Author: Rob DeWitte

Ahhh, this was the very best kind of sailing.  Warm summer air, glowing sunset after a bright sky, solid steady breeze with just enough gusts to keep tweaking…and half a dozen great guys enjoying it together.  The race committee set a pretty long race for this time of year, so we got to savour the sunset as we crossed the finish line, and then sushi at the dock from our very own samurai, Lazy-Sheet-oh-san.

Since “Chef”, our resident gourmand was away (yes, Neil, we have re-christened you :-)), Mark was out to make his, er, mark, in the culinary department, and we all got to enjoy his effort, complete with wasabi and soy sauce.

Oh, wait, this a race report, not a snack report…I better get back to business!  But of course, it is simpler if you just watch the video, no? (Or if you prefer the subtitles, it would go something like this:  start, tack, tack ,dip, tack, tack, hoist, jibe, jibe, jibe, douse, tack, tack, tack, tack, tack, tack, hoist, jibe, finish, woohoo!)

But to describe a race as a set of maneuvers would be to sell short the art of sculpting lines through the bay in a choreography of elephants.  And that we cannot allow, so out with the words!

…ahem…here’s, er, how it, umm, went?

Kiwi was back on board, with his freshly broken hand all swollen and bandaged, and a new hair cut.  I have to admit I didn’t recognize him, because I never knew he had ears.  So, being all lame and shorn, he served as tactician on board, and that was a great asset during the start, since we found ourselves nearly climbing aboard Eclipse’s stern end.  Lot’s of maneuvers got us great boat speed, crossing the line as the gun went off, with freedom to tack — textbook!.  Finding ourselves with 41 foot Eclipse-and-its-acre-and-a-half-of-sail-area in our lee bow, we sensibly opted to tack quickly, enjoying clear air to the windward mark as we zigged while everyone else zagged.  At the first crossing with Sandpiper, they were well ahead.  At the second crossing we had made ground and had to dip them.  By the windward mark, we were just behind Eclipse and Sandpiper, and managed an inside overlap on Battlewagon.

A gorgeous hoist saw us pull away from Battlewagon, and we took some delight in seeing their spinnaker hoisted sideways — especially as we made that same error last summer (we call it the “Red Green Maneuver”….but don’t mention it to Nonsuch — it’s still a tender topic for him).  Could we reel in Sandpiper and Eclipse? Yes, almost, and no.  But it was so much fun!  We sailed a hotter course and practiced “heating and burning” down the course.  Basically this means you steer the boat upwind, ease the guy to shift the pole foreward and trim in the spinnaker sheet, which gains a lot of speed, and then you undo it all a minute later to head further downwind, trading speed for VMG.  When the speed gets too low, you repeat.  It’s fun, and it really works.  In fact, just five degrees difference in steering angle can make 10% difference in speed.  We got it so that we were moving all these things in sync, and we gained on Sandpiper — caught right up to them in fact — and closed the gap on Eclipse significantly.  And Battlewagon fell behind.

But I think we fiddled around a bit too much on this run.  It was irresistible though!  We pulled up right alongside Sandpiper and had to decide whether to stay in their bad air, or get around behind them to steal their air.  We went for the latter in one really cool move, but then we pressed on away from them, swerving among traffic and putting in two extra jibes.  It was great fun, but by the leeward mark, we had let them slip away.  Maybe next time we’ll get on their air and stay put so they can’t get away and we have the inside lane for our douse.

(Oh, and, um, er, about our douse tonight, well, just blame the guy on the helm for waiting too late, forgetting entirely about the pole and saying “blow the halyard” when he meant “ease the halyard”.  Yep, the sail got wet, and we rounded with the pole still up.  Thanks to great reactions from Gadget, who bounded like a greyhound to the pointy end to haul the spinnaker on board, we didn’t really lose much time or distance at all).

Good thing there was another hoist — a great chance to dry the spinnaker!  Up and down the track we enjoyed clean air, just a tad lighter so we could power up the mainsail fully and chase Eclipse (in vain) to the finish line.  The bronze sun shone proudly upon the lads of the Tuesday table as they headed toward their dockside feast, with hopes of another blue flag for their efforts.

