Summer Race #3

Wind was from the SW at 4-8 knots.  Current was ebbing until late in the race and then turned to flood.  Course was from H to 22 and back.  A & B sailed H to 22 to G and back.

Upon arriving at Haverstraw, I looked out on the water and saw a little southerly on the river as evidenced by the small ripples in the center.  I was hoping this was a building breeze as I headed down the dock to Jazz.

As we left the harbor, we turned out into the river and a nice 6-8 knot southerly had filled in.  We had a tight reach to H and as we got closer, the wind got lighter.  We consistently found the West side of the river to have more wind.  With this in mind, we decided to start at the starboard end of the line in order to get right quickly.

We had a good start.  We were right at the boat when the horn blew.  While we had put ourselves there due to the desire to go right, we held starboard tack for a couple of minutes and went left.  Our plans changed due to the fleet starting to leeward and behind us.  Since they were all heading out on starboard, we thought it best to protect our early lead and minimize the risk of going away from everyone.  Eventually, someone tacked and we followed to protect the right side. 

Protecting a side

When I write about protecting a side, I am talking about upwind tactics.  Before a start, the crew on Jazz talks about the possible benefits to the upwind leg and we come to a conclusion on which side we believe is favored.  Depending on the conditions, we can be positive or 50-50 on which side is favored.  Once we have a side picked, we will try to get to that side after the start.  The urgency in getting there is dependent on our confidence that the side we picked is favorable.  So when it is not very clear, we will tend to make sure none of our competitors gets out to our favored side without us going with them.  This way, we protect ourselves from getting passed by someone sailing to the favored side.  That is called protecting the side.

We continued to protect the right and pulled out a little further from the fleet by staying to the right.  We rounded 22 with a decent advantage and rode that all the way back to the finish.  It was a long downwind leg as the breeze was getting lighter and the flood had not arrived to push us to the finish.

I really liked the course tonight.  Sailing to 22 is always a challenge.  I know some racers hate going around that mark since the wind is variable to say the least.  While this does create a difficult playing field, I think that is an important part of racing and worth the frustration.  It reminds me of distance racing where you just have to deal with variable conditions.  Going to K in every southerly can get boring.  On this night the courses worked out well with all boats finishing within the time limit.  A great job by the race committee all around.

After the race, we sailed around until it got dark.  It was a full moon night, but I doubt we could have gotten a second race in with the dying breeze.  The clouds prevented the moon from coming out anyway. The sun did manage a brief appearance on its way out.