Tag: Old Race Reports

There’s a chapter in Walker’s book on advanced racing tactics that talks about the perils of greed.  Tonight, yours truly learned the hard way that Walker was indeed correct!

It was a very chilly night on the bay.  Temperature was 11C, feels like 8 on land, but with a cold Northeasterly breeze off the frigid lake it was much colder out there.  Add a layer of fog spreading out overhead, and it was spectacularly cold, especially upwind!  Before the race, the cold was seeping into to me despite thermal underwear, but once we were in our start sequence, that all faded away, and we were warmed inside by the action and the fun.

The breeze was really perfect.  An almost steady 8-10 knots, a bit lighter near mark 8 (close in to the Burlington shore), so there was plenty of power, but no stressful moments.  And that was a relief since we were a little short handed with both David and Squirrel doing double duty on our first Thursday race of the season.  These guys flung away their cobwebs quickly though — just compare hoist 1 and hoist 2 in the highlight real and you will see the crew leap up the learning curve!

And our old friends on Big Yellow were out to play today.  So what did I do?  You bet, we tangled with them!  And I got greedy at the leeward mark.  And it didn’t pay.  And after the race, Skootch pointed out that I missed an opportunity on the approach to that mark — we would have been in our rights to push them up and cross their bow to claim the inside lane to the leeward mark.  In summary, a missed opportunity and my greedy blunder cost us about 15 boat lengths — probably enough to claim second.  Instead we’ll settle for a third.

But enough yammering….let’s have the play by play!

Today the start was well timed.  The rest of our fleet went for the pin end, and we took the line near the boat.  It seemed like we were first across the line, and crossed well ahead of Eclipse who tacked to port early. Upwind we found a nice mode after a bit of sail trim adjustments to get speed, but tacked a bit early for the layline.  An easy correction and we headed to the mark behind Top Gun, Eclipse and Take Notice Again.  But not far astern at all.  Our first hoist was fair, but we took our time to make sure everything was set.  We almost immediately put in a jibe and had a great run down to the leeward mark, overtaking Eclipse and making up ground on Big Yellow and Top Gun.

Approaching the mark, we converged with Big Yellow.  We were both on port and PERSPECTIVE was the leeward boat, sailing a hotter angle.  I might have been able to push them up and pull clear ahead before the 3-boat-length circle around the leeward mark, but I didn’t recognize the opportunity until Skootch pointed it out later.  Instead, since I wanted to give us all lots of time to douse, I gave Big Yellow the inside lane.  The douse was no problem, but we lost a lot of speed as Big Yellow’s enormous wind shadow smothered us.

And then I got greedy.

“Stall, David, stall”, I whispered, and we let our sails go slack, slowing the boat as Big Yellow passed.

“Calvin, let me know when I am clear of their stern”, I whispered to the bow.

Once clear I began the turn, planning to sneak into the gap that I expected Big Yellow to leave as they rounded the mark.  I had this picture in my head of slipping in to windward of them, and stealing their air. But they were onto us, and shut the door at the last second.

I had no choice, but to bear up, miss the mark, and put in a 360 to get around it.  By then, Big Yellow was 10 boatlengths ahead and flying away at full speed.  We never caught them.

Greed…one of the seven deadly sins.  Starting to sink in. 🙂

Never mind!  We just had to try 😉

Back up and back down we got more chances to practice our tacking, our trim, our hoist, our jibes, and we made up some of the distance, but not enough to overtake Big Yellow, even though they owe us 10 seconds per mile.

But we all agreed — just add 15 more degrees centigrade and a nice sunset, and it would have been a perfect night on the water!

Hat’s off to Skootch, Squirrel and Lifeline for braving the elements.

 

Nearly indeed!

It all came down to the finish.  We got a knock heading for the pin end of the line.  TopGun and Sandpiper were to windward.  Without that knock it would have been a photo finish for all three boats, but as it happened, we needed two tacks to cross the line for a third place finish.  But never mind, I’m all aglow with the satisfaction of hunting Top Gun to the finish line.  Fantastic!

And it didn’t come easily.  Twice, we lost enough time to make all the difference, and even so, it came down to that last wind shift. Fantastic!

