Well, Wednesday for me was just another day of safe guarding the appropriate use of the federal taxpayers’ funds. Hmmm, does that sound just a little overblown? Okay, the reality is I’m just another faux government hack keeping tabs on the transportation economic stimulus spending program. But Wednesday afternoon about quarter to four I get out of a meeting in Dundee and am faced with the choice of either driving back to downtown Toledo for the last few minutes of the day or heading straight to the boat. Easy choice. So I climb into the car, roll down all the windows and my Subie tells me the outside air temp is 100. I haven’t seen that number show up on the dash display in a while. Once I get moving and a little air flows under the hood the reading drops all the way to 95. At the boat there is barely a breath of air stirring the leaves and the inside of the boat is doing its best impression of a toaster oven. Oh oh, this has the potential to get ugly today. So, what’s to do on a sultry windless day of a race while waiting to see if there are other mad dogs and Englishmen about? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdEnxNog56E Might as well go jogging. On the return leg of my three mile run Jerry Porter slows his truck and asks “Are you feeling okay?” (Nice to know that I appear to be the perfect vision of health when I’m running.) “Well, perhaps a wee bit touched in the head. Do you have a cold beer you can spare?” “No, but I could give you a ride back to the club.” “Thanks, but I’ll make it.” Once back in the shade sitting at the picnic table it’s obvious that the rest of those who have wandered out to the club early aren’t too eager to induce any sweat-related activities. It’s a slow wind-up to the evening’s race. The wind speed gauge on the boat is trying to decide whether it should read 1.6 or 2.4. Ouch! On the upside it doesn’t look like I will need last week’s light fleece and foul-weather bottoms. Summer has put in an appearance in southeast Michigan.
But about 40 boats eventually all find our way out to the water and what to our wondering eyes should appear but: breeze! Out by the west mark there really is some wind to be found. Eventually we find ourselves in 8 or 9 knots out of about 145 degrees. The boys from Clowns ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5yG1Dy5b4A ) are handling RC duties this evening (thanks guys, it was the most easily readable result sheet of the season so far!), and course #4 is called for, a beat to the South mark, an offwind leg to the North (or Center if you are Jamming it) and then a headsail reach (for most of the right-thinking among the PHRF fleet anyway) back to the West mark finish. Even the Jammers opt to go with headsails on their last leg. (Okay, think about it.)
So once again, in spite of our best laid plans, another nice race ensued. A good weather leg, an offwind leg with the choice of whether to heat up a tad for boat speed or soak down for the best course to the mark (we opted to go as deep as anyone in the fleet and at least got that decision right, using our relatively big chute to catch and/or pass some boats in our class by the North mark) and then there was that reach to the finish. Our decision was not so good there: most of the fleet made the better choice of a headsail soon after the jibe. We opted to hang on to the chute, we were only about 8 or 9 degrees low and with seemingly better boat speed than some of the others early in that leg. The rationale (man I hate rationalizations!) was that we would carry the chute for a while at good speed and then change to the #1 and come up to finish. Eventually the wind lifted just slightly and we were sucked into the (mistaken!) impression that we would be able to carry our chute right up to the committee boat. Sitting on the low side and steering to the breaking luff of the chute, it looked for a while like we might pull it off. However at some point up that leg the break even point was crossed where the headsails started to perform as well as (and even better than) the chutes and our hopes evaporated with that development. Time Machine rolled up from the stern with their big red chute bearing down on us and the two of us entertained ourselves for a while with seeing who could outlast the other on a tight chute reach. We eventually persuaded them that we could hold on as tightly as they could in this particular circumstance and prevented them from rolling us, but I don’t think either one of us did ourselves any large favors in the end.
The first three boats and four of the first five to finish all got guns. Splash Dance led the PHRF C contingent home, followed by Full Tilt in B and Abracadabra in A. Team I Ball snuck in next, sans gun (but with better honors once corrected), and then Rocket Science was the first of the Jammers to lead their pack home. Corrected time results showed that in PHRF, Team I Ball took the overalls with Orange Crate matching suit in JAM. Phrf A went to Fupastank (who?) in 1st with Natural High 2nd and Abra in 3rd. In PHRF B, Team I Ball (the boat is obviously much faster now that there are numbers on the mainsail!) took the win in a fairly handy fashion from Full Tilt in 2nd and the Group on Therapy in 3rd. PHRF C found Splash Dance leading the way with Flak-Bait and Wildcat filling out the podium spots. In JAM A, it was the aforementioned Orange Crate showing their light air prowess with Rocket Science and Breakaway close behind. In JAM B, Aftermath2 showed that school was out for the summer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbNEOJMGFAo&feature=fvst :when I grow up I want to be just like Alice!) with La Chiva and Full Ride in 2nd and 3rd. I wonder if FR had to race with that keg of Blue Moon aboard?
For those of you looking to get away a little this weekend, Saturday is Ford Yacht Club’s and Monroe Boat Club’s annual Port-to-Port Race. This race alternates directions every year and, this being an odd-numbered year, the fleet will gather at MBC to race from our North Mark to FYC. I have attached the Sailing Instructions. If you have never been to Ford, give it some thought. It’s a great and friendly club in a nice remote spot on Grosse Isle. Good restaurant, good bar, and good times! The will provide free overnight dockage for you on Saturday. Give it a try.
So we have had another successful evening rescued from what looked to be less than optimal conditions. Thanks everyone for continuing to participate in our little get togethers that are Wednesday nights at North Cape.
Next week Sandy and I will be away on a family vacation. Hopefully Dar or Michelle or someone will be able to step in to help the scoring program perform its magic and perhaps we can solicit the vocal stylings of Duane (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nd2QK6BIVU ) to announce the results. With luck Foghorn may be out there anyway in the more capable hands of the crew. If they win I probably won’t be allowed back on the boat. Have fun everyone. Sail safe.