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Oh, and some statistics!  Let’s not forget about the statistics!  (How’s the pointing going, you ask?  Why thanks for asking! I’m glad you brought it up!)

Tacking angles on the first upwind leg were in the 95 degree range.  Compare that to 100+ when using the #1 in higher wind in the past.  But, take note: on the second upwind leg, when we could power up the main more fully, the tacking angle dropped to about 88 degrees on average (we even had two tacks at 78 degrees).  That means two important things:

• the new shroud settings are helping us sail less distance
• powering up the mainsail is critical to pointing. Next time, I want to try easing the headsail in these conditions so that we can keep the mainsail powered up.  It will probably look like we aren’t pointing as high, but I think less leeway will more than compensate.

Jibe angles — yes, I have jibe angles!  We had four jibes with four different jibe angles:  68, 46, 50, and 23 degrees.  What to make of that?  It depends on how hot we were sailing before the jibe.  In the first case, we were sailing 146 degrees off the true wind before and after the jibe.  In the last case, we were sailing very deep, just 168 degrees off the true wind before jibing.  This is just a start of the downwind data collection…more to come.

Did you notice the wind direction above?  Yes, it blew from nearly every direction tonight.  And each time it shifted, we sensed it, reacted quickly and took advantage of it.  Even better, we anticipated the first major shift before the start and planned our race accordingly.   The combination got us ahead of Battlewagon and into a duel to the finish with Eclipse.  Great fun!

And for you students of the downwind leg, this is the race to watch.  I captured an extra-long segment of us adjusting and trimming the spinnaker in response to changing conditions.  Not a master class by any stretch, but very instructional and worth reviewing.

Here’s how it went:

Well, before the play by play, we have to discuss the strategy.  Wind was from the east, forecasted to veer significantly, we just didn’t know when it would happen.  So, we recognized that the key thing was to not get caught on the Burlington side of the rhumb line when it hit (otherwise we’d have have to sail a long distance on a headed tack to get back to the layline).  So we knew we wanted to sail to the Hamilton shore, and avoid painting the corners.

OK, so back to the play by play….

With that strategy in mind, we lined up for a port tack start, and timed it reasonably well.  Starboard was a bit lifted, so we slid underneath our fleet, but maintained clear air all the way.  Progress was fine, but when we tacked back toward the middle of the course, our fleet had gotten in front of us.  I have to believe they just found better wind out there.

Staying committed to our strategy we tacked out toward Hamilton again, and then back toward the middle well before the layline.  This is where we missed an opportunity. We were in a lull, and there was a line of better wind ahead, but we didn’t push through  to it.  As soon as we tacked, we started to feel a knock, and that line of better wind was coming toward us.  It wasn’t better wind, it was the shift we had been looking for!

[Note to the reader:  better wind that forms a very straight line indicates a wind shift coming on suddenly!]

So, we responded perfectly, and tacked back onto the lift, and now we were in a perfect position to saw a corner off the course to windward, drive for the mark on a reach, and make up some ground on our fleet.  The raceQs track shows just how painful this was.  If only we had pushed a few boatlengths further before tacking, we would have grabbed that lift much earlier and saved a lot of distance!

Hoist was textbook, right at the mark, but before I say more, we need to come back to the strategy.  We had planned to decide whether to do a jibe set or a bear away set based on whether the wind shift happened before rounding or not.  But it came after the spinnaker bag was set and connected, so we opted to stick with our bear-away set, and then jibe quickly after the hoist.

Bingo!

This turned out to be marvelous for several reasons:

1. After the jibe we were flying full steam on a course straight to the leeward mark
2. Boats that sailed further toward Burlington before jibing fell into a giant hole. (Bye bye Battlewagon)
3. We didn’t know it, but there was another 180 degree shift coming, and the boats that did a jibe-set to Hamilton got caught having to douse early and sail high to the mark.

So, we have to admit that strategy only works well when lady luck is smiling!