It was a chilly night on the bay, especially upwind into the northeastern breeze.  Wind was 8-10 knots away from the burlington shore, but there were some deep holes near mark #9, and we were almost becalmed at times.  But the western sky was beautiful as the sun lowered into fluffly clouds down at the end of the bay.

Here’s the play by play:

Our start was tragic.  I’m totally out of rhythm.  The lads kept the boat moving fast, and our tacks were really crisp, but I wandered around too long to far below the line, putting in too many tacks.  In the end we managed a port-tack start near the boat end of the line — and that is sort of what I think I wanted — but we were at least 20 seconds late, passing just astern of Battlewagon.

On port we raced out toward Hamilton, where we believed the stronger wind was, and at times we were crusing along at 7+ knots with tons of clear air.  Eventually the breeze began to slacken so we tacked to cross the bay and rejoin our fleet.  It was really cool, all the boats tacked onto the same line as us, and we were all really close, but we were trailing them all — Battlewagon was really flying with brand new mainsail and genoa, and they had pulled quite some distance away from us.  At this time, we could clearly see that we were pointing higher than Top Gun.  In fact, I think we were pointing as high as anyone in the fleet — Oh what a feeling!  But I didn’t like following on the same line, so we tacked away, and this was our second mistake:  I didn’t account for the freighter at anchor, and tacked too soon to clear him.  When we ran out of room and tacked back, we fell into a huge lull, while the rest of our fleet carried on without delay.

Combine those two errors, and we were the last to round the weather mark, at least a minute behind everyone in our fleet.  But then, as so often happens, we hoisted crisply, filled the spinnaker in the light breeze and began to reel everyone in.  After a quick jibe it did not take long to overtake Eclipse and Battlewagon, who didn’t raise their spinnakers.  Sandpiper had put in a jibe set, and sailed high over toward Hamilton in hopes of catching better air more quickly.  Top Gun had jibed earlier than us and were sailing very deep.  We gathered speed and then turned downwind following Top Gun’s track.  Flying the kite in the light breeze was tricky, and it changed directions a bit — but we were really sharp, and made small adjustments to our trim to get the most from the wind.  Slowly but surely we closed the gap on Top Gun, but not quite enough to steel their air — that would have been dreamy!

As we approached the leeward mark, all three of us converged, with Top Gun rounding first, Sandpiper getting by us and just a few boatlengths separating each boat.  Our douse was slick, and we waited to the last moment, rounded and began to power up.

Decision time.  Top Gun pushed toward the Hamilton shore before tacking onto the layline for the boat end of the finish line.  Sandpiper tacked at almost the same moment, aiming at the middle of the line.  We tacked too, hoping for the pin end.  It was looking really good as we powered up and it looked like the pin end was nearer — had we cut off a corner and shaved precious boat lengths?  Alas no!  Just before the line, we got knocked, and had to tack twice to finish.

I guess you could call this the one that got away!

What a fantastic start to the Spring Series.

The boys are back on the bay, and the marina was full of our laughter as we huddled down below out of the chilly breeze for our traditional snack.  Four hands was sitting on the Ottoman (Spinnaker), Lazy Sheet was spooning salsa onto our lime chips, and Afterguy (Mr Clean no longer), spilled it on his precious clean cabin floor.  Wait — I’m talking about snack — I think I left something out.  Yes, I did — we went sailing and put in a solid race for the first time out.

And for those of you who might doubt whether we sailed or just gathered to share a beer and few laughs — here’s proof: Squirrel snapped these from Merlot.  That’s us with the spinnaker up, hunting down Sandpiper to the finish line.

The breeze was perfect — a steady 10 knots or so.  We don’t really know because our instruments weren’t installed yet, so we were running on instinct.  But it felt strong and the boat powered up wonderfully.  Here’s how the race went.

Our start was pretty good, especially considering that we didn’t have a big timer counting down our start — I was using an app on my iPhone strapped to my wrist, and could only check every once in a while.  We were maybe ten seconds late for the line, not quite fully powered up but in a good position near the committee boat and well to windward of the fleet.  (Umm, this is the point when I should admit that only Sandpiper and Battlewagon came out to play with us).

