Spring Race #2

Another tough forecast followed by a great evening.  Winds were from the south between 7 and 14 knots, getting lighter as the night went on.  Current was ebbing.  Course was from H to K to G and back to H.  

Going into this Wednesday, the forecast was once again poor.  Showers with thunderstorms were possible, but the weather cleared out early and we were left with a perfect May sailing night.  I had a bag of foul weather gear that was luckily never used.

When I pulled into Haverstraw, I looked out on the river to see a nice 12-14 knots of wind.  The brown waves were churning up the water pretty good and there were a decent amount of whitecaps on the river.  I stepped out of the car and got a taste of how cold the wind was compared to the warmth on land.  I knew I would be leaving the marina in a T-shirt, but throwing on some layers once I got out to the river.

My crew was different this Wednesday as Bob from my home town was out and the crew from the previous week were all unable to make it.  Bob and I hoisted the sails and sailed upwind for a while to get a feel for the conditions.  Similar to the previous week, we had a southerly and the current was ebbing.  Once we sailed upwind for a bit and found the conditions even across the course, we decided not to repeat the previous week's mistake and cover the right side of the course.

The A&B boats had an interesting start with some circles going on.  We did not see an early advantage to either side of the course as they headed upwind, but still thought the right side was best.  With that, we setup a little early for a starboard end start.  We got off the line with little room to spare and immediately tacked to port to head right.  We had a good lead on most of the fleet from the start with Dream Chaser on our hip.  We sailed out a mile or so and tacked a little early to stay away from a barge.  You do not want to get caught in the barge's wake because the backwash will really hurt your speed.

After tacking to starboard, we were heading for Dream Chaser's stern.  They held their course on port and I held mine, but we were about 5 feet away from them at the cross.  This was pretty close for a crossing and surprised me since they could have nailed us with a lee-bow maneuver.    They ended up tacking to starboard about 30 seconds later and I was still more confused.

Lee-Bow Maneuver

When you are crossing or close to crossing a boat on the opposite tack, a lee-bow maneuver is a way to slow the other boat down and head to the side you want.  This is done by tacking ahead of the other boat and just to leeward.  You need to execute a good tack for this to work right.  After the tack, you will find yourself slightly ahead and to leeward of the other boat.  Once you get your speed back from the tack, you can begin to pinch up and give the boat behind you bad air.  This should make the boat behind slow down and head lower to keep their speed.  As they head lower, they will be in more of your bad air and you will gain an advantage.  You can also over-trim and stall the main during the maneuver to hurt the boat behind some more, but this will also slow you down as well.  Properly executed, a lee-bow will allow the lead boat to gain a boat-length or two and either force the other boat to tack away or spend more time in your bad air.

Click here until I can load the video into the page.


As Dream Chaser and Jazz headed to the port lay-line, we tacked first.  Dream Chaser soon followed and we went to the starboard lay-line.  We again tacked first and Dream Chaser tacked a boat-length to leeward of us.  We did not get much bad air from them and were able to round the mark with good speed.  We held a high course and were just able to roll them and take the lead.  We managed to barely hang on to that lead by about half a boat-length by the time we rounded G.  From there we headed high again to get back to the middle of the river where I thought the wind was better.  Dream Chaser took the low road and we stretched out a little on the last leg.

It was a beautiful night and I was able to take the below picture that shows some of the spinnaker boats heading downwind on the last leg. 

Spinnaker boats heading to finish.

After finishing we reached back and forth across the river a few times and enjoyed the sunset.  After the sunset, we noticed some clouds building in and the wind continued to get lighter.  It was almost calm by the time we made it in to the dock.  Luckily the forecast was wrong and we all enjoyed another great night on the river.

Sun setting on the river.