Grand River Sailing Club
Southerly winds at 5-8 knots. Race Grand Haven to Muskegon
Not much to say…Relaxed good times a few cocktails and a lot of attention to sail trim!!
First in section, third in fleet….same as last year.
Wednesday evening race #15
North Easterly winds at 12-18 knots. Race course was 4 8 7 4 X
The start was the whole race here – execution and not gybing early enough let us down – video shows it all…!!
Ended up in 5th place.
Wednesday evening race #14
North Westerly winds (315) at 8-12 knots. Race course was 3 7 3 X 3
Solid race – gave away to Desperado at the end…!!
Played the breeze up the middle, as we did a lot of the race. Turned out that hard right paid off slightly better and got to the windward mark close to the leaders but in around 3rd or fourth place. Pulled off a beautiful early gybe to gain big!…see video of first leeward rounding:
“Spectra” got ahead of us on the second beat – probably by banging hard right (which we never tried)
Should have gybed earlier on the second downwind which caused us to lose some ground to “Desperado”. Some more vid from the second windward rounding:
Final light air beat – we are in second covering Desperdo, with Spectra clearly in the lead….Big, big mistake from Trevor deciding to not cover Desperado out to the left at the end of this beat….Lost to Desperado – Oops!!
Wednesday evening race #13
North Westerly winds at 8-12 knots. Race course was 4 8 4 X 4
How to give away rockstar, win the boat start…!!
Vid says it all for the start:
Editors note: Just watch carefully and you can see Suzi giving me the thumbs down just before the start, well done Suzi, too bad I didn’t follow your lead.
Not much choice but to bang the right corner after re rounding, which turned out not too bad…recovered somewhat. Played the puffs and lulls and angles better than a lot of boats downwind to put us back in touch with Hallel – did a much better job of holding the chute with inside overlap to get in front…See vid:
Big mistake on second downwind rounding – should have waited for Scooter to gybe first or not gybed at all – gave away a place here:
Editors note: I should verbalize less and keep my frustration to myself!
Ended up finishing 5th…
Wednesday evening race #12
North Westerly winds at 5-10 knots. Race course was 2 X 2 X 2
Boat speed a problem…!!
See start below:
Second downwind:
Wednesday evening race #11
North Westerly winds at 10-18 knots. Race course was 3 7 (6 legs)
Mid race brain trust failure…!!
A mediocre start – managed to get fairly close to the line but with no speed. You can see ( and hear) my fustration…see the video below:
As we have seen a few times now, breezy and from the North West, the left has a tendency to pay off. Well guess what, we banged left and continued to protect the left (Tactics learned from John Vanzee) which meant getting to the windward mark in first by about 10 boat lengths. See video below:
Sailed well downwind with breeze, bye the lee or dead down meant quite a few gybes (well executed as usual). Smooth rounding and still a 15-20 boat lead. Instead of waiting for Ricochet to tack left then covering we decided to tack left first (big mistake). By playing the middle our comp made gains on us! As usually happens the mistakes kept compounding on each other – towards the port layline I failed to communicate a possible fake tack, which lost us more ground followed by the fact that we did NOT tack in front of Ricochet at the Starboard layline, which allowed them to get in front of us. See video:
Note: There was NO foul by Ricochet “The rule says that the tacking boat regains rights as soon as they are on a close hauled course (regardless of where the sails are trimmed). After posting to Sailing Anarchy and getting my ass reamed for being such an idiot for thinking there was a foul, the concensus was “no foul”. In reality no one on our boat was observing or communicating about the layline (which by now we had over stood). As soon as we saw Ricochet initiating a tack we should have slam tacked and we would have sailed to the mark in front of them!
By this time Hallel was close and pinned us out to the right side of the course. Another big mistake at the leeward mark when I called for the jib up and pole down much too early, causing us to lose our overlap. We really should make those “WTF Trevor” cards for someone to hold up!
Made gains on the last downwind leg but were not far enough in front of Hallel to correct so locked in our 3rd place after a very possible 1st – many learning opportunities on this race, especially on our close boat to boat combat.
Great race, with great wind which everyone enjoyed (despite our problems). Once again the boat handling gets better and better!