Upwind we pointed as high as Sandpiper.  Let me repeat that:  we pointed as high as Sandpiper!  Shortening the forestay has had the desired effect, and we sailed parallel to them, on a line to windward.  Wonderful!!!!

We fiddled a bit with our sail trim, trying to find a good mode that didn’t have the mainsail backwinded.  As we did so, we lost a few boatlengths to Sandpiper, so that they crossed in front of us before we tacked to the windward mark.  I’m not used to pointing so high, and we almost overstood the windward mark as a result.  Instead we came at it on port tack, sawing off a nice bit of distance.  Great — next time, tack earlier!  The downside is that we didn’t have the usual time to prepare our spinnaker hoist. Usually we set the bag on port tack, then set the pole when we are on the layline, and there is often plenty of time.  Nonetheless our hoist was fantastic and we began to gain on Sandpiper who was now about 6 boat lengths ahead of us.

We tried a few different ways to set the spinnaker pole and managed to close the gap on Sandpiper.  They jibed and then we put in our jibe.  Yup, this maneuver needs practice!  Nothing went wrong, but it wasn’t satisfyingly smooth.  But looking back at last year, jibes were usually a bit rough.  As a result, Sandpiper got us by 36 seconds, or about ten boat lengths at this speed.

And Battlewagon?  nearly five minutes astern.  Interestingly, they sailed without a main sail, and didn’t fly their spinnaker.  I believe they have a new mainsail on the way.

Since the race was short, we stayed out for quite a while and put in ten jibes with the spinnaker before dousing.  With enough repetition, we started to get more organized and put in several nice smooth ones.  We should do that again.  Upwind we played around with the mainsail controls and finally found a mode that removed the backwind from the genoa:  outhaul tight, traveler up high and mainsheet backed off so that the boom was centerline and the mainsail had plenty of twist.  Once we got there, the sail looked great and the cunningham and backstay adjuster did their jobs perfectly.  This will definitely help us upwind next time.  Oh, and let’s remember to get our halyards nice and snug!

Thanks for a great start Tuesday!  Thursday, here we come!

Yes folks, this season has gone out with a whimper.  The wind that died on Tuesday, stayed dead on Thursday.  So we had a goofy night on the bay.  Some would argue that it was the current (?) that floated us the width of the bay in 56 minutes.  The speedometer read 0.00 nearly the entire time, with a few bursts of speed that got us up to 0.6 knots from time to time.

But what a crew!  These guys will do anything to win!  Weight forward and leeward is important in light air, which the guys really took to heart:  can you work out who is who?

It must have helped, because unlike Tuesday, we actually made curfew, and beat Battlewagon by more than four minutes!

Along the way, the lads showed signs of getting restless.  Before they got the itch to OOTCH, I had SKOOTCH break out the HOOTCH.  A pint of grog and some hard tack, and they were merry men once more!

Thanks for a great season, guys, which we could have gone out with one last tear around the bay….next year for sure!

Wind, wind, where are thou? Wherefore art thou dying so?

Gorgeous day, nice strong wind in slots near Hamilton before the start, bit this wind lacked conviction, and as the sun lowered it died down.  The result?  The race committee set a course that was just too long.  We were almost within hailing distance when we heard two guns:  one was for the first boat to cross the line in a fleet that started 15 minutes before us.  The other was the curfew notification.  It was getting dark, but we finished the race anyway, the mark barely visible.

 

Lots of highlights tonight, though, despite the dying wind, especially the second time we were rounding #5.  All the boats were in slow motion as we crossed paths with our rivals on Sandpiper and then Battlewagon. Up at the mark, another boat had missed the mark and was starting to crawl downwind to ready for another attempt.  Which way do we go? drop below them and them try to climb up around the mark?  hope they make some progress so we can slip between them and the mark.  In slow motion a small hole appeared between them and the mark, and we aimed for it.  It was just wide enough for us when we got there!

And then there was the timpani.  Yes, we brought musical instruments on board this evening, including Lazy Sheet’s set of timpani, which he used to great affect to highlight the mounting tension as we began to gain on Battlewagon in the home stretch of the race.  Despite the fantastic sound track, there was no happy ending in store for this race.

