Author: Rob DeWitte

New crew member Bert (Tuesday Mainsail trimmer) is keen to start the season and shared this article on how to optimize mainsail twist in different conditions.  A great guide that I’ve added to our Sail Trim page on the website….thanks Bert!

 

The season is just around the corner and although the weather is lousy right now, we will soon be enjoying beautiful evenings on the bay.  And to help make them even more enjoyable, Alvin and I went to the seminar this evening to collect some tips on how to get a really good start to the race.

There was a lot of stuff covered, but these few tips and reminders were the big things:

Reminders:

1. Have a strategy before the start: in other words, decide which side of the bay we want to sail on.  Some specific tips:
   1. Don’t cross the bay twice — the shore usually has more wind and there is a current from west to east down the middle of the bay
   2. Heading upwind to the west, the boat that goes closest to the wall gets an advantage. Note: as you approach the wall, there is often a knock, but persist, because there is usually a lift just after it.
2. Figure out which end of the line is favoured (more upwind), and try to take advantage of that…but:
   1. Clear air and room to tack are more important
   2. Cross the line at full speed

Tips:

1. Get some separation from the pack
   1. When other boats are arriving early, stay away from them
   2. When everyone is going for the favoured end of the line, the middle is often a good choice
   3. Don’t be afraid to point lower and go faster than the others
2. Learn to slow down and accelerate
   1. Rather than timing the approach to the line by sailing away and back at full speed, learn to sail at half speed and how to accelerate. This will give more flexibility in timing the line and choosing a good spot
   2. If you ease the mainsail, the boat will slow down and bear away from the wind
   3. If you ease the genoa, the boat will slow down and point higher in the wind
3. Try a “Pick start”
   1. Stay about 5 boatllengths below the line and sail back and forth at half speed
   2. In the last 90 seconds, be heading on port tack along this line
   3. Pick a rival approaching on the other tack
   4. Aim for their ‘foretriangle’ (ie: between the mast and the bow), and accelerate
   5. Tack near them to trap them in your lee bow (note, we have to tack quickly and get back to speed quickly for this to work)

And of all of this, I think the bit about learning to sail slowly and accelerate quickly is worth practicing.

Can’t wait!

Hi All,

I just got our new PHRF certificate (at this link), and we have been adjusted from 70 to 73.  It’s a small adjustment (3 seconds per mile), but in the right direction.  And, it is a slightly slower rating than the J-35s that we compete with (Battlewagon, Top Gun, Remarkable) and Eclipse, all of whom are rated 72.  So, if we beat any of them across the line, we win.  Last year there were a couple cases where we beat one of them over the line (by a wee bit), but after correcting for PHRF handicap, they beat us.

No more!

Three cheers for Squirrel — and thank him next time we hoist the spinnaker in 15+knots of wind.  We now have padeyes just aft of the shrouds supporting a big turning block to route the guy down to deck further forward.  This will flatten the spinnaker to de-power it in high winds so that we can hoist with confidence when the wind is howling.

(Tools and coffee run by Gadget, moral support and cleanup by StarPort).

Here are a few shots of the project and finished product:

  

I know it felt like we had improved a lot last year compared to the year before.  We all know that the big genoa and the symmetrical spinnaker made a big difference — it was obvious because rather than finishing consistently last, we were in the hunt on any given race.

But now we have a number that measures how much better.  In my previous post, I showed that in 2016 we were rated 70 and our performance was equivalent to 70.  What were the figures for 2015?  Was it a marginal improvement in our performance or a big one?

Actually, shockingly big.  In 2015 we were rated 77, and performed 58 points worse:  at a rating of 135!  So our performance averaged 65 seconds per mile faster in 2016 compared to 2015.  Fantastic!

Digging a little deeper into the stats for 2016, I noticed a few more things:

1. In the first half of the year we were less consistent (Stdev=19) than the second half of the year (Stdev=14).  I’m sure a lot of this had to do with experience, but also…
2. In the first half of the season, our worst outings were in high wind.  After we learned how to tune the shrouds and had the #3 re-cut (or used the old #3, which was flatter), we no longer under-performed our rating on windy nights.
3. The only race in the second half of the season where we underperformed was August 18th, a night with a lot of wind shifts and a series of strategic and tactical errors: http://perspectiveracing.ca/2016/08/19/shifty-strategy/.  If we drop this race from the calculation of consistency, our Stdev=5.  Very consistent.
4. And comparing our average rating for the first half of the season (78) with the second half (70), we not only got more consistent, we also got faster.

How about Tuesday vs Thursday?  Nearly identical:  Tuesday= 70, Thursday=71.

What a great season!

 

I’ve been corresponding about our PHRF rating, and learned that each season, the PHRF-people do something called a race analysis where they evaluate each boat’s performance relative to their PHRF rating as compared to the boats they compete with.  Here’s the analysis for us for last season (the comments on the right are my own).

