Spring Race #6

Wednesday 6/16/2010
 Puffy SE breeze between 12 and 18 knots. Current running out. All Divisions sailed to 22, G, and back to H.


Once again this week, the forecast called for a nice southerly with a chance of rain. The rain would hold off this evening, but the breeze stayed all night.

We motored out of the harbor and hoisted the main. The wind was puffing up around 20 knots with a steady 15 knots across the entire river. As we approached the start line we saw a problem. The line was short and the committee boat was on the port side with a very long scope on their anchor. I knew right away that this would make it a tough start.

It was interesting to have a time check, but then the sequence started at 18:14 instead of 18:15. Kind of defeats the purpose of a time check.

It has been common in my 5 years of racing in the HBRA for the RC’s to setup on the port side of the line. This seems to be a carry over from the starts at 26 where you had to anchor on the port side of the line to stay out of the channel. I think the last three races have had the committee boat on the port side of the line. This creates a more difficult start.

It may not seem like it should matter which side of the line the boat is on, but it can make a big impact. The side of the line matters because of the racing rules. Since starboard tack has the right of way over port tack, most boats will start the race on starboard. This causes them to leave the starboard end of the line to windward and the port end of the line to leeward. Since the boats are heading upwind, it can be tough to get above the leeward end of the line. Since the boats are on starboard, it is the port end of the line that will have most boats struggling to clear. If the port end is a buoy then it is easier for boats to clear it since there is no rode extending upwind from the mark. Using a mark at the port end makes it less of an obstacle.

The impact of being on the wrong side of the line is made more significant by a long scope. When a committee boat has a long scope, it makes a bigger obstacle for the racers since its anchor rode will need to be avoided and the rode is upwind of the committee boat. You now have a 100-foot obstacle to get above when starting.

The third factor in the starting line was its short length. With puffs up to 20 knots, the line should have been 2 to 3 times longer. It is rare that someone makes a line too long on Wednesday night and it is all too common for a line to be too short.

With a small current pushing boats over the line and the high winds, there was a large convergence of the A & B fleet right at the start. With 10-12 boats right on the line with little room to maneuver and the large obstacle at the port side, a near disaster unfolded. Boats were early to the starboard end and had to run the line. Once they got close to the port end, they no longer had enough room to cross the committee boat. Below them were other starboard tack boats, so they could not turn below the committee boat. Some tacked onto port and then fouled the starboard boats that were otherwise making the line. Some of those boats also had to tack onto port and they fouled other starboard tack boats.

In the end there was a lot of close calls and a lot of fouls. I only heard one boat acknowledge a penalty, but I saw more than one foul. A dangerous starting situation was created that could have been avoided. Here are my three tips to avoid a repeat of the situation:

1. Make the line at least as long as specified in the sailing instructions. This will give boats more room to maneuver.

2. Make the committee boat the starboard side of the line. This will make the larger obstacle upwind of most starters and allow the starboard tack boats to slide down the line towards the smaller obstacle.

3. Make the starboard side of the line slightly favored. This makes it easier to get past the port side and discourages port tack starts.

Having seen the debacle of the first start, I decided to play our start more conservative. We did a short 2 minute timing loop and ended up at the starboard side of the line about 3-5 seconds late for the start. Since C boats tend to be a little more spread out at the start, we did not encounter the same issues as the first start. I had one C2 boat tack above me and try to come down, but I told him to stay up until I was past. I did not like having to make them stay up, but I could not allow them to sail down onto us. After the start, we immediately tacked and headed to the west side of the river. We expected more wind and more favorable current there.

We were 1.5 minutes behind Bugaboo at the first mark. We were happy with this delta. We then headed low on the way to G. We did this to compensate for the lift the current was giving us and also thought the wind would get light towards G and did not want to head low in the light wind. We actually made up some time on Bugaboo as their main was in too tight and it stalled most of the leg. I see that often with the cruising boats on reaches. When reaching, you want at least two, if not all, of your telltales on your main to stream back. You do not want to luff it, but having the main in too tight can be just as slow as luffing.

We rounded G and sailed on down to H. We finished under 2 minutes behind Bugaboo, so we probably ended up correcting over them. We were comfortably ahead of the rest of the fleet.

In C2, Merlin had a nice race. They seem to sail more like a C1 boat than C2. Summer Wind also seems to be sailing very well lately and that is nice to see. There was a group of four C2 boats that finished the race close to each other.