Wait!  Yes there was!  On such a warm night with an early sunset, we stayed afloat until well after dark, ghosting along at very light boat speed, enjoying our snack and soaking up the tranquility of a becalmed bay basking in the glow of the Hamilton city lights.  A fantastic  way to cap off the season for the Tuesday crew.  Thanks for a great summer, guys!

Sublime.  Absolutely sublime.  It’s September and its still above 30C at the start of a race at 6:30 in the evening. It’s still balmy and calm well after sunset.  The glowing clouds above the failing sun have the hue of a tropical sundown.  And we’re out there in it, sailing!

This has been the best summer to be on the water, ever on record, I would assert.  And the lads on PERSPECTIVE savoured every precious knot of wind — and the knots of wind were rationed out tonight like rum on a British naval ship of the line with a frugal captain.

Upwind was a nice leg, actually.  Wind was enough to get us going, and it built to a point where we had four knots of boat speed and a comfortable heel.  During the pre-start I blundered us into a hole the size of Nevada beneath the wind shadow of Eclipse — now I completely understand the meaning behind that boat’s name:  the wind was completely eclipsed!  By the time I found clean air, we were a bit late for the line, and had provided enough room for Battlewagon to slip in between us and the committee boat. (despite my attempts to dissuade them with warnings that they had no room).  Sigh.

So, off we tacked into clear air, but away from the favoured side of the course.  Very nice maneuvers and good sail trim got us as much distance as we could, but even so, when we crossed the fleet we were well behind.  Heading into the better air toward Burlington, we gained speed and held our course until the last moment so that we could take the most advantage of the better wind.  Great move!  We converged with our fleet having made up a lot of ground — dead even with Battlewagon and ahead of Eclipse.  Picture us coming into the layline just five boat lengths below the windward mark on a course to T-bone Battlewagon.  With 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had dipped them and punched through to clear air to windward of them.  Instead I tacked into their lee bow (clever!) only to discover we would not make the mark.  Did I mention that Gil and David had begun to set the pole?  Did I mention a hundred swirling boats rounding the mark?  Did I mention Battlewagon in a controlling position from behind?  It’s a fine mess I got us in, Oliver!

What a relief when Battlewagon also realized they missed the mark and tacked away, giving us room to tack.  Gadget had the pole out of the way in no time (I think he hid it up his sleeve), and we popped in two quick tacks, rounded the mark and hoisted without much delay.  (I think they’ve got a magic want up there on the foredeck).

And now the downwind duel began.  Battlewagon came on strong with a good hoist, breathing down our necks.  We managed to gather boat speed on a hotter angle to cross their bow and avoid being smothered by their bad air, and then headed deeper downwind with them just a few boat lengths behind and to leeward.  Our wind dropped and we struggled to fill the spinnaker.  Eventually we found a mode, but it was intense with Battlewagon breathing down our necks.  We sent everyone to the bow to reduce wetted surface area, and I think this made the difference, allowing us to keep in clear air, despite Battlewagon’s attempts to smother us.

Up ahead we could see Sandpiper filling on the opposite jibe.  It was time to make a move.  Around we came, struggling to keep the kite filled, and the lads recovered from a dropped guy very quickly.  First a hot angle to gain boat speed, then settling onto Sandpiper’s line.  Battlewagon mirrored our maneuvers and ended up once again behind and to leeward of us.  Not far enough behind for my liking!

We followed fair air all the way to the Hamilton shore, using other boats as a guide of where the wind was, and where it wasn’t.  A solid jibe where we needed it and Battlewagon mirrored us again.  But the way the geometry worked out, they were now to windward of us — in a good position to steel our air.  And we were both on line to the finish.  This was the critical moment.  Playing all our cards, I chose a hotter angle, picked up speed, crossed Battlewagon’s bow within a few boatlengths, using our momentum to carry us through their wind shadow into clear air.  They could have chosen to cover us, but we were in control, by being between them and the finish line.  Instead, they held their course, we trimmed the spinnaker neatly and added distance on them to the finish.

