Wednesday evening race #5

North East (55) at 8-12 knots. Race course was 9 X (6 legs)

Seems like the over early is becoming a habit! Set up for a Port approach and tacked to starboard at about 50 seconds to go, ended up towards the pin end with no pressure from boats to leeward…Looks like we simply miss timed the start OR the race committee’s watch had a Mickey Mouse logo.

We struggled to get back to re round as we had a boat directly to leeward and windward. The technique here is to totally luff both sails to stop the boat and let the two boats sail past. I don’t think I did a great job in luffing the main as we seamed to sail a long way before being able to turn down!

Played the left up to mid course then tacked to port (this trick we learned last week for an Easterly component). Made big gains on Ricochet and easily crossed Hallel.

Gybed relatively early downwind, as did the rest of the fleet and came in on starboard for what ended up being a rushed Mexican douse inside of Addicted. pushed out to the right with Hallel to windward and behind us. Hallel had us pinned here for a while and by the time we had room to tack Trevor had a massive brain fart as we tacked and ducked even though we were on starboard! Interestingly Hallel decided that it OK to foul us for our stupidity.

Race was abandoned shortly afterwards due to incoming violent thunderstorms.

Wednesday evening race #4

East (90) wind at 10-15 knots. Race course was 2 6 9 2 X

I am writing this the Tuesday after the race so this will be brief…

Over early, giving room to “Chicken Soup” – went right – left paid…Made gains on leg between 9 and 2 by sailing hotter angles. Went left on last beat – Hallel banged right and beat us!

Need less mistakes!

Wednesday evening race #3

Southerly (175) wind at 5-13 knots. Race course was 8 4 8 X 8

What can you say about this race:  “You get caught standing behind just one sheep”

Rock star start which no one else decided to show up for – pin was favoured by 10 degrees but we decided to start on Starboard, which means tacking close to the line. Found a spot behind Vamoose which thankfully Standard Deviation did not take…found no one going up to the line so we reached down to the pin and started all by ourselves going left.

Managed to maintain our lead over three legs with some minor mistakes, overstanding the windward mark (twice), tacking a little too late after rounding the leeward mark and maybe playing the right a little too much on the second beat…
Rounding the windward mark for the second time we managed to enter the squirly vortex hole that came from an alternate parallel universe!…The chute did not fill we could not get the boat to move and generally came to a dead stop! Maybe I drove too deep too quickly, maybe there was a wind shift, maybe we just love to give up our well earned first place (two weeks in a row), the end result is us rounding the leeward mark in third boat for boat with other competition pushing hard.

A major disaster like that has a tendency to compound on itself and we made more mistakes on the last beat. Not to dwell on the negative, we did have an extremely good race with great boat handling again – a great race to talk about for learning purposes.

We can practise light air spinnaker sets and also try to learn how to be positive and maintain our focus after major mistakes!

Thanks to Phil Lundwall for some of the pictures.

Wednesday evening race #2

Westerly wind at 5-10 knots, switching to South Easterly 0-5 knots, then back to Westerly 3-8 knots. Race course was 2 8 X 2 X 2, (This was shortened to 4 legs).

Another very tactical race..We determined that the start was ten degrees boat favoured and for a change decided to mix it up with the plebs on their standard Starboard boat approach…Did OK with most boats being late to the line or trying the Vanderbilt from the other end of the lake! Hit the line somewhat towards the boat with reasonable speed and managed to keep it out in front, despite load yelling from us (at Desparado) and even louder yelling from Ricochet.

Most of the fleet tacked early to go to the right – we sniffed a hint of a Left phase and stuck it out, until Melissa was very very nervous. Once we tacked over to join the fleet it was clear that we had made gains and led the fleet back to the Left before crossing anyone (Addicted). Got into an even bigger Left shift (praise be to someone)…And tacked twice more to enter the reaching leg a good 15 boat lengths ahead of our nearest competitor (Ricochet).

This was a very tight reach in very light air which we held for half the leg before switching to the Jib to drift up to the mark, which looked like a Gybe set to get us onto a tight reach on Port for the next leg. I say “looked like a gybe set” as we had one of the now famous wind shifts at the mark – Gybed to Starboard and off we went…slowly.

Executed a very nice leward rounding cutting inside of Vamoose and Looney Tunes, who decided to drop their main or not see yet another wind shift, respectively.

And then Trevor lost his mind !!

Here are four things NOT to do in light air…

* Disturb the boat/jib in any way
* Decide we might need the spinnaker and put two people on the bow.
* Sail completed under a very large slow boat.
* Hoist spinnaker to disturb the boat some more, then find we cannot carry it.

