tiffany, Jay, Frank, Manuela, Doug, Lance, Chris, Jon Best Moment: Great Crew-work the whole time Things to Learn: Tactics, Sailtrim Distance: 8.8 miles
First, a note on the finish. I think all of us had expected to place higher than we did. Yet, if you look at the relative times, we did much better than in previous races. In the 1st Midwinter race, 13 minutes separated us from the leader, in the 2nd race it was 11 minutes, and in this race 4 minutes. Great improvement. A large chunk of that we lost due to our first navigation error. With a bit more work, we'll do great once the real season starts. Now on to the race itself:
Socked in at 10:00am, with a start scheduled for 11:30am; so of course the start was postponed, while we were waiting for the fog to lift and a breeze to build. At 12:10 it was time for the start with the wind from the north. We got off the line at the gun, in line with Bodacious and a couple of other boats. We were to windward, and had both point and speed on Bodacious (who owes us time). Pretty cool. The fog was still with us, making spotting the mark next to impossible. The GPS was pointing one way, the fleet was heading the other way. We decided to cover, although Jon suggested to tack over to get to the better side of the course (with a strong ebb, the east side was definitely favored). The only problem was that we were not between the fleet and the mark, but instead to the left of the fleet, which was all overstaying the mark (except for Kookaburra, a J105, which went on to win the race). When Bodacious tacked, we followed. However, the lead we had built now instantly turned into a rather large loss, from which we never fully recovered. Shortly after the tack, the mark came into sight, and the fleet began to bear off to a reach towards it.
We tacked around the mark, bore off, and reached towards the next mark. Sticky Fingers, a 31' ULDB (we owe them 6sec/mile) was staying above us and starting to fall behind (Sticky beat us in the last two midwinters). Staying high of course meant that they would be able to bear off a bit earlier than we and set the chute from mark 2 to 3. Still, we decided to take the low lane, since we wouldn't be able to plane under chute and were doing a respectable 7kn. At the mark, we bore off, and the chute flew up. We headed straight for the next mark, which was fairly deep (~140 deg. apparent), while Sticky again went high and hot. They were gaining on us. However, as we closed in on the mark, they had to come down by going deep and fell in behind us several boat lengths. Good. We played the douse and rounding close (the foredeck was hot), and executed perfectly. Coming up hard on port tack at the mark, we left Sticky behind, which had waited just a tad too long to douse.
Heading up towards the next mark, the starting line was in the way (can't be crossed during a race). We tacked and passed above, while Sticky went below the line. A quick tack back, and we were on the layline to the mark. As we rounded it, Sticky was well behind us, having lost big due to their decision to stay below the starting line.
The chute went up, and off we went towards the final mark rounding to port. We approached on starboard pole, therefore had to gybe as close to the mark as possible to minimize distance sailed the wrong direction, then douse, raise the jib, and come up hard. The crew did an amazing job! Flawless execution, and before we knew it, we were close hauled and heading for the finish. One last tack close to the line, and we were over it. What a great race by everyone.
Crew: Erick, Doyle, Tiffany, Mark, Lance, Manuela, Chris Best Moment: Catching Up Things to Learn: Sail trim (backstay for the headsail), light/variable air starting Distance: 4 miles
A fair day greeted us for this latest chowder race. We were early out on the bay to make sure that the new crew had a (short) chance to get to know the boat. The line was set by 12:40, and we made our way towards it, since the wind was bouncing around between 0.5kn and 2kn. Not exactly the conditions to move fast. Pretty much the whole fleet decided to park pretty close to the starting line, which made things very crowded. At 4min to the start, we were heading away from the line, at 3 we turned around and headed towards it. The wind picked up, and we knew we'd be early. A quick 360 in a tight spot seemed to solve that issue. As we came back around, another 3 boats were converging with us. Some 'leeward', 'starboard', etc., calling ensued, and finally everything sorted itself out. However, we the wind was building, and we went over early with a minute to go.
Quick, bear off, go around the pin, gybe, tack, and back towards the line. Looking good. Then, the wind, dead. We are drifting. Boatspeed and iniertia should carry us over the line. No. The current is pushing us not only back, but sigh, also into the pin. We get to do another around the pin, and restart. Now, the wind is quickly filling in 5,6,8kn. When we get over the line, we are dead last, with the first boat already half way down the course. Time to catch up.