And now the spinnaker work with the big symmetric kite really made all the difference in the world.  By continuing to adjust the pole position, we could keep the boat moving as the wind direction shifted around.  Once it became clear that the shift was persistent we jibed and filled again, shooting for the mark.  This is also crystal clear on the RaceQs track.  During a lull while the wind backed to the east once more, we brought the pole back and sailed deep.  When it shifted north, we put the pole forward and kept charging to the line.

This was great fun and is worth watching again and again and again.  Not thrilling, but very educational.  It’s not often you can work so many lessons into twenty minutes of sailing.  (And we overtook Eclipse in the process, so that we rounded the leeward mark ahead of them and Battlewagon).

But now a series of mistakes that cost us against Eclipse.  As we were a big short-handed, and there was traffic converging at the leeward mark, I opted to douse early.  As a result, we lost speed in the approach, arrived simultaneously with the traffic, had to give them mark room and then had to sail around them.  In the meantime, Eclipse made up ground on us, round the mark tightly and were behind and to windward of us in the final leg to the finish line.  I let them get into a controlling position.

Mistake #1:  we should have kept the kite up much longer — the lads were so quick at getting it down, that we could have carried beyond the traffic, and rounded tightly, leaving Eclipse to round after the traffic and chase us in our dirty air

Mistake #2:  there was an opportunity to put in an early pair of quick tacks to get above Eclipse and sail straight to the committee boat.

Mistake #3:  if I could have pinched early enough, I might have gotten onto Eclipse’s lee bow and gained control from there.

But since I made all mistakes, we ended up in a painful finish where we had to tack twice to finish just behind Eclipse.

Lots of lessons tonight!

What do you do when the committee boat comes back to the marina waving a red checkered flag, saying “race cancelled, too much wind”?

Go sailing, of course!

Yep, the boys in blue went for a joy ride in big wind tonight to test our mettle, take pictures of the recut #3 jib, and practice reefing the main, and shaking out the reef.

The sky was bright, the air was warm, and we all settled in to enjoy a scream around the bay without the pressure of a race.  I think everyone was relaxed when we all knew the spinnaker would stay down below.

How bad was the wind?  Actually, no problem at all.  When we first set out, the lulls were around 20 knots and the gusts were ferocious (30?  more?), but with a reefed mainsail, very tight shrouds & full backstay (to minimize forestay sag), and our flatter #3, we were able to sail close-hauled without incident.  Sure, we had some water over the rail in the gusts, but surprisingly little.  And in the lulls, there was no weather helm!  This is the first time I’ve ever really experienced the boat so balanced in big wind, so it is a sort of breakthrough.  (But the story on the cut of the jib is not done yet, see below).

There were only a few boats out on the bay:  Pandora came out with us, and later we saw Top Gun, Sandpiper and Don’t Panic (the little viper).  Don’t Panic even flew their spinnaker – I bet they were nearly airborne!

As the wind eased, we shook out the reef, and tested the balance again.  Weather helm was back, but not as bad as it has been in the past.  Progress!

Back at the dock, our resident gourmand broke out home made Vietnamese fresh rolls, with three different sauces: peanut, spicey and sweet.  And while we were dining, the setting sun lit up some little puffy clouds in bright orange, like dragon fire.  Across the bay, a full moon began its ascent.  It’s great to be alive!

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Now, about the #3 jib.  Some things are improved, some are not.  In this picture you can see that the shape up top is not good, and this was even with the jib cars all the way forward.  I’d like to see it flatter up top, with all the draft stripes having the same depth even with the jib cars a bit aft.  Back to the sailmaker for another trim, I guess.  Stay tuned.  (Oh, but admire the minimal forestay sag — I’m sure that’s why we were so well balanced!)

No, this report is not named after all the guys named Mark in the crew.  Besides, on Thursdays we only have one Mark.  (Tuesdays we have three — go figure!).  Instead this is named for a very important rule in the Racing Rules of Sailing.  Tonight we put that rule to very good use, overtaking both Battlewagon and Big Yellow in one bold move (and a very tight squeeze).  We even earned a protest flag and few F-bombs from our friends (?) aboard Big Yellow, but I’m confident that will come to naught.