Wednesday evening race #10
South Westerly winds at 5-12 knots. Race course was 1 4 1 4 X
It’s all about the start…!!
Lot’s of video to share today..The start was pin favored (even though we got a little confused on this and did not check the line). Went for the pin as the left phase and breeze was on the left!
Followed “Peerless” and banged the left corner, one tack on the layline ahead of everyone. The whole course was a bit of a parade with us being able to lay the mark (#4) from #1, so we gybed early and just sailed fast. First Leeward rounding is on video below:
Covered “Hallel” upwind, but essentially went all the way to the left Port layline again. See the rounding on video below: Nice recovery when the spinnaker jammed into the jib hanks!
Extended our lead once again…Covering all the way. Second leeward rounding below:
Nice win with a 2nd in fleet…
PS: A lot of the div 1 boats were not racing due to the Mac race, also “Ricochet” did not race.
Wednesday evening race #9
North Westerly winds at 10-15 knots. Race course was 3 2 1 7 3 7
Boat speed is nice…!!
Detected a pin favor and Ricochet beat us to the pin…see video of the start below:
During our pre start practice we had detected huge left shifts during the lulls – we played and protected the left to good results rounding the top mark first ahead of Ricochet.
Big parade for the next two legs…Decided not to use the chute from 1 to 7 and did a leaward drop at the mark.
Tacked to the left again once Ricochet tacked left behind us, covered the left side once again to good effect.
Gybed early and covered Ricochet to keep the first place!
Wednesday evening race #8
Westerly winds at 1-5 knots. Race course was 2 7 2 8 X (Shortened/changed to 2 9 2 X)
Birthday cruise…!!
For the start we have video from the new Gopro camera…see below;
If you listen to the vid, I mention maybe we might need to go left (twice) and Melissa mentions the breeze going left. Hmmm we went right a little too long had Desparado and Robyn beat us to the windward mark.
Lost a place to Ricochet downwind with a gybe that was too late and allowing them to roll us – probably need more people looking back upwind!
Went back to the left for the next upwind but half way up this leg the wind shut off almost completely. Ricochet played the right which paid off. We rounded back in third behind Ricochet and Desparado and sailed well in VERY light air to keep the third place.
Wednesday evening race #6
Northwest (290) wind at 8-12 knots. Race course was 2 7 2 7 1 (Shortened to 4 legs)
Foulorama…!!
Boat was 10 deg favored – Our first attempt to be close to the boat failed and we started at the pin end with two division one boats rolling us! Fortunately the start was a general recall. Second start we were more successful and were approaching mid line, at 10 seconds to go we were fouled by Robyn bearing down onto us and not keeping clear.
A word about the new personnel on board today – very refreshing to have John Vanzee with us who helped tremendously with our start positioning and tactics, but also initiated a polite conversation with Robyn (and Ricochet later on) after fouls. “Helm is over” ?? “I think I’m drunk with power”.
“Mr Willy” also showed great enthusiasm and was a joy to have on board as a new sailor.
Played the left side due to the bad start, but tacked as soon as we had a clear lane as our comp were on the right. Leebowed Hallel to take them back right and played up the middle to mark 2. Rounded in second 10 boat lengths behind Ricochet. Gybed early and followed Ricochet with more speed – decided to separate when Ricochet gybed (we believed too early) back to starboard. At the crossing towards the leward mark we were on starboard and forced Ricochet to gybe and pinned them out to gybe back to the mark in front.
Ricochet tacked early to go left, we held out as other comp were crossing our stern to go right. We ended up splitting the difference with the cover but kept to the right of Ricochet, Due to the left phase this gave Desparado the lead with us converging with Ricochet at the mark…Read rule 18.3 (a), Ricochet tacked to Starboard below us but within the three boat length circle and proceeded to shoot the mark forcing us above close hauled to avoid a collision…Another polite conversation initiated by John on our boat, but no exoneration by Ricochet!
Last downwind was uneventful and light with Desparado and Ricochet maintaining a small lead for us to take 3rd. As usual the boat handling was a joy to behold – well sailed everyone…The growler of Vivant farmhand also tasted pretty good!
