Summer Race #4

Decent wind from the SSW between 4 and 10 knots.  Course for A&B was from H to K to G to H.  C sailed H to K and back.  Current was "slack" at the start with an ebb filling in.

The night started with a good southerly that appeared to have been blowing for a while.  The river had decent waves built up from that direction.  We left the marina and had to use a boat brush to clean off the speed wheel to get a boat speed reading. 

Once that was set, we hoisted the main and sailed around for a bit.  There was a noticeable flood still on the river and we had trouble getting upwind of the starting line.  We knew the scenario well and decided that we should go left after the start.  We read the line as mostly square with the boat end slightly favored. 

As the start approached, we began to second guess our pre-start plan and decided that the right may well be worth a try.  I went for the boat end at the start and we got off the line with room to tack out to the right.  We did not wait long and tacked over to head to the west side of the river.  Incredible also had a good start and they continued to sail on starboard to the left. 

As I have written many (too many) times on this blog, in a southerly breeze, the left can pay off big time.  I used to call it the Bugaboo move.  On this night, history repeated itself on Jazz.  We went to the right, found better breeze and got sucked in as the boat kept lifting.  Being on the right side of the course in the lefty wind left us sailing the great circle route since we were on the outside of the lifting breeze.  Of course with good wind speed and sailing on a lift, it was difficult to even consider a tack.

Incredible's move to the left paid off.  They were two minutes ahead of us when we crossed about 2/3 of the way up to K. 

Let's pause here and consider how ignorant I was.  Here is what I wrote on 7/6/11:

So off to the right we went. When we tacked back to starboard up the course, A Train could cross. Zoom banged the left corner and at the mark had a comfortable lead. I can never figure out why the left side pays off in this situation. I call it the Bugaboo move as Bugaboo always kicked our ass when they stayed left. The current and direction seemed to favor the right side, but the proof is in the results. The left side was favored and I cannot explain why. A comment on this would be most welcome.

Here is what I wrote last year on 7/20/11.  Apparently the Bugaboo move was still fresh in my mind.

I wanted to protect the left side from the Bugaboo move. In case you did not read this in the past, the Bugaboo move is an unexplained advantage boats get going left in the SE breeze. Even the stronger ebb to the right does not overcome this affect. We did see some of the reason for the affect as we came in from the port side and got lifted as we sailed into the mark on port. It is still a mystery to me.

Fast forward to 2012, I forget how the left side goes against my judgment each time, but still pays off.  With Incredible crossing us, I was hoping they would continue to the right so we could get further left and get some left side leverage.  They continued to the right and we were able to get far to the left late in the leg.  I noticed the wind speed was going down, but our COG and SOG were doing great.  The current was helping us sail higher and faster.

Despite the ugliness of the lighter air and the knock, we continued to the port lay-line.  Once we tacked over, the over-the-ground number still remained impressive and we were able to sneak ahead of Incredible at the mark.  We then rounded the mark and had a nice quick set that allowed us to get far enough ahead to keep our air clear. 

After the race, we continued north to get an edge on the current.  The ebb was now pretty strong, so going north allowed us to cruise with some nice reaching angles.  The wind picked up a bit and we enjoyed the 10-12 from the south.  Well after sunset, we went back to the slip and retired for the evening.

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.

Summer Race #2

Wind was from the NNW at 4-8 knots, veering to the WSW by the end of the night.  The ebb started around 18:30 and was not much of a factor during the race.  The course for all divisions was from H to B and back.

Tonight started a little different for us as I brought two people from work to go sailing.  They had never sailed before and I looked forward to introducing them to the sport.

We left the slip and hoisted the main in the harbor before heading out into a decent northerly.  The Venturi effect seemed to be helping the breeze in the middle of the river.  We sailed down to H and then headed upwind for a bit.  We noticed that the east side of the river had significantly less wind and decided to avoid that area.  This meant going left after the start.

We then judged the line to be mostly square and decided we would run the line in the dying breeze in order to get to the west side of the river as fast as possible.  Our start went as planned and we worked our way west into the channel.  There we found some good breeze and passed a few boats from the earlier start that had gone to the east.

Behind us and in our bad air was Merlin.  They proceeded to sail above our bad air and pass us to windward.  It was quite a demonstration of superior boat speed.  I thought we were sailing well in our own right, so the speed from Merlin can only be attributed to their great work in passing us.  I did almost everything I could to prevent that from happening.

Unfortunately, by passing us to windward on port tack, we were prevented from working further west.  We wanted to tuck into the left side of the course and take advantage of the veering wind, but the close proximity of the boats prevented us from tacking.  Eventually, we tacked a few times, but Merlin covered us each time. 

Finally I went for a close tack to get to their left.  This required a massive duck to get around their stern.  I neglected to mention my plans to the crew, so we did not back the jib as much as desired, so I had to over steer to avoid any contact and that slowed us down.  Fortunately, we were finally able to get some left side leverage on Merlin and the wind helped us get to the mark just ahead of them. 

The downwind leg turned out to be a tight reach in the veering breeze.  That is a perfect angle for our boat and with good work on trimming, we were able to stretch out from the other boats.  One spinnaker boat looked to roll us to windward, but I headed up to prevent that.  I certainly was not going to allow our speed to get hurt in a tight race by being rolled.  They eventually got stuck below us and I regretted that they were unable to pass us.  They would have needed more separation to pass us.

We finished the race and sailed on for a while.  The breeze was nice from the WSW and allowed some long reaching up and down the river.  The work friends got a chance to steer after the race and seemed to enjoy it.  Hopefully this experience will result in them trying to sail some more.