For those of you interested in the technicalities, I’ve pasted the rule, and our rebuttal below, but the video is worth more words than I can type or paste, so let’s start with that!

It was a fun race, but very unusual.  After the first few fleets got away, the wind shifted about 90 degrees to the south so that it became a drag race on beam reaches to and from the mark.  That made for very crowded roundings, and a lot of decisions to make as we passed a lot of boats.  So, the spinnaker stayed down and we focused on speed and some interesting decisions at each of the roundings.  At the first mark, the decision to squeeze in was rewarded handily, but at the second rounding, I think we would have been better to sail up and above all the boats after rounding.  Clearer air would have been rewarded, but instead we wallowed in dirty air, losing ground to our competitors.

All that added up to a photo finish with Battlewagon, and they got us by a nose.

But never mind all that — the thrill was at the windward mark.  We had a nice line to the mark to leeward of Battelwagon and Big Yellow.  As we approached the mark, they were approaching also, from a position to windward, sloping down to the mark.  Big Yellow was on a course to close the door on us, but the rule says that if the leeward boat has overlap three boat-lengths from the mark, the windward boat has to give “Mark Room” — enough room for the leeward boat to round the mark.  I put all our eggs in that basket — there really was no room to maneuver as the boats ahead who had just rounded were now heading straight back toward us, just to leeward.  Things got tighter and tighter until I hollered “Overlap” at Big Yellow and they made room for us.  But oh, were they unhappy, and they let us know it.  They protested, claiming we had no overlap, and tried to engage us in an uncivil, passionate debate.  But we kept our cool, kept quiet, and stayed focused on sailing our boat.  Make sure you have the volume up on the video, so you can catch all the spice.

Once we got away from the traffic, we were grinning like cheshire cats!

Unfortunately, Big Yellow did eventually overtake us, giving them another chance to ‘offer us some advice’.  They were trying to goad us into doing a penalty turn to exonerate ourselves.  It was another invitation to get distracted, to which I merely responded that we could discuss it on Monday (ie: at the protest hearing). Fun!

So, here’s the rule:

18.2 Giving Mark-Room

(a) When boats are overlapped the outside boat shall give the inside boat mark-room, unless rule 18.2(b) applies.

(b) If boats are overlapped when the first of them reaches the zone, the outside boat at that moment shall thereafter give the inside boat mark-room. If a boat is clear ahead when she reaches the zone, the boat clear astern at that moment shall thereafter give her mark-room.

(c) When a boat is required to give mark-room by rule 18.2(b), (1) she shall continue to do so even if later an overlap is broken or a new overlap begins; (2) if she becomes overlapped inside the boat entitled to mark-room, she shall also give that boat room to sail her proper course while they remain overlapped. However, if the boat entitled to mark-room passes head to wind or leaves the zone, rule 18.2(b) ceases to apply.

(d) If there is reasonable doubt that a boat obtained or broke an overlap in time, it shall be presumed that she did not.

(e) If a boat obtained an inside overlap from clear astern or by tacking to windward of the other boat and, from the time the overlap began, the outside boat has been unable to give markroom, she is not required to give it.

So, this protest hearing (if there is one), will depend on whether the protest committee is convinced we had overlap when Big Yellow got to within three boat-lengths of the mark.  If they are not convinced (ie: think we got it later than that), then Big Yellow was not required to give Mark Room.  Hence, I have prepared my rebuttal (good thing the camera was on)!

The Rebuttal

(All times below refer to the accompanying video)

1:24.  PERSPECTIVE established overlap ON Take Notice Again at first rounding of windward mark, and maintained overlap through to the mark.  At this time we are six boat-lengths from the mark.