Kent
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Results from the Race For Hope
2009 Race For Hope # 1
Race Date: 20 Jun 2009 Wind Speed: 15-20 W PRELIMINARY
Div OvAl Finish Corrected
Rank Rank Boat Name Sail No. Rating Time Time Time Owner / Skipper
Elapsed
Behind
Seconds *
NCYC
PHRF PHRF Time on Distance / Start Time 14:00 / Dist.6.80 nm * Time Behind is Sec / Mile
1 1 Splash Dance 40221 132 15:08:16 01:08:16 00:53:18 Laszlo Goda
2 2 Orange Door 15609 177 15:14:29 01:14:29 00:54:25 10 Jody Kjoller
3 3 Baci 51433 84 15:04:12 01:04:12 00:54:41 12 Jeff & Beth Eischen
4 4 Time Machine 40937 72 15:04:33 01:04:33 00:56:23 27 Robert Gordenker
JAM PHRF Time on Distance / Start Time 14:05 / Dist.6.80 nm * Time Behind is Sec / Mile
1 1 Ms. T 1215 165 15:15:02 01:10:02 00:51:20 Neal Thurber
2 2 Wildcat 41230 147 15:13:15 01:08:15 00:51:35 2 Russ Atkinson
3 3 Breakaway 16544 136 15:12:27 01:07:27 00:52:02 6 Bill Sommers
4 4 Caprice 387 192 15:21:56 01:16:56 00:55:10 34 Ed Moore
5 5 Aftermath2 52503 172 15:19:50 01:14:50 00:55:20 35 Jonathon Vosler
6 6 La Chiva 15610 179 15:22:33 01:17:33 00:57:16 52 Dick Hamilton
7 7 Wing Jammin 310 159 15:21:07 01:16:07 00:58:06 60 Bill Pribe
8 8 Flak-Bait 13919 161 15:22:44 01:17:44 00:59:29 72 Duane & Dar Burgoyne
9 9 Lindy Lee 561 148 15:24:16 01:19:16 01:02:30 99 Bruce Huddleston
10 10 Autumn Wind 3202 193 15:30:15 01:25:15 01:03:23 106 Joe Sweeney
11 11 Two Wild 59 182 15:29:22 01:24:22 01:03:44 109 Bob Thompson
DNF 13 13 Schmoonie 233 204 Tom Rogge
Questions? Contact:
Printed On:
Scoring Program by Quick Score - For Program Information visit www.QuickScoreRace.com or Email dan.hollands@gmail.com
20-Jun-2009 16:13:21
John Greiner
Number of boats Scored 16
Race Date: 20 Jun 2009 Wind Speed: 15-20 W PRELIMINARY
Div OvAl Finish Corrected
Rank Rank Boat Name Sail No. Rating Time Time Time Owner / Skipper
Elapsed
Behind
Seconds *
NCYC
PHRF PHRF Time on Distance / Start Time 14:00 / Dist.6.80 nm * Time Behind is Sec / Mile
1 1 Splash Dance 40221 132 15:08:16 01:08:16 00:53:18 Laszlo Goda
2 2 Orange Door 15609 177 15:14:29 01:14:29 00:54:25 10 Jody Kjoller
3 3 Baci 51433 84 15:04:12 01:04:12 00:54:41 12 Jeff & Beth Eischen
4 4 Time Machine 40937 72 15:04:33 01:04:33 00:56:23 27 Robert Gordenker
JAM PHRF Time on Distance / Start Time 14:05 / Dist.6.80 nm * Time Behind is Sec / Mile
1 1 Ms. T 1215 165 15:15:02 01:10:02 00:51:20 Neal Thurber
2 2 Wildcat 41230 147 15:13:15 01:08:15 00:51:35 2 Russ Atkinson
3 3 Breakaway 16544 136 15:12:27 01:07:27 00:52:02 6 Bill Sommers
4 4 Caprice 387 192 15:21:56 01:16:56 00:55:10 34 Ed Moore
5 5 Aftermath2 52503 172 15:19:50 01:14:50 00:55:20 35 Jonathon Vosler
6 6 La Chiva 15610 179 15:22:33 01:17:33 00:57:16 52 Dick Hamilton
7 7 Wing Jammin 310 159 15:21:07 01:16:07 00:58:06 60 Bill Pribe
8 8 Flak-Bait 13919 161 15:22:44 01:17:44 00:59:29 72 Duane & Dar Burgoyne
9 9 Lindy Lee 561 148 15:24:16 01:19:16 01:02:30 99 Bruce Huddleston
10 10 Autumn Wind 3202 193 15:30:15 01:25:15 01:03:23 106 Joe Sweeney
11 11 Two Wild 59 182 15:29:22 01:24:22 01:03:44 109 Bob Thompson
DNF 13 13 Schmoonie 233 204 Tom Rogge
Questions? Contact:
Printed On:
Scoring Program by Quick Score - For Program Information visit www.QuickScoreRace.com or Email dan.hollands@gmail.com
20-Jun-2009 16:13:21
John Greiner
Number of boats Scored 16
Friday, June 19, 2009
What a difference 24 hours makes!
Thursday night Fred Hibbert had arranged for members of his Rotary Club to come out to North Cape for their annual sail and steak dinner. Baci, Flak-Bait and Foghorn as well as Melan from MBC took out the Rotarians. What a gorgeous evening for a sail! And the food was great too. Thanks, Fred, for inviting us to be a part of this fun evening.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Notes and Results: Wednesday June 17, 2009
Lots o' stuff this week:
Holy Toledo ! It was a Breakaway kind of night! If anybody found the time to take any pictures, please share them with me.
So Wednesday it was supposed to rain and be fairly light air. Well, zero out of two ain't that bad a batting average, is it? When I grow up I want to be a weatherman. No, not a 60s radical, been there done that. I want to get paid to guesstimate what the weather is not going to do and then when I'm wrong, I get paid again tomorrow for my next wrong forecast. To be fair, it looks like those to the south did get dumped on. Was that rain or just Carty letting the good citizens of Toledo know what he thinks of them? But for those of us living the good and pure life on the waters of Lake Erie, we escaped. Apparently the magnetic personalities of all you sailors must be the polar opposite of the rain clouds. Or as Babs would say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAVlk4F2qkw
The good news on the water? No Mayflies this week! If you've been missing them, check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crGQJQHjgaI
So no rain but a pretty steady 15 to 18 knots of wind from the northwest greeted 42 boats full of sailors this evening. Not quite the idyllic conditions we have seen of late but a good change and a chance to look at some of the other sails in the inventory. #3's seemed to be the order of the day for much of the fleet but there were a few boats that opted for larger headsails. Course #5 was deemed appropriate by the gang on Orange Crate, west to east to south to west. Or if you were Jamming it, west to center to south and back to west. An off-wind start to the first mark, a fairly close reach to the south and then a beat to the finish. Made for a good race with a lot of boats on the same water in close proximity to each other, especially on the weather leg. Finishes came fast and furious for the race committee with a number of instances of five or more boats finishing close together. Good, because if the race committee gets to sit around and eat and drink while we are slaving away on the race course, the least we can do is make them work at the finish line.
Abracadabra went blasting by us on the spinnaker leg having made up five minutes seemingly only minutes after the start. With the crew piled on the stern, the jib and A-sail flying, and the bow well out of the water they were definitely trucking. I think I heard tales of 17 knots boatspeed which made our 8 or 9 as they went by seem like we were dragging an anchor.
Baby Clown, the J80 in PHRF B shrimped their A-sail on the hoist at the start but once they got it up and flying showed great boat speed too as did Full Tilt with theirs. Most boats in our class went with symmetrical kites and didn't have problems once they got them flying. We opted for an A-sail we hadn't seen out of the bag yet this year and with which we don't have too much experience. I think we often were over trimming it and didn't allow it to rotate far enough out to weather to escape the blanket from the main. The concepts may be relatively the same as a regular chute but the techniques sure are different on our boat. When we did get it working it was a force and we buried the bow into waves on more than one occasion. Green water rolling over the deck doesn't happen all that often on Foghorn. We also need to work on our takedown techniques for that sail as it can be really powerful when it loads up at the wrong time, although I noticed at least a few other boats who apparently decided to have wash day for their chutes too.
The south mark with Jammers coming in above the spinnaker boats and everyone wanting to go to weather was fun. Fortunately the weather leg was square enough that you could tack out if you found yourself covered after the mark. Good fun and lots of attention required with the faster boats overtaking the slower ones all the way up the leg.
In JAM B, Rich Cherry's Full Ride found the heavier conditions to its liking and took the class. See how much faster that boat is now that you aren't carrying that fender hanging over the side, Rich? Jonathon Vosler's Aftermath2 and Dick Hamilton's La Chiva rounded out the top three.
In JAM A, the Davis 's Orange Crate avoided the fray by being RC and so Bill Sommers' Breakaway, Joanie O'Connell's Tyrannous and Les Lashaway's Mega are listed as the top boats. I just noticed that Rocket Science doesn't have a time recorded and I saw them finish just in front of us. There was one boat that the RC got confused on the sail number on in the landrush to the finishes so I suspect that was probably Rocket Science. I'll refigure the results tonight when I'm at the club and get RS's finish included. Don't know how they will correct out until the scoring program recalculates, but my apologies in advance for not making that connection last night in the hurry to get results announced.
UPDATE (06/19/09): I entered Rocket Science's finish time and also corrected the class assignments for the Etchells and for Mosh Pit. The corrected results are posted on the NCYC webiste and also on the board at the club.