 

				PHRF					Performance
Year	Event	Name	Class	Rating	Relative Performance	Races	Dev	Diff	vs Rating	Consistency
2016	THURS	SABOTAGE	VIPER 830	60	-11	9	25.2	-71	Well Above	Variable
2016	THURS	PERSPECTIVE	J-100	70	70	8	16.9	0	At Rating	Fairly Consistent
2016	THURS	TAKE NOTICE AGAIN	X-Yachts 1 Ton	63	64	6	20.4	1	Near Rating	Mostly Consistent
2016	THURS	ECLIPSE	C&C 41	72	74	5	15.7	2	Near Rating	Fairly Consistent
2016	THURS	BATTLEWAGON	J-35	72	80	11	36.3	8	Underperformed	Highly Variable
2016	TUES	TOP GUN	J-35	72	41	12	21.2	-31	Well Above	Mostly Consistent
2016	TUES	SANDPIPER	BENETEAU 1ST 36.7	78	67	9	10.4	-11	Outperformed	Consistent
2016	TUES	PERSPECTIVE	J-100	70	70	7	17.7	0	At Rating	Fairly Consistent
2016	TUES	ECLIPSE	C&C 41	72	74	6	4.4	2	Near Rating	Very Consistent
2016	TUES	BATTLEWAGON	J-35	72	105	13	38.1	33	Well below Rating	Highly Variable

What you can see is that we essentially performed at rating, and were fairly consistent relative to our competitors.  Not surprisingly, Sabotage and Top Gun performed well above their ratings (ie: faster).  And clearly Sandpiper outperformed their rating.

This is a good new/bad news story.  On the positive side: it means that we are sailing PERSPECTIVE as well as the average crew among our competitors!  That’s a big step forward from the past, and something to celebrate.  We’re also fairly consistent (as a comparison, Coyote’s deviation is 11-15, just slightly more consistent than us).  Next step:  outperform like Sandpiper did in 2016!

The flip side that I think it is unlikely that we’ll get an adjustment in our rating this year (but I haven’t given up).

Couldn’t resist a little bit of fun…let’s do more of this in 2017!

 

You hop in the car, glance at the clock. “Do I have my water bottle?  Am I on snack duty?”  Traffic.  Again.  Check the clock.  OK, it’s moving. Glance at the lake.  Is there wind?  Yes!

Park.  Through the gate. Your senses awake.  You can feel the sun, sense the breeze. A spring forms in your step – whitecaps! Butterflies!

Climb on board. Greetings. Bag below. Uncover the main. Lower the jib sock.  Cockpit bags.  Battery switch. Start the engine. Cast off.  Motor out.  Fenders away. Hoist the main. Bear off.  Kill the engine.  Ahhhh!

Do you miss it?  I do.  This is the magical moment as we surge away from the clamour ashore.

Open the jib.  Now the wind grabs us!  Set the genoa cars, tweak the halyards. Put in a few tacks to shake out the cobwebs.  Check in at the committee boat and start planning the race while we dance with the elephants in the pre-start.

By now we are chatty, enjoying the camaraderie.  A meeting of old friends, reluctant to focus on the race but no longer strapped into the cares ashore.  It’s a perfect transition; an overture to the drama about to unfold.

Start the clock, unfurl the jib. It’s all focus now as we become one smooth unit.  Timing.  Tacking. Positioning. Going for the line. “Harden up!  Up & out, lads!”  A hundred decisions in five minutes and now we tweak and adjust, look for wind, manage gusts and judge our next move.

A few tacks and it’s time to set the bag.  One more and we are on the layline.  Set the pole.  Pre-feed the guy, and – all together now — “CLEAT THE GUY!”  Hoist!  Made!  Sheet on!  Whoosh!

(It’s not always whoosh, but we have this maneuver nailed.  Jibing?  We’ll nail that next season).

Time to douse.  Open the jib.  Drop the pole. Haul the guy. Down the hole. Blow the sheets. Pay out the halyard. Round the mark.  Harden up!

When we cross the line, we are younger than when we arrived at the marina.  Our lungs are full of fresh air.  Our minds are clear of to-do-list-items.  We notice the beauty of the glowing sky in the west.  This is a contagious sensation.  As addictive as any drug.  And all the more powerful because it’s done together.

Calmly now we furl the jib, flake the main, cover them both, stow the cockpit bags & deploy the fenders.  Like a well-oiled machine we slip into the slip, secure the lines and still the engine.

Like brothers, we share a moment and toast another glorious night on the bay.  “CLEAT THE GUY!”

Thanks for a great season guys!

 

Well, would you look at that!

On the left, from the summer series joint with Royal Hamilton: third place on Tuesdays and second place overall!  (Battlewagon took first overall, even though we beat them most of the time we both showed up!)

And on the right, for the BSBC participants:  second place for Spring, Summer and Fall.  (Yep, behind Battlewagon).  I think we know our goal for next season:  Yellow, my favorite colour!

Oh, and er, speaking of yellow….we did lose a tie-break for third place with Big Yellow for Summer Thursdays.  That one sticks in my craw a bit.  Game on!