1:31.  It became clear that Take Notice Again would need to alter course to provide “Mark Room” (4.5 boat lengths from the mark)

1:34.  Hailed “Overlap”, with 4+ boat lengths to the mark

1:45 Take Notice Again provided “Mark Room” with more than one boat length to the mark (Battlewagon has begun to round, ahead of Chinook, which is clear ahead of Take Notice Again)

1:53. PERSPECTIVE rounds the mark, 29s after establishing overlap on Take Notice Again

A comment on distances and times.  We were travelling approximately 4 knots, or 2 m/s, which means we travelled a boat length (10m for PERSPECTIVE, 12m for Take Notice Again) every five seconds.

Great to be back on the water tonight!

After a couple weeks away myself, some holidays that were staggered amongst us, and Lazy Sheet’s rehabilitation, tonight’s drifter was like a reunion.  We were just missing Kiwi nursing a broken bone in his hand.  Even Skootch and Stitches stopped in for the apres-sail, after watching the finish from shore.

And great to welcome David Harpur for his first race — come again David, when there is actually some wind!

No footage tonight, so stick with me — this light wind race was actually a very close-run affair and the excitement came from many reversals that happened in slow motion.  RaceQs shows it all well, and you can see the number of times we and Sandpiper changed the lead during the race.  In the end, they got us by thirty seconds or so, while we got Battlewagon by about a minute.  Top Gun took the gun as usual.

Our start was rusty, and I tried something new, trying to avoid getting sandwiched at the committee boat.  As a result, timing was off, and we crossed the line about 20 seconds late, to leeward of the fleet.  Battlewagon had a perfect start, and Sandpiper was ahead and to windward of us.  Our first starboard tack was twitchy, suffering from a lot of bad air,  but once we came about, we caught clear air, trimmed the sails and out-pointed Sandpiper so that we crossed just astern of them as we approached the layline.

Or at least we thought it was the layline.  Nope!  The entire fleet was fooled by the light air at the windward mark, and we all had to put in an extra tack to get up onto the real layline.  If only, if only, if only we had held our port tack to the true layline, we would have gotten ahead of Sandpiper.  But the extra tack (and a tangle with the foreguy) cost us several boatlengths to the windward mark.  We rounded last.

A flawless hoist, bear-away set and we took the road less traveled, heading toward Burlington in light clear air, while the rest of our fleet sailed deeper toward Hamilton.  We could see Top Gun, Sandpiper and Battlewagon slowing down with limp Spinnakers, and in our hearts we could already hear the gun (an adage about counting chickens springs to mind).

When to jibe?  When to jibe?  Where’s the committee boat?  Okay, we see it it!  Is now the time to jibe?  I think so. Let’s go.

Jibe Ho!  (oh no)  Much too early.  We’re slowing down, forced to sail higher while the rest of the fleet begins to accelerate toward the mark.  Battlewagon, now trailing, jibes over to give us chase.

There is something to learn here — what is the best angle to sail in such light wind?  what is our jibe angle?  Without a downwind polar table, it was a guessing game and we guessed wrong.

Decision time:  can we catch Sandpiper, or should we jibe to cover Battlewagon?  Lots of discussion!  Decision:  cover Battlewagon.  They are ahead of us in the summer series, but we are close on their heels.  Sandpiper has missed many races and we are well ahead of them in the series.  Let’s make sure we gain a point on Battlewagon, instead of risking it to try to beat Sandpiper.

Jibe ho!  Well done (even though the spinnaker wants to hang limp like a shy teenager at a highschool dance).  Battlewagon is well astern, and now we are watching them like hawks, ready to jibe when they make their move, to stay between them and the finish line.  And while we are doing this, we are gaining on Sandpiper once again.

Battlewagon makes their move, and we jibe again.  Not pretty, but effective.  We’ve closed the door on them, and they are well astern.  Heading for the pin end of the line to keep up the boat speed.  All eyes on Sandpiper.  Can we catch them?  A nice puff of air, or a slightly hotter angle and we might have done it.  But Nonsuch kept his discipline and we made sure to cross the line well ahead of Battlewagon, letting Sandpiper slip away.  The duel between us and Battlewagon will come down to PHRF handicap, since we owe them time.  I’m optimistic, but we won’t know until the results come in.