PHRF C saw Rob Fox's Defender out pace the field with Russ Atkinson's Wildcat and the Burgoynes on Flak-Bait hot on their heels. PHRF B was the province of the Greiners' Red Cloud followed by Skip Dieball's Team I-Ball flying under the radar in their stealth boat and Full Tilt coming in third. In PHRF A it was a Hobie kind of night with Tom Andrews' Holy Toledo! and Spencer Norris's Fupastank taking the measure of Abracadabra in spite of Abra's balls-to-the-wall ride on the first leg.
Overalls went to Breakaway in JAM and Holy Toledo! in PHRF.
Hope everybody stayed relatively dry and had fun. It looks like none of the injuries on our boat will prove to be life threatening, but if anyone wants to audition for the role of sacrificial meat, just let me know.
In other happenings in our little world of sail, for those of you who actually plan ahead here are a couple of events to consider. The Sandusky Sailing Club's Sandusky Islands Race/Hospice Cup is coming up on the July 4th weekend. This one always provides a good party and a nice tour of the islands for the racers. A flyer is attached.
And believe it or not, it's not too early to start thinking about I-LYA's Bay Week Regatta. Early registrations have been slow in coming in and so I-LYA trustee Ron Soka (who you will recognize as annually the major force behind the Mills Race effort) is asking that those of you who are planning to come to Bay Week let them know by getting in an entry. If you haven't planned on it yet, Bay Week is one of the summer's institutions on Lake Erie and the site of many a great party and some fun racing. At least that's what my surviving brain cells seem to recall anyway. Attached to this email is the Registration Form and also the Notice of Race for BayWeek. If you have any questions feel free to contact Ron at http://us.mc840.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rpsoka@coolingtechnologies.com or ask me and I'll try to find some answers for you.
And last but certainly far from least, please keep in mind that this weekend, Saturday June 20th is the Race for Hope, NCYC's annual charity race to benefit cancer research. It a great cause that hits close to home and its a great deal on top of it. Please show your support by coming out and participating.
I can't thank you all enough for your support for the Yachting Activities events this year, thanks to all for everything you are doing to make these programs strong, it makes life at North Cape fun!
Kent
Holy Toledo ! It was a Breakaway kind of night! If anybody found the time to take any pictures, please share them with me.
So Wednesday it was supposed to rain and be fairly light air. Well, zero out of two ain't that bad a batting average, is it? When I grow up I want to be a weatherman. No, not a 60s radical, been there done that. I want to get paid to guesstimate what the weather is not going to do and then when I'm wrong, I get paid again tomorrow for my next wrong forecast. To be fair, it looks like those to the south did get dumped on. Was that rain or just Carty letting the good citizens of Toledo know what he thinks of them? But for those of us living the good and pure life on the waters of Lake Erie, we escaped. Apparently the magnetic personalities of all you sailors must be the polar opposite of the rain clouds. Or as Babs would say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAVlk4F2qkw
The good news on the water? No Mayflies this week! If you've been missing them, check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crGQJQHjgaI
So no rain but a pretty steady 15 to 18 knots of wind from the northwest greeted 42 boats full of sailors this evening. Not quite the idyllic conditions we have seen of late but a good change and a chance to look at some of the other sails in the inventory. #3's seemed to be the order of the day for much of the fleet but there were a few boats that opted for larger headsails. Course #5 was deemed appropriate by the gang on Orange Crate, west to east to south to west. Or if you were Jamming it, west to center to south and back to west. An off-wind start to the first mark, a fairly close reach to the south and then a beat to the finish. Made for a good race with a lot of boats on the same water in close proximity to each other, especially on the weather leg. Finishes came fast and furious for the race committee with a number of instances of five or more boats finishing close together. Good, because if the race committee gets to sit around and eat and drink while we are slaving away on the race course, the least we can do is make them work at the finish line.
Abracadabra went blasting by us on the spinnaker leg having made up five minutes seemingly only minutes after the start. With the crew piled on the stern, the jib and A-sail flying, and the bow well out of the water they were definitely trucking. I think I heard tales of 17 knots boatspeed which made our 8 or 9 as they went by seem like we were dragging an anchor.
Baby Clown, the J80 in PHRF B shrimped their A-sail on the hoist at the start but once they got it up and flying showed great boat speed too as did Full Tilt with theirs. Most boats in our class went with symmetrical kites and didn't have problems once they got them flying. We opted for an A-sail we hadn't seen out of the bag yet this year and with which we don't have too much experience. I think we often were over trimming it and didn't allow it to rotate far enough out to weather to escape the blanket from the main. The concepts may be relatively the same as a regular chute but the techniques sure are different on our boat. When we did get it working it was a force and we buried the bow into waves on more than one occasion. Green water rolling over the deck doesn't happen all that often on Foghorn. We also need to work on our takedown techniques for that sail as it can be really powerful when it loads up at the wrong time, although I noticed at least a few other boats who apparently decided to have wash day for their chutes too.
The south mark with Jammers coming in above the spinnaker boats and everyone wanting to go to weather was fun. Fortunately the weather leg was square enough that you could tack out if you found yourself covered after the mark. Good fun and lots of attention required with the faster boats overtaking the slower ones all the way up the leg.
In JAM B, Rich Cherry's Full Ride found the heavier conditions to its liking and took the class. See how much faster that boat is now that you aren't carrying that fender hanging over the side, Rich? Jonathon Vosler's Aftermath2 and Dick Hamilton's La Chiva rounded out the top three.
In JAM A, the Davis 's Orange Crate avoided the fray by being RC and so Bill Sommers' Breakaway, Joanie O'Connell's Tyrannous and Les Lashaway's Mega are listed as the top boats. I just noticed that Rocket Science doesn't have a time recorded and I saw them finish just in front of us. There was one boat that the RC got confused on the sail number on in the landrush to the finishes so I suspect that was probably Rocket Science. I'll refigure the results tonight when I'm at the club and get RS's finish included. Don't know how they will correct out until the scoring program recalculates, but my apologies in advance for not making that connection last night in the hurry to get results announced.
UPDATE (06/19/09): I entered Rocket Science's finish time and also corrected the class assignments for the Etchells and for Mosh Pit. The corrected results are posted on the NCYC webiste and also on the board at the club.
PHRF C saw Rob Fox's Defender out pace the field with Russ Atkinson's Wildcat and the Burgoynes on Flak-Bait hot on their heels. PHRF B was the province of the Greiners' Red Cloud followed by Skip Dieball's Team I-Ball flying under the radar in their stealth boat and Full Tilt coming in third. In PHRF A it was a Hobie kind of night with Tom Andrews' Holy Toledo! and Spencer Norris's Fupastank taking the measure of Abracadabra in spite of Abra's balls-to-the-wall ride on the first leg.
Overalls went to Breakaway in JAM and Holy Toledo! in PHRF.
Hope everybody stayed relatively dry and had fun. It looks like none of the injuries on our boat will prove to be life threatening, but if anyone wants to audition for the role of sacrificial meat, just let me know.
In other happenings in our little world of sail, for those of you who actually plan ahead here are a couple of events to consider. The Sandusky Sailing Club's Sandusky Islands Race/Hospice Cup is coming up on the July 4th weekend. This one always provides a good party and a nice tour of the islands for the racers. A flyer is attached.
And believe it or not, it's not too early to start thinking about I-LYA's Bay Week Regatta. Early registrations have been slow in coming in and so I-LYA trustee Ron Soka (who you will recognize as annually the major force behind the Mills Race effort) is asking that those of you who are planning to come to Bay Week let them know by getting in an entry. If you haven't planned on it yet, Bay Week is one of the summer's institutions on Lake Erie and the site of many a great party and some fun racing. At least that's what my surviving brain cells seem to recall anyway. Attached to this email is the Registration Form and also the Notice of Race for BayWeek. If you have any questions feel free to contact Ron at http://us.mc840.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=rpsoka@coolingtechnologies.com or ask me and I'll try to find some answers for you.