We are accellerating, and things are looking up. We are pointing nearly directly at the mark ('D'). Yet, we seem slow, and our apparent wind angle (AWA) is 30, instead of the 27 that we typically can make. What's going on? The headsail seems to be trimmed right, the same for the main. Then Mark realizes that we had taken the backstay off completely to facilitate the light-air gbyes (our full-batten large roach main projects behind the backstay, and gets stuck there in winds of less than 3kn during a gybe). As we began to tighten the backstay, boat pointing ability and speed immediately improved. Basically, we were flattening the #1, and moving the draft a bit aft. Two (2) inches of backstay made a 3 degree pointing and 0.4kn boatspeed difference. This illustrates the point that the headsail trimmer should be the primary controller of the backstay in order to shape the headsail, while the main trimmer uses the checkstays etc., to shape the main.
After that point, the boat was doing well, and we were quickly gaining ground on the fleet. By the time we got to the mark, we had passed half the fleet. On the return leg we passed two more boats before getting into a short duel with a Laser 28, which decided to take us up (we were trying to pass to windward). We used our size and speed to blanket and pass them. In a mixed fleet like this, that was probably the right choice (if a bit hard on them). On the other hand, passing them on the low side, especially if they had been comparable to Argonaut, would probably have been a wiser choice.
We passed the laser, and were now catching up quickly with the leader, a Meritt 25. These guys were sailing quite defensively, and since we didn't catch them until we reached the harbour, we crossed the finish a few seconds behind them.
Racing in a mixed fleet like this has its advantages (a la being able to roll over a smaller boat), and its distinct disadvantages, in that maneuvering in close quarters (as Manu had to do at the finish) gets rather tricky, since the boat speeds differ so greatly, and we are difficult to slow down.
12/23 Chowder Race (5th of 10) Crew: Erick, Doyle, Jay, Dave (from LA), Manuela, Chris Best Moment: Near perfect downwind start, near perfect race Things to Learn: Short handed chute takedown Distance: 8miles
As is typical in the winter, the winds were light, but predominantly out of the East. Due to the location of the course relative to the pier, this meant a downwind start. With about 4 min. to go, we headed away from the line directly opposite the direction we wanted to come back in on. At just about 2min, we turned around, and raised the chute. Yet, we didn't trim it yet, nor dropped the jib, since we'd have been early. We were approaching the line just as the right moment, and with maybe 15sec to go, we trimmed the chute, dropped the jib,and off we went. Within a few boatlengths off the line, we were in the lead. Well done.
As we approached the leeward mark ('D'), we raised the jib and doused early, since we were short handed and wanted to make sure that all would go well. A great rounding and the beat to 'C' followed. We rounded 'C', raised, and were flying back towards 'D'. By now we were waaay ahead of the fleet. Fun. As we approached 'D' for the final rounding, we needed to raise the jib and douse again. Yet, the jib was on the wrong side with respect to the pole. Instead of moving the jib over, we decided to just drop the pole, fly the chute free, raise the jib, and then douse. That was the theory. The problem was that without the pole, the chute was quite difficult to manhandle down, and it repeatedly got away from us. Not being able to get the chute down, we continued past the leeward mark. By the time we finally wrestled the thing down, we were well past the mark. We turned around, passed the mark, and had to dodge between a number of boats that by now had caught up with us. A couple of tense moments. The beat back to the finish was uneventful; we came over the line 1st, followed a minute or two later by a Meritt 25. That gave us 5th.
How a simple boat-handling mistake can take a near perfect race and assured win into an ok race. That is why North Sails University talks about the 'racing pyramid': Boat Handling is the foundation upon all else builds. Next comes sail trim, since without trim, you can't go fast. Last come tactics, which, all else being equal, decides the race.
11/10 & 12/8 BYC Midwinters #2 (5 out of 5) Crew: Erick, Badru, Doug, Jay, Frank, Jon, Manu, Chris Best Moment: Things to Learn: Upwind trim Distance: 27.5 miles
I must admit that I don't totally remember what went on in these races, so I'll have to keep it short. During the first race we were messed up, and started late, and played catch-up ever after. The 2nd race went much better, except for being parked at the first windward mark in a real windhole, and drifting away from the wind.
In general, though, the key issue that seems to hold us back in these races is the upwind performance. I believe that most of that revolves around trim issues. We are just too slow. Starboard tack is faster than port tack, at least if we are to believe the knotmeter. However, starboard also does feel faster.
In the next race, let's doublecheck that through the GPS, and see if there is a discernable difference between the two. Most likely the rigging is at fault in that case. Since we are having the standing rigging replaced shortly (starting on 1/14/02), we'll hopefully have that resolved when we return for Midwinter #4.
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