We stayed out for a little while and I practiced tacks with Eric. He does not get to drive often and I wanted some exercise, so we switched positions and did a dozen tacks in the nice breeze. It is nice for me to experience what the crew is doing and for the crew to do the same. Here is how I do a tack:

1. I announce my intention to tack by saying “ready to come about?”

2. When the trimmer responds affirmative, I say “tacking.”

3. Right as I begin to turn the boat, the trimmer will ease the sail 2-3 inches. This allows the sail to move a little bit away from the shrouds and also helps the boat round up into the wind without as much resistance. At this point I am turning the boat pretty slowly.

4. Once the jib loses all wind, I accelerate the turn. The trimmer releases the sheet.

5. I have the helm over far as we pass head to wind.

6. Before the jib blows out on the new side, I slow down the turn. This reduces the drag of the rudder and allows the trimmer to pull the sail in while the wind is still blowing the sail back instead of away from the boat. This will allow the jib to come in quicker and use the winch just to finish off the trim.

7. Once the boat is almost on it new heading, I begin to steer normally on the new tack. I also make sure the traveler is up on the new side and the main is pulling.

If done right, I will not have to foot to regain speed. If something goes wrong, I will drop the traveler a bit and foot until I get back up to 90% of target speed.

It was a great night for racing and we sailed a perfect course for the conditions.

Chelsea Regatta

6/12/10 I decided to try and do the HRYRA C fleet races this year. It started with the Hudson Cove Regatta. That is our club and we do the regatta every year. In order to compete for the overall HRYRA trophy, we had to do at least one day at Chelsea. With that in mind, I decided to take the boat up for just the Saturday of the regatta and hoped to do three races up there. Here is how the day went. 03:15 Woke up, made coffee for the thermos and headed out. The truck was already packed with everything I needed, so it only took 10 minutes to get going. 04:00 I put the cooler and my bag on the boat and headed out of the marina. It was damp and 55 degrees. The wind was mostly calm and the current was ebbing around one knot. I saw one boat outside of the marina and it was still very dark. 05:15 As I approached the Bear Mountain Bridge, the sky was beginning to get light behind the heavy cloud cover. Luckily there was no commercial traffic and I had the river to myself. It was nice watching the mountains light up in the morning haze. Lazy clouds were still strung across the mountains like a necklace. As the sun rose, they changed colors to reflect the new day. 06:30 I finally reached West Point. I was hugging the edge of the river the whole time to avoid the foul current. West Point looked imposing, as the morning haze had not lifted yet. There was a strong current in this area and the boat just had to push through it until I could find some eddies near Cold Spring. 08:00 As I was passing Bannerman’s Island, I saw my first boat since Haverstraw. The wind also picked up here and I decided to hoist the main and sail north. I sailed right by Newburgh and then under the bridge up to Chelsea. 09:30 I arrived at Chelsea right on time. Unfortunately I thought the races started at 10AM, so I was really 1.5 hours early. I jogged into the wind and patiently waited through the rain for the first race to begin. At 11:00 the rain ended, but my start was postponed for lack of wind. Racing: 11:30-15:00 Finally, when it was time to race, I was in a bad position early and was late to the start. Gusto was ahead of me and then covered me as much as they could. I was able to pass them at the leeward mark, but they got ahead for a little while before I finally passed them right at the finish. They would correct over me, as I owed them over a minute for the race. In the second race, I had a better start and was able to keep enough of a lead to win. I was lucky to do well since Jazz usually is very slow in light air. I was hoping for some heavy air for this regatta, so I was very happy to get a first and a second in the light stuff. 15:15 As soon as I finished the second race, I fired up the engine and headed south. This time I would have the current with me. As soon as I went under the Newburgh bridge, I was greeted with a 15-20 knot southerly. I prepared the boat and then unfurled the jib to sail into the breeze. At this point I did not have much of a choice as the waves were high and motoring would have been slow and hard on the boat. That said I was happy to finally be sailing in the fresh breeze. Right when the boat hit its stride, my hat blew off. I was feeling a little lazy and debated whether or not to go back and get it. After 20 seconds, I tacked and furled the jib and headed back to my hat. I retrieved it from the water, unfurled the jib and now it was time to rock and roll. The next 6 miles were great. Nice long tacks and great speed. The boat pounded nicely into the 2-3 foot swells and it was in its designed wind range. I got hooked in and kept sailing down to West Point. It was nice to tack side to side across the river. I would head to the West side and see some people jumping from a rock into the river. Then back to the east side and see some others sunbathing. Sometimes I could smell the life from the woods when I got close enough to shore. It was a very pleasant sail. I have never been able to sail in this area of the Hudson, so I continued down to West Point. The winds were very shifty here, but I was able to continue past West Point under sail alone. The river was pretty narrow, so I was tacking every 5-7 minutes. I kept this up through Bear Mountain and down into Peekskill. Finally around Stony Point I hit a hole in the breeze and fired up the engine again. I ended up sailing about 20 miles down river. It was a tough slog, as I seemed to be constantly tacking for over 3 hours. I was pretty tired from the sail, but I was also very happy that I was able to sail 90% of the way home from Chelsea and not add too much time to the delivery. 19:30 When I finally got back to my slip in the marina, the boat was a mess. I did not have time to clean up until I was in the slip and that took another 30 minutes. I finally got home at 21:00 hours. I was pretty tired, but was happy with the day’s result. I often plan for one thing when sailing and then enjoy something else. The 20-mile beat down the river was the highlight of the day and will not soon be forgotten. What seemed like a boring delivery home was actually more fun than the racing that day and more challenging.

Spring Race #5

Wednesday 6/9/2010 Puffy SE breeze between 12 and 25 knots. Current running in. All Divisions sailed to G, 26, and back to H. We arrived at the marina and saw a stiff SE breeze on the water. There was a light rain falling when we pulled out of the slip. It was blowing about 15-20 in the marina and we had to change out our jib. It was too windy to allow us to do it in the harbor, so we headed out to H and changed the jib out there. It was rough work as the waves were high and the wind was blowing at least 20 knots in the puffs. It took almost 15 minutes to get the old jib off and the new jib hooked up and rolled up. It had to be done since I was planning to go to Chelsea the following Saturday alone. Once the sails were setup, we headed over to the start area. No other C1 boats went out tonight. We were disappointed that there was no one to race against. While watching the first start, we saw Breakout shut Comet out at the starboard end of the line. This was interesting since Comet seemed to hang out too long before finally bailing and circling around to restart. Our start came up and no one was very close to the line. We started a conservative 10 seconds late since there was no competition and then sailed up the east side of the course. In short time, we made back the five minute head start on Hard Attack and Madame Baud. We rounded G and then enjoyed the nice run down to 26. Our jib should have been winged out, but I opted to roll it in and save some wear on it. Merlin winged out their jib and I was impressed. They were sailing the boat hard in tough conditions. Most of the A and B fleet flew their chutes as well, so it was nice to see competitive boats in other divisions sailing hard. We finished the race and then decided to sail around for a while. While the rain was not ideal, the wind was up and the boat was rocking around the bay. It was fun to be powered up and blasting through the waves and rain. My foul weather gear is 15 years old, but I can still get 3-4 solid hours out of it. So we sailed for another 1.5 hours after the race. As we sailed around, we saw Alineup and Summer Wind in a tight race. Summer Wind almost sailed by 26 before turning to weather. Alineup had a tougher time coming around 26. The wind was up and that part of the river had 3-foot rollers coming up river. After a few auto tacks, Alineup dropped their sails and withdrew from the race. That was the end of the racing. We made one more trip up to the committee boat before reaching back to the marina. Race Committee tonight was Rich Thabit on Three Sheets. Rich was RC three years ago when a nasty storm front hit the fleet and he had a rough time of it. Now the conditions were bad again, but Rich did a good job getting the race in. It was really cool to see him run the race in conditions he may not have raced in himself. He was not sure if enough boats would show up to warrant a race, but that should never be considered. As long as one boat shows up and the conditions are safe and acceptable, a race should be held. For the second week in a row, the C2 boats were hailed to ask if they were still racing. This is becoming a bad trend. Those guys are some of the most dedicated sailors out there and should not have to let the RC know they are still racing. The assumption should be that all boats that have not radioed in to withdraw are still racing. It really helps us to sail extra after each race. It is then that we can play with trim, switch roles, and try new things. We get a better feel for the boat when just sailing around and will improve our performance the next time we are out in foul weather. The best way to get better at sailing is to sail more. Since we had some decent gear on, the elements were not much of a factor. Sailing in all conditions can be fun and tonight was no exception. We had a couple of beers, hit some 7-knot speeds and had fun. I am looking forward to the next big breeze night.