And last but certainly far from least, please keep in mind that this weekend, Saturday June 20th is the Race for Hope, NCYC's annual charity race to benefit cancer research. It a great cause that hits close to home and its a great deal on top of it. Please show your support by coming out and participating.
I can't thank you all enough for your support for the Yachting Activities events this year, thanks to all for everything you are doing to make these programs strong, it makes life at North Cape fun!
Kent
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
This blog and other events
Hi all,
Just when you thought it was safe to read your emails, I'm back with more.
First, I received a suggestion that I post these various musings on a blog so that people could refer back to them when they wanted to. Now, as to why anyone would want to refer back to this drivel, I don't have a clue. But anyway, I have created a blog to gather all this stuff together. You can find it at http://ncycsailing.blogspot.com/ If you find the need to re-read this stuff, I have a therapist I can recommend.
At this point the blog is still pretty basic. I have uploaded the various reports but I haven't done "pretty" and "engaging" yet. And "pretty" is what I'm all about. Pretty, I feel pretty. Oh so pretty and witty and bright! (that's another old guy showtune reference; see: West Side Story. For those of you who aren't old like me, just skip over this crap.) So at some point, assuming I figure out how, it will get some pictures and other stuff to make it look better. In the future I will still email out the weekly updates but will also post that info to the blog. We'll get a link to the blog up on the NCYC website so you don't have to remember it.
Now on to other things of import:
This weekend is the Race For Hope Saturday June 20th at NCYC. Details will be forthcoming, but this is a great cause: Cancer Research and it has hit home in a big way this year for all of us with Mary Lou Osborne's passing. If there is anyway that you can participate by entering, please do so. Even if you cannot, please consider a contribution to the Cancer Society through a race entry anyway. It's only $50 and we all know the money is needed and will be well spent. All proceeds from this event go directly to the charity. The costs have been underwritten. Talk to John or Judy Greiner or Bob Thompson for details.
Also this weekend, NCYC welcomes the Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan to the club for their regatta. There will be plenty of beach cats on the grounds and racing this weekend.
Next weekend, Saturday June 27th is the Monroe Boat Club to Ford Yacht Club Port-to-Port Race. The race is Saturday with dockage available at FYC on Saturday Night for participants. See the attachment for details.
I have also uploaded the series results for the Spring Midweek Series. We had six races scheduled, lost the first one to the weather but got five great races in. 35 boats qualified in the results by participating in at least three races and 49 different boats in total were a part of the series. That's huge! The results were close, including a three-way tie on points for first in PHRF B with tie-breakers coming into play for that one. In three classes we had boats with perfect scores for the series: Laszlo Goda's Splash Dance in PHRF B, Jim and Chris Davis's Orange Crate in JAM A, and Jim and Toni Jacobs' Super Zena in JAM B all came away with three bullets. I know their competition will be gunning for them in the next two series. Better sail with your fenders over the side, SD, OC and SZ! Thanks to all of you for helping to make Midweek Racing at North Cape one of the best series going in the Great Lakes! I'm looking forward to even more participation in the next two series. Remember, each series consists of six races: five Wednesday evenings and one Sunday afternoon. The Junior Sailors have food for us after the Wednesday events and we will again have a potluck after the Sunday races.
I got some good feedback on this past Sunday's race. Many seemed to enjoy the race and the potluck after. One of the suggestions for an alternate approach was to perhaps consider for next year establishing a separate Sunday afternoon series, one race a month, May through September and have that as its own independent series instead of counting the race toward the midweek series results. Certainly that's a thought worth considering. If you have any input on this or any other aspect of the Yachting Activities program, please let me or a member of the bridge or of the board know your thoughts. The Yachting Activities program is here to serve you and if asparagus isn't to your taste, perhaps you'd rather have the lima beans or the beets. Me, I'll settle for ice cream. Oh, and beer.
See ya Wednesday. I'm still looking for that first night when we have 50 boats on the water. Let's make it happen!
Kent
Just when you thought it was safe to read your emails, I'm back with more.
First, I received a suggestion that I post these various musings on a blog so that people could refer back to them when they wanted to. Now, as to why anyone would want to refer back to this drivel, I don't have a clue. But anyway, I have created a blog to gather all this stuff together. You can find it at http://ncycsailing.blogspot.com/ If you find the need to re-read this stuff, I have a therapist I can recommend.
At this point the blog is still pretty basic. I have uploaded the various reports but I haven't done "pretty" and "engaging" yet. And "pretty" is what I'm all about. Pretty, I feel pretty. Oh so pretty and witty and bright! (that's another old guy showtune reference; see: West Side Story. For those of you who aren't old like me, just skip over this crap.) So at some point, assuming I figure out how, it will get some pictures and other stuff to make it look better. In the future I will still email out the weekly updates but will also post that info to the blog. We'll get a link to the blog up on the NCYC website so you don't have to remember it.
Now on to other things of import:
This weekend is the Race For Hope Saturday June 20th at NCYC. Details will be forthcoming, but this is a great cause: Cancer Research and it has hit home in a big way this year for all of us with Mary Lou Osborne's passing. If there is anyway that you can participate by entering, please do so. Even if you cannot, please consider a contribution to the Cancer Society through a race entry anyway. It's only $50 and we all know the money is needed and will be well spent. All proceeds from this event go directly to the charity. The costs have been underwritten. Talk to John or Judy Greiner or Bob Thompson for details.
Also this weekend, NCYC welcomes the Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan to the club for their regatta. There will be plenty of beach cats on the grounds and racing this weekend.
Next weekend, Saturday June 27th is the Monroe Boat Club to Ford Yacht Club Port-to-Port Race. The race is Saturday with dockage available at FYC on Saturday Night for participants. See the attachment for details.
I have also uploaded the series results for the Spring Midweek Series. We had six races scheduled, lost the first one to the weather but got five great races in. 35 boats qualified in the results by participating in at least three races and 49 different boats in total were a part of the series. That's huge! The results were close, including a three-way tie on points for first in PHRF B with tie-breakers coming into play for that one. In three classes we had boats with perfect scores for the series: Laszlo Goda's Splash Dance in PHRF B, Jim and Chris Davis's Orange Crate in JAM A, and Jim and Toni Jacobs' Super Zena in JAM B all came away with three bullets. I know their competition will be gunning for them in the next two series. Better sail with your fenders over the side, SD, OC and SZ! Thanks to all of you for helping to make Midweek Racing at North Cape one of the best series going in the Great Lakes! I'm looking forward to even more participation in the next two series. Remember, each series consists of six races: five Wednesday evenings and one Sunday afternoon. The Junior Sailors have food for us after the Wednesday events and we will again have a potluck after the Sunday races.
I got some good feedback on this past Sunday's race. Many seemed to enjoy the race and the potluck after. One of the suggestions for an alternate approach was to perhaps consider for next year establishing a separate Sunday afternoon series, one race a month, May through September and have that as its own independent series instead of counting the race toward the midweek series results. Certainly that's a thought worth considering. If you have any input on this or any other aspect of the Yachting Activities program, please let me or a member of the bridge or of the board know your thoughts. The Yachting Activities program is here to serve you and if asparagus isn't to your taste, perhaps you'd rather have the lima beans or the beets. Me, I'll settle for ice cream. Oh, and beer.
See ya Wednesday. I'm still looking for that first night when we have 50 boats on the water. Let's make it happen!
Kent
Notes and Results: Sunday Midweek June 14, 2009
With apologies to Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof:
A midweek race on Sunday afternoon...Sounds crazy, no? But here in our little club of North Cape, you might say every one of us is a sailor on a Sunday afternoon. Trying to scratch out a little bite to windward without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we continue to do it if it's so dangerous? Well we do it because North Cape is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word! Tradition!