At the end, we crossed the line 2.5 minutes ahead of them, mostly because we put all our crew weight forward, and kept tweaking the spinnaker trim (pole position forward/aft and up/down) to squeeze every bit of boat speed we could.  But also because the wind kept fading, and because we had consolidated our lead into a tactical advantage in the last portion of the race.

And Eclipse? at least seven minutes behind us.  The mood on board was as much aglow as the watercolour sky, and only got better as Nonsuch unveiled a picnic for princes, which we enjoyed on the warmest September evening I can remember.

Sublime!

Yep, we were all doing double duty on this great day of sailing.  Three guys doing the work of five or six, including six spinnaker hoists, two jibes, six douses, five starts (two were general recalls), countless tacks, a bit of confused navigation and some brilliant tactics!  And it wasn’t that we each did two jobs, we flowed to whatever needed doing and could be reached.  At times, Lazy Sheet was on the bow, Squirrel was in the pit or trimming the main, and I had spinnaker sheet & guy in hand while steering with my knees, jibing the main and grinding in the genoa (not quite all at once, but it felt like it!)

Three tired guys, glowing with satisfaction after three splendid races.  And the satisfaction was well earned!  All the spinnaker work went off without a hitch, and we even stuck our nose in a few times at the leeward mark, maneuvering for the inside lane and mark room in a clump of traffic.  Confidence was very high.  So high that we pulled off two port-tack starts among a dozen boats.  We were rewarded with clear air on the favoured tack each time, but we had to pay for it by dipping a lot of boats.  Great highlights!  And once the boat was put away, we enjoyed our apres-sail on the water, the skipper took a swim, and the swell grew into our bones.  On land, our heads kept swaying with the lake’s chop.  I can still feel it a day later!

How did we do?  In a fleet of big, fast boats, we were second or third across the finish line each race, and one of the boats ahead of us was Doug Folsetter in his viper.  In our wake was Big Yellow, Sapphire (a gorgeous C&C 9.9 that parks at Bronte in the slip across from Blue Nun), Stigaro, and sometimes Don’t Panic, who also had a great day out there.  When the awards were given out in the evening, we wondered if a third place was possible, but PHRF got us, and the honours went to our friends on Stigaro.  Don’t panic took second.

But never mind that….check out the highlight reel and judge for yourself — this was some of our best competitive sailing ever.

Its hard to see on camera, but there were some moments of great tactical maneuvers:

• overtaking Big Yellow on the downwind, crossing their bow and maintaining the inside lane through to the leeward mark
• overtaking Sapphire in time to gain mark room at the leeward mark, and passing Cayenne (winner of the next fleet) in the same passage.
• out-pointing all the non-vipers on the upwind legs, which really helped us finish the race well — the last upwind of the day had us out point and out-pace Stigaro to gain the line with two fewer tacks than them… a new experience for us.

And there was a lot of learning!

• Downwind, when sailing quite deep, Cayenne began closing in from behind.  I noticed they had their spinnaker pole set quite high.  We imitated them, gained a knot of boat-speed, and pulled away.  Lesson learned!
• Starting Gear is real.  I’ve read about it tons, but have never felt it.  At this regatta, we found it.  But we learned this one the hard way.  A few times in the race, the boat felt slow, and we just couldn’t pick up speed.  Once the main was twisted a bit (sheet out, traveler up), we started to accelerate.  It happened enough times that I started to get some intuition about when I could feel it happening.  Let’s hope that translates into better performance in our starts.  At this regatta, with the boat in the ‘wrong gear’ at the starts, we began each race behind most of the fleet.
• Watching the olympics is helpful!  Nacras and 470s have retriever lines built into their spinnakers that enable really fast dousing.  So we created a retriever line of our own and that helped us douse 4-5 boat lengths closer to the leeward mark.  Brilliant!  here it is

And we just kept getting better at our spinnaker maneuvers.  Here’s a sequence of all the Hoists:

And here are our Douses:

And for those of you who want to see it all in sequence, here’s Race 1:

And here’s Race 2:

And the first half of Race 3 (camera ran out of room):

 

 

 

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!)