Oops – sorry…A great case for the WTF card discussed in an earlier issue! Melissa will be the voice of sense and show us some more boat handling tricks for use in the future,

Once again the crew work was awesome with our newer, and more experienced, crew doing some extraordinary boat handling. I’m getting a sense that we have a ever strengthening team learning by leaps and bounds (me excluded)

Wednesday evening race #1

Westerly wind at 0-5 knots, switching to South Easterly 0-5 knots. Race course was 5 X, 5legs (This was shortened to 2 legs).

Before we get started some education:

malfeasance
noun [U], an example of dishonest and illegal behaviour, especially by a person in authority:

On Albion we have several terms such as “Sailing backwards”, “Mr Grumpy”, “Malfeasance” (new) and of course “Bullshit race”…Bullshit race is a light air race with massive shifts, where any one boat can win the lottery and be in the right place at the right time. It’s bullshit because normally we do not win the lottery!

Well we won the Lottery, which is lucky. We did however, add a heavy dose of skill, especially at the start. We were the last start and had watched “Peerless” start on Port and cross the whole fleet with speed. Having already determined a pin end favour, starting on Port seamed like the thing to do! We did this at mid line after ducking several Starboard boats and starting late. We did have speed and were flying off to the Right side of the course.

Seamed like whatever small amount of breeze was coming down the channel and we were sailing towards it. Decided not to tack and were promptly lifted with the breeze all the way to the mark (Unbelievable!).

Some small confusion at the mark as the 180 degree wind shift happened exactly as we rounded – in fact we rounded and sailed towards the finish having never tacked and being on Port beat the whole time…We were auto tacked to Starboard before being lifted exactly to the finish in almost zero breeze.

Again, well sailed everyone – especially the chute trimmer!

Cheers…

Wednesday Spring Challenge, this race does not count towards the regular Wed night series (Thanks be to Allah).

Westerly wind at 8-10 knots with some lighter breeze, 5-8 knots especially towards the end. Race course was 2 X, 5legs (This was shortened to 4 legs).

I have always said that the start is 95% of the race, so when we do not show up..our final race result was reflected!
There was a left shift just prior to the start and the first Melges played the Left side, we recovered somewhat from the late start and used the Left side. Second half of the beat we crossed sterns to go back to the right (In hind sight maybe a slight mistake). We were in touch with Ricochet and had a great downwind, gybing early then cutting inside to be almost ahead of Ricochet. He had overlap and executed a perfect rounding putting us in a bad spot – we proceeded to do some of the famous “Sailing backwards”. Totally played the Left side which of course by now was the wrong place – more breeze on the Right. This pretty much locked in our position 10-15 boat lengths behind Ricochet.

A great sail with well executed boat handling and lots of practice with the spinnaker.

We should continue to work on our team building and communication, with a possible use of a “WTF Trevor” card. ie; Crew holds up card and says why are we so far from the start in light wind with 4 minutes to go!! I endorse this message!

Go team…Well sailed.
Please feel free to post comments on the blog.

Be on time for boat call

There simply is NO excuse for being late to the boat. Plan to be early so that you can help with the boat or simply relax and chat.

Do not bring extra weight to the boat

The ONLY items you need for a buoy race are foul weather gear and personal safety equipment. For a perfect weather forecast even the foul weather gear is optional! LIGHT IS FAST.

Make sure you have an understanding of the rules

Learn Terminology

Make sure you know the names of all lines, controls and what they do. Include sailing/wind terms such as “leeward”, “heading up” etc and all the points of sail ie; “beam reach”

Do Your Job

Concentrate on your role on the boat and go over each task that you’ll have to do. Make sure you are familiar and ask questions if you’re unsure. Promote a crew discussion on the rail so that each person knows what to do at the roundings. DO NOT step into someone else’s role (except for a safety issue).

Play tactician

Try to anticipate what is going to happen next. Anticipate possible maneuvers and be ready.

Be a team player

The best thing you can do is simply set a good example to your crewmates. When you talk on the boat, try to say constructive things without a lot of swearing, yelling, blaming or making excuses.

Limit the “off topic” chatter

Try to get involved in the race. Give feedback on waves, puffs, where the marks are, how the boat is doing against other boats etc.. We don’t need to know how your date went last night until after the race!

Plan ahead

Anticipate what will be required at the roundings and set up as early as possible. If you can prepare something without affecting boat speed then go for it

Continue to learn

Attend classes, go to seminars, read books subscribe to magazines – ASK questions.

Have Fun

It’s only a hobby!!