Tradition...Tradition...Tradition...Tradition...Tradition
Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here at North Cape, we have traditions for everything. How to sleep. How to eat. How to work. How to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered with a beat up sailing cap, and always wear a teeshirt from a long ago race. This shows our constant devotion to sailing.
You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I'll tell you. I don't know. But it's a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what the Commodore expects him to do.
So, yesterday at North Cape we messed with tradition. A Sunday afternoon midweek race? Whoever heard of such a thing? What were you thinking when you let this guy be in charge of yachting activities and what can we do to put an end to such silliness?
Well, in spite of a forecast tending toward light and vairiable, twenty-some boats were willing to give it a try and were rewarded with a beautiful afternoon on the water with flat water and winds of 8 to 10 out of the east. It was a gorgeous day for a race. There is obviously good competition within our fleets with boats and crews sensing the need for good starts and fast sailing. For the second race in a row we had a spate of "On Course Starts" On Wednesday there were five boats over early in the PHRF A fleet. On Sunday once again a boat was over early in PHRF A and the influence had spread to PHRF B with two more boats over. The racers are having to be on their toes to get good starts and the race committees are having to be on top of the situation to identify the boats over and call them back.
On Foghorn we had two new racers out with us, Davey's brother and sister came along for the ride and it looked like they were having fun. Red Cloud seemed to have a bigger crew than normal and if I'm not mistaken I even saw John Greiner riding the rail on the weather leg! The race was great with good close competition The results of Sunday's race are attached. I will have the Spring Series results available soon.
And then Sunday was complemented by a picnic potluck picnic after the race. Dogs, brats, burgers, and steaks all found their way to the grill and the buffet table was loaded with contributions of salads, pasta, beans, fruit and desserts. If you left hungry you only have yourself to blame.
Thanks to all who gave it a chance and we hope to see you and a bunch more boats out on the two remaining Sundays this summer, July 12th and August 30th.
Also atached are the results of Friday Night's Moonlight JAM Fun Race. A dozen boats made it out for a pretty evening under the moon and stars. Thanks everyone for participating!
This Wednesday, June 17th, will be the first of the Summer Series races. Come on out and join the fun!
Kent Gardam
A midweek race on Sunday afternoon...Sounds crazy, no? But here in our little club of North Cape, you might say every one of us is a sailor on a Sunday afternoon. Trying to scratch out a little bite to windward without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we continue to do it if it's so dangerous? Well we do it because North Cape is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word! Tradition!
Tradition...Tradition...Tradition...Tradition...Tradition
Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here at North Cape, we have traditions for everything. How to sleep. How to eat. How to work. How to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered with a beat up sailing cap, and always wear a teeshirt from a long ago race. This shows our constant devotion to sailing.
You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I'll tell you. I don't know. But it's a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what the Commodore expects him to do.
So, yesterday at North Cape we messed with tradition. A Sunday afternoon midweek race? Whoever heard of such a thing? What were you thinking when you let this guy be in charge of yachting activities and what can we do to put an end to such silliness?
Well, in spite of a forecast tending toward light and vairiable, twenty-some boats were willing to give it a try and were rewarded with a beautiful afternoon on the water with flat water and winds of 8 to 10 out of the east. It was a gorgeous day for a race. There is obviously good competition within our fleets with boats and crews sensing the need for good starts and fast sailing. For the second race in a row we had a spate of "On Course Starts" On Wednesday there were five boats over early in the PHRF A fleet. On Sunday once again a boat was over early in PHRF A and the influence had spread to PHRF B with two more boats over. The racers are having to be on their toes to get good starts and the race committees are having to be on top of the situation to identify the boats over and call them back.
On Foghorn we had two new racers out with us, Davey's brother and sister came along for the ride and it looked like they were having fun. Red Cloud seemed to have a bigger crew than normal and if I'm not mistaken I even saw John Greiner riding the rail on the weather leg! The race was great with good close competition The results of Sunday's race are attached. I will have the Spring Series results available soon.
And then Sunday was complemented by a picnic potluck picnic after the race. Dogs, brats, burgers, and steaks all found their way to the grill and the buffet table was loaded with contributions of salads, pasta, beans, fruit and desserts. If you left hungry you only have yourself to blame.
Thanks to all who gave it a chance and we hope to see you and a bunch more boats out on the two remaining Sundays this summer, July 12th and August 30th.
Also atached are the results of Friday Night's Moonlight JAM Fun Race. A dozen boats made it out for a pretty evening under the moon and stars. Thanks everyone for participating!
This Wednesday, June 17th, will be the first of the Summer Series races. Come on out and join the fun!
Kent Gardam
Notes and Results: Wednesday June 10, 2009
Hi all,
Hope you enjoyed last night's race. We had forty-one boats participating, another great turnout. Thanks all for making North Cape a part of your Wednesday nights. I suspect you noticed that the racing last night was a little more challenging than the last couple of weeks.
Up front, my apologies for lack of announcing timely results last night. We had one of those $#@&%! computer situations last night that you never totally figure out what went wrong. Could well have been some errant keystroke I made or something but the scoring program just was not a happy camper. We entered the results, tried to score the race, got nothing, tried to reenter the results, got garbage, got multiple options for results entry, tried to delete what we had done, still garbage, rebooted the computer, still garbage, and on and on. But you don't want to hear about my problems. Eventually we were able to delete all the crud on the last deletion attempt (but not through using the program the way it was intended) and then got the results to compute. Thanks to Michelle Glanville and Robert Gordenker for helping to sort out the mess. So if you stayed late, you may have heard the scores, but if not, they are attached here and are up on the club Racing page website.
A couple of comments about last night's experience with the starting sequence. In the PHRF A start a number of boats were over early. This resulted in an individual recall for those boats but in the resulting commotion also resulted in the next starting sequence (for JAM B) being delayed by two minutes. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE STARTING SEQUENCE FLAGS! We all get used to hearing and seeing the next sequence start concurrently with the start gun for the previous sequence and as such the starts are generally (not always!) five minutes apart. That is very convenient, BUT IT IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY GOING TO HAPPEN! The starting procedure used now allows for gaps between starts and sometimes (last night!) it happens. I believe a significant portion of the JAM B fleet was caught unawares by that development but it is your responsibility to observe the flags and get in sync with your starting sequence. If you don't have it memorized, take a couple of minutes to review the race instructions that spells out the STARTING FLAG SEQUENCE so you don't get confused again. The Race Committee did what needed to be done but apparently suffered some abuse from some of the JAM B competitors who weren't paying close enough attention and thought that the RC was screwing up. Midweek races are all about having fun but you still have to pay attention to the rules. Please do so. One of the JAM B competitors even suggested sending the boats that were over early to the back of the sequence. In the first place, that doesn't work with an Individual Recall, it is only potentially possible with a General Recall. In the second place, the our Race Instructions don't call for that possibility anyway.
Also one more point with respect to the starting sequence. THE FLAGS ARE THE RULING INDICATORS, NOT THE GUNS. The visual signals are what determines the sequence. The sounds are just an assist but do not control anything.
We try to provide the most stress free relaxed racing opportunity we can but it is still up to you to play by the appropriate rules.
Oh, and while I am talking about the gun: Just a refresher for those of you who may not have yet had the opportunity to use the club's cannon or haven't done so recently. THERE IS A TWO SECOND DELAY BETWEEN WHEN YOU PUSH THE BUTTON FOR THE CANNON AND WHEN THE CANNON FIRES. This often results in one or the other of two different situations. One, the operator will push the button once, not hear the cannon fire, and so will push the button again thinking they must not have pushed it hard enough. The result? THE CANNON FIRES TWICE IN SUCCESSION. So don't do that. The second situation is that the operator will push the button when the countdown reaches "zero". You should push the button two seconds prior to zero. Countdown: Five, Four, Three, Two (button is pushed), One, Zero (BOOM!).
Now, with respect to the race. Last night's weather leg start was certainly more of a test than we had previously seen this year. The lumpy conditions from an all-day easterly wind and the resulting left-over 6 to 8 or so knots of easterly made for some challenging conditions. I know we sure adapted slowly. Two minutes after our PHRF B start, I think we were already three minutes behind the lead boats in our class. Our mistake? Well, at least the most obvious one, was that we were oversheeted for the conditions. The normal settings just resulted in a lot of banging into waves and gonig up and down and not through the water. It wasn't until we finally sheeted well out that we began moving at the speeds we should have. By then it was a rear-guard action for us. Man, I assumed that after 30 years of racing you shouldn't have to relearn these lessons so often. Well we all know what ass-u-me means.
The fleets were a little more mixed up on the off wind legs last nightand we had the chance to sail in the vicinity of some different boats than usual.
In PHRF A, as mentioned before, we had five boats that were "On Course Start" at the gun. Only one, Abracadabra, came back to restart so the other four didn't get their times counted. But Robert Gordenker's Time Machine sailed a very nice weather leg and won the class by a minute over Abracadabra and Fupastank. IN PHRF B, Lynne and Mark Melchior's Full Tilt had the conditions figured out to take class and overall in PHRF. Wizard was a strong second with Send in the Clowns converting a great weather leg into a third. PHRF C saw Duane and Dar Burgoyne's Flak-Bait win by a minute and a half over always strong competitors Wildcat and Splash Dance. Nice job on the Bait Boat!
In JAM A, Drew Regan's Soverel 33 (boy those are nice looking boats, someday I hope to have one) Rocket Science took the measure of the class and the JAM fleet overall through the lumpy stuff with Breakaway and Orange Crate rounding out the top three. In JAM B Jim and Toni Jacobs' Super Zena continued their early season surge to the top of the fleet with the win, narrowly edging out Scandia and Aftermath2.
Congratulations to all, winners and not-so-winners alike for perservering through the challenging conditions and close mark roundings.
Don't forget that this Sunday June 14th is the final race, #6, of the Midweek Spring Series. Yes, that's right! Just in case you haven't been paying attention, we have added a Sunday afternoon race to each of the three midweek series. The start time will be 1:30 PM and there is no additional cost for the race. Afterwards, gather your crew for a picnic potluck. If you want to cookout, we'll have the grills available behind the club. Bring something to share and have a good time on what promises to be a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the club.
See you there!
Kent
Hope you enjoyed last night's race. We had forty-one boats participating, another great turnout. Thanks all for making North Cape a part of your Wednesday nights. I suspect you noticed that the racing last night was a little more challenging than the last couple of weeks.
Up front, my apologies for lack of announcing timely results last night. We had one of those $#@&%! computer situations last night that you never totally figure out what went wrong. Could well have been some errant keystroke I made or something but the scoring program just was not a happy camper. We entered the results, tried to score the race, got nothing, tried to reenter the results, got garbage, got multiple options for results entry, tried to delete what we had done, still garbage, rebooted the computer, still garbage, and on and on. But you don't want to hear about my problems. Eventually we were able to delete all the crud on the last deletion attempt (but not through using the program the way it was intended) and then got the results to compute. Thanks to Michelle Glanville and Robert Gordenker for helping to sort out the mess. So if you stayed late, you may have heard the scores, but if not, they are attached here and are up on the club Racing page website.
A couple of comments about last night's experience with the starting sequence. In the PHRF A start a number of boats were over early. This resulted in an individual recall for those boats but in the resulting commotion also resulted in the next starting sequence (for JAM B) being delayed by two minutes. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE STARTING SEQUENCE FLAGS! We all get used to hearing and seeing the next sequence start concurrently with the start gun for the previous sequence and as such the starts are generally (not always!) five minutes apart. That is very convenient, BUT IT IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY GOING TO HAPPEN! The starting procedure used now allows for gaps between starts and sometimes (last night!) it happens. I believe a significant portion of the JAM B fleet was caught unawares by that development but it is your responsibility to observe the flags and get in sync with your starting sequence. If you don't have it memorized, take a couple of minutes to review the race instructions that spells out the STARTING FLAG SEQUENCE so you don't get confused again. The Race Committee did what needed to be done but apparently suffered some abuse from some of the JAM B competitors who weren't paying close enough attention and thought that the RC was screwing up. Midweek races are all about having fun but you still have to pay attention to the rules. Please do so. One of the JAM B competitors even suggested sending the boats that were over early to the back of the sequence. In the first place, that doesn't work with an Individual Recall, it is only potentially possible with a General Recall. In the second place, the our Race Instructions don't call for that possibility anyway.
Also one more point with respect to the starting sequence. THE FLAGS ARE THE RULING INDICATORS, NOT THE GUNS. The visual signals are what determines the sequence. The sounds are just an assist but do not control anything.
We try to provide the most stress free relaxed racing opportunity we can but it is still up to you to play by the appropriate rules.
Oh, and while I am talking about the gun: Just a refresher for those of you who may not have yet had the opportunity to use the club's cannon or haven't done so recently. THERE IS A TWO SECOND DELAY BETWEEN WHEN YOU PUSH THE BUTTON FOR THE CANNON AND WHEN THE CANNON FIRES. This often results in one or the other of two different situations. One, the operator will push the button once, not hear the cannon fire, and so will push the button again thinking they must not have pushed it hard enough. The result? THE CANNON FIRES TWICE IN SUCCESSION. So don't do that. The second situation is that the operator will push the button when the countdown reaches "zero". You should push the button two seconds prior to zero. Countdown: Five, Four, Three, Two (button is pushed), One, Zero (BOOM!).
Now, with respect to the race. Last night's weather leg start was certainly more of a test than we had previously seen this year. The lumpy conditions from an all-day easterly wind and the resulting left-over 6 to 8 or so knots of easterly made for some challenging conditions. I know we sure adapted slowly. Two minutes after our PHRF B start, I think we were already three minutes behind the lead boats in our class. Our mistake? Well, at least the most obvious one, was that we were oversheeted for the conditions. The normal settings just resulted in a lot of banging into waves and gonig up and down and not through the water. It wasn't until we finally sheeted well out that we began moving at the speeds we should have. By then it was a rear-guard action for us. Man, I assumed that after 30 years of racing you shouldn't have to relearn these lessons so often. Well we all know what ass-u-me means.
The fleets were a little more mixed up on the off wind legs last nightand we had the chance to sail in the vicinity of some different boats than usual.
In PHRF A, as mentioned before, we had five boats that were "On Course Start" at the gun. Only one, Abracadabra, came back to restart so the other four didn't get their times counted. But Robert Gordenker's Time Machine sailed a very nice weather leg and won the class by a minute over Abracadabra and Fupastank. IN PHRF B, Lynne and Mark Melchior's Full Tilt had the conditions figured out to take class and overall in PHRF. Wizard was a strong second with Send in the Clowns converting a great weather leg into a third. PHRF C saw Duane and Dar Burgoyne's Flak-Bait win by a minute and a half over always strong competitors Wildcat and Splash Dance. Nice job on the Bait Boat!
In JAM A, Drew Regan's Soverel 33 (boy those are nice looking boats, someday I hope to have one) Rocket Science took the measure of the class and the JAM fleet overall through the lumpy stuff with Breakaway and Orange Crate rounding out the top three. In JAM B Jim and Toni Jacobs' Super Zena continued their early season surge to the top of the fleet with the win, narrowly edging out Scandia and Aftermath2.
Congratulations to all, winners and not-so-winners alike for perservering through the challenging conditions and close mark roundings.
Don't forget that this Sunday June 14th is the final race, #6, of the Midweek Spring Series. Yes, that's right! Just in case you haven't been paying attention, we have added a Sunday afternoon race to each of the three midweek series. The start time will be 1:30 PM and there is no additional cost for the race. Afterwards, gather your crew for a picnic potluck. If you want to cookout, we'll have the grills available behind the club. Bring something to share and have a good time on what promises to be a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the club.
See you there!
Kent
Commodore Perry Race Notes and Results
Well, the Commodore Perry Race weekend has come and gone for another year. Let me first thank all the hard working volunteers on race committees, food preparation, party arrangements, the help behind the bar and our club manager for each of their efforts. I also want to thank the membership of the club for showing up in support. That is what makes this type of event the success that it can be.
Certainly one of the best highlights of the weekend was the Saturday night Reggae Party. What a great time, a great band, great food and a real crowd at the club that hung around well into the night.
Saturday we had two port-to-port races, one from Port Clinton and the other from Grosse Isle, each with six boats. The concept behind these races was to take advantage of our adjacency on the calendar with the Mills Race and encourage out-of-towners to come a week early, race both the Perry and Mills, and give them the opprtunity to lay their boats over at NCYC in between. For first year events, I think both were successes with a total of twelve visiting boats coming to North Cape via the two races. Eight of those twelve entered and raced our Commodore Perry Race. One of the PCYC boats wasn't even doing the Mills and so sailed back to PCYC on Sunday evening after our race. Thanks to them for coming!
We had 38 boats race the 2009 Commodore Perry Race, up from the 29 of last year, which is certainly an encouraging turn-around in a difficult economic time. The weather for the weekend was great but unfortunately we forgot to order wind for the start of the race Sunday. But after about three hours of near drifting conditions the wind gods finally took pity and provided a nice day of sailing for the racers. Thirty-five of the thirty-eight boats were able to maintain their sanity and finish the race.
I can't give you much of a report from the water since I spent most of my weekend involved with organizational responsibilities but I'm sure that those who were out on the race course have lots of stories of going nowhere, going the wrong direction, human sacrifice, and the need to impose rationing of the beer before the race would be over. Early on while we were in the clubhouse observing the lack of progress from some of the starters I was asked by one of our cruising members if the race had a time limit. My response was that the race needed to be over prior to the warning gun for the Mills Race next friday. Fortunately it didn't quite come to that.
Winners in class were as follows: PHRF A, Bill Bollin's Bad Fish, NCYC; PHRF B, Rich Potcova's Short Bus, TIYC; PHRF C, John Heagy's Baby Clown, NCYC; PHRF D, Chris Frederick's Odyssey, SSC/NCYC; JAM A, Tim Branson's Jagen, TIYC; JAM B, Matt Kern's Discover, JRSC/NCYC; Multihull, Ron White's Cheekee Monkee, CYC. Ron trailered his boat over from Chicago Yacht Club to be a part of the Commodore Perry and the Mills Trophy Race. PHRF Overall was taken by Bad Fish and JAM Overall went to Jagen. Congratulations to these winners and thanks to all who participated.
Sunday morning's complementary breakfast and the meal after the race were both well attended and the food was all consumed in a flash. A keg of free beer for the racers while they were waiting for awards after the event helped them to forget about the fickle winds of the day.
My philosophy as Yachting Activities Chairman is to provide the easiest and most encouraging opportunity for our club members and our guests to participate in racing at NCYC as is possible. I don't want to intentionally throw up any hurdles in people's paths to give them a reason not to be a part. I hope that from the participants' perspective at the Commodore Perry race this weekend those goals were met and hopefully we will be able to continue to do so here at NCYC.
I have attached the results of both the Commodore Perry Race and the results of the PCYC to NCYC Port-to-Port Race. GIYC scored that race themselves and unfortunately I do not have those results.
Kent Gardam
Certainly one of the best highlights of the weekend was the Saturday night Reggae Party. What a great time, a great band, great food and a real crowd at the club that hung around well into the night.
Saturday we had two port-to-port races, one from Port Clinton and the other from Grosse Isle, each with six boats. The concept behind these races was to take advantage of our adjacency on the calendar with the Mills Race and encourage out-of-towners to come a week early, race both the Perry and Mills, and give them the opprtunity to lay their boats over at NCYC in between. For first year events, I think both were successes with a total of twelve visiting boats coming to North Cape via the two races. Eight of those twelve entered and raced our Commodore Perry Race. One of the PCYC boats wasn't even doing the Mills and so sailed back to PCYC on Sunday evening after our race. Thanks to them for coming!
We had 38 boats race the 2009 Commodore Perry Race, up from the 29 of last year, which is certainly an encouraging turn-around in a difficult economic time. The weather for the weekend was great but unfortunately we forgot to order wind for the start of the race Sunday. But after about three hours of near drifting conditions the wind gods finally took pity and provided a nice day of sailing for the racers. Thirty-five of the thirty-eight boats were able to maintain their sanity and finish the race.
I can't give you much of a report from the water since I spent most of my weekend involved with organizational responsibilities but I'm sure that those who were out on the race course have lots of stories of going nowhere, going the wrong direction, human sacrifice, and the need to impose rationing of the beer before the race would be over. Early on while we were in the clubhouse observing the lack of progress from some of the starters I was asked by one of our cruising members if the race had a time limit. My response was that the race needed to be over prior to the warning gun for the Mills Race next friday. Fortunately it didn't quite come to that.
Winners in class were as follows: PHRF A, Bill Bollin's Bad Fish, NCYC; PHRF B, Rich Potcova's Short Bus, TIYC; PHRF C, John Heagy's Baby Clown, NCYC; PHRF D, Chris Frederick's Odyssey, SSC/NCYC; JAM A, Tim Branson's Jagen, TIYC; JAM B, Matt Kern's Discover, JRSC/NCYC; Multihull, Ron White's Cheekee Monkee, CYC. Ron trailered his boat over from Chicago Yacht Club to be a part of the Commodore Perry and the Mills Trophy Race. PHRF Overall was taken by Bad Fish and JAM Overall went to Jagen. Congratulations to these winners and thanks to all who participated.
Sunday morning's complementary breakfast and the meal after the race were both well attended and the food was all consumed in a flash. A keg of free beer for the racers while they were waiting for awards after the event helped them to forget about the fickle winds of the day.
My philosophy as Yachting Activities Chairman is to provide the easiest and most encouraging opportunity for our club members and our guests to participate in racing at NCYC as is possible. I don't want to intentionally throw up any hurdles in people's paths to give them a reason not to be a part. I hope that from the participants' perspective at the Commodore Perry race this weekend those goals were met and hopefully we will be able to continue to do so here at NCYC.
I have attached the results of both the Commodore Perry Race and the results of the PCYC to NCYC Port-to-Port Race. GIYC scored that race themselves and unfortunately I do not have those results.
Kent Gardam
Notes and Results: Wednesday June 3, 2009
June! It’s June already. Now if somebody would just tell the thermometer we’d be all set. We don’t seem to be getting as many of the typical warm days so far this Spring as I’d like to see. I suspect that is probably resulting in a slower than normal rise in lake temperature. The resulting similar lake and ground temperatures means we are not seeing the typical sea (lake) and shore breezes develop with much intensity. Does that sound like I know what I’m talking about? Well if you think so, friend, then let me tell you about a nearly pristine #1 here that I’ve got that you might be interested in buying for a really good price.
So anyway, whether there’s any truth to the above (not likely!) or not, last night saw us facing lighter winds than on our previous two Wednesdays. Cycling between about 6 and 9 knots with some minor shifts for the first leg to weather and then holding in at around 7 or 8 for the off wind legs and eventually dropping down to about 4 or so by the time the last boats were finishing. After last Sunday’s Commodore Perry Race in similar light conditions, and with the early weather forecasts for Friday night’s Mills Race sounding eerily (or is that Eriely) similar, we are all going to be light air experts before long.
Last night was the Mills Race Dinner for the 2008 trophy winners so we may have lost a couple of crews to that event but we had a great turnout of almost forty boats including a number out for their first Wednesday of the year. Mojito (have you seen that paint job? Nice!), Natural High, Time Machine and Presto made their first appearances as well as Lola, Stardust and an Etchells (can anybody fill me in on who the Etchells is?) were also seen in the vicinity of the starting line. Our thanks go out to Dick Hamilton and the crew of La Chiva who came out, sans mast, to do race committee work. Dick is having a spreader base repaired, hopefully by Friday in time for the Mills.
A weather leg start last night for a change! Yea, I think. With the wind out of the ESE, course #5 called for East, South and finish at the West mark. JAM did Center, South and the West finish. In PHRF B Foghorn started near the committee boat without much speed (helmsman’s fault) so we soon tacked away to port. We were followed fairly shortly by Wizard and a couple of the other boats while half of our fleet went hard left on starboard. A few minutes into the race our position looked fairly good relative to those who had gone left, (Clowns, Grope Therapy, White Star, Consig, and others) and so we tacked back to starboard and in doing so quickly crossed in front of Wizard. Anytime we cross Wizard we’re sure we’re doing well so that sort of convinced us to keep working the right side of the course. Well, let me tell you, twas a big mistake. Turns out the pressure was better on the left and those boats were also on the inside of the port tack lifts so the rich just kept getting richer. We eventually bit the bullet and took the long starboard board back to try to get in touch with the fleet. But the fleet was definitely ahead of us by then! Sometimes you get the prize, other times you are the prize that the rest of the fleet gets to put in their hip pocket. Last night was the latter for us. But we did get a chance to work on light air trim and our boat speed seemed to be pretty good against most of our fleet (from our position behind!) so all was not lost. Plus it was a lovely night with another clear sky and plenty of good friends to help enjoy it. Off wind were a couple of good spinnaker legs punctuated by a quick uhhhoooh wiggle at the South mark to stay clear of B.O.B.’s stern as they came in on starboard while we were still approaching on port for our gybe. That sudden maneuver just as we were starting our gybe resulted in the guy wrapping itself around the pole in a totally inexplicable way and a little bit of foredeck magic/swearing by Davey and Helene before we ultimately managed to emerge on starboard gybe. The last leg was again similar to last week, downwind but favored to starboard, and choosing the tradeoffs between sailing hotter angles with better boat speed or heading for the finish line. In last night’s light breeze it didn’t appear that the choices made a huge difference in the end results. But it is good knowledge to store away for future use.
The results are attached, and it appears that there is some early season form showing up. Bad Fish in PHRF A, Send in the Clowns in PHRF B and Splash Dance in PHRF C are no strangers to the top of the results sheet. In JAM it was Breakaway showing the way in A and Scandia in B. Overalls went to Bad Fish and Breakaway. Congrats to all the winners and even more so to all the participants.
This week Skip Dieball was out of town but Ernie was on the water in a whaler and taking lots of pictures. A couple are attached along with the results. I wouldn't be surprised that if you asked Ernie nicely (and complimented him on his success in marrying above himself ) he just might be willing to share what he has of your boat. http://us.mc840.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ernie@dieballsailing.com
Marilyn Mackay ably led the kitchen crew and the Juniors in again treating us with dinner. The meatball subs, Caesar salad and brownies were great. Thanks gang! It’s a big part of what makes Wednesday nights at North Cape special.
So have you been a part of this year’s Wednesday night action yet? If not, why not? Get your boat out and check out your skills with the fleet or alternatively get on board with somebody else. There’s hardly a boat in the fleet that doesn’t have room for one or two more on Wednesday nights. Don’t be shy, ask for a ride, you might learn a few things and some of them may even be repeatable in public. Wednesdays are all about having fun, seeing your friends and enjoying a night on the water.
Wednesday Night Racing at NCYC: it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
And thanks to all the members of NCYC as well as the other clubs who supported our Commodore Perry race last weekend. We had a fantastic reggae party Saturday night and an excellent turnout of 38 boats for the race on Sunday. I appreciate your support.
Well , that's all the news that is news this week from the chicken boat. See you at the Bay this weeknd!
So anyway, whether there’s any truth to the above (not likely!) or not, last night saw us facing lighter winds than on our previous two Wednesdays. Cycling between about 6 and 9 knots with some minor shifts for the first leg to weather and then holding in at around 7 or 8 for the off wind legs and eventually dropping down to about 4 or so by the time the last boats were finishing. After last Sunday’s Commodore Perry Race in similar light conditions, and with the early weather forecasts for Friday night’s Mills Race sounding eerily (or is that Eriely) similar, we are all going to be light air experts before long.
Last night was the Mills Race Dinner for the 2008 trophy winners so we may have lost a couple of crews to that event but we had a great turnout of almost forty boats including a number out for their first Wednesday of the year. Mojito (have you seen that paint job? Nice!), Natural High, Time Machine and Presto made their first appearances as well as Lola, Stardust and an Etchells (can anybody fill me in on who the Etchells is?) were also seen in the vicinity of the starting line. Our thanks go out to Dick Hamilton and the crew of La Chiva who came out, sans mast, to do race committee work. Dick is having a spreader base repaired, hopefully by Friday in time for the Mills.
A weather leg start last night for a change! Yea, I think. With the wind out of the ESE, course #5 called for East, South and finish at the West mark. JAM did Center, South and the West finish. In PHRF B Foghorn started near the committee boat without much speed (helmsman’s fault) so we soon tacked away to port. We were followed fairly shortly by Wizard and a couple of the other boats while half of our fleet went hard left on starboard. A few minutes into the race our position looked fairly good relative to those who had gone left, (Clowns, Grope Therapy, White Star, Consig, and others) and so we tacked back to starboard and in doing so quickly crossed in front of Wizard. Anytime we cross Wizard we’re sure we’re doing well so that sort of convinced us to keep working the right side of the course. Well, let me tell you, twas a big mistake. Turns out the pressure was better on the left and those boats were also on the inside of the port tack lifts so the rich just kept getting richer. We eventually bit the bullet and took the long starboard board back to try to get in touch with the fleet. But the fleet was definitely ahead of us by then! Sometimes you get the prize, other times you are the prize that the rest of the fleet gets to put in their hip pocket. Last night was the latter for us. But we did get a chance to work on light air trim and our boat speed seemed to be pretty good against most of our fleet (from our position behind!) so all was not lost. Plus it was a lovely night with another clear sky and plenty of good friends to help enjoy it. Off wind were a couple of good spinnaker legs punctuated by a quick uhhhoooh wiggle at the South mark to stay clear of B.O.B.’s stern as they came in on starboard while we were still approaching on port for our gybe. That sudden maneuver just as we were starting our gybe resulted in the guy wrapping itself around the pole in a totally inexplicable way and a little bit of foredeck magic/swearing by Davey and Helene before we ultimately managed to emerge on starboard gybe. The last leg was again similar to last week, downwind but favored to starboard, and choosing the tradeoffs between sailing hotter angles with better boat speed or heading for the finish line. In last night’s light breeze it didn’t appear that the choices made a huge difference in the end results. But it is good knowledge to store away for future use.
The results are attached, and it appears that there is some early season form showing up. Bad Fish in PHRF A, Send in the Clowns in PHRF B and Splash Dance in PHRF C are no strangers to the top of the results sheet. In JAM it was Breakaway showing the way in A and Scandia in B. Overalls went to Bad Fish and Breakaway. Congrats to all the winners and even more so to all the participants.
This week Skip Dieball was out of town but Ernie was on the water in a whaler and taking lots of pictures. A couple are attached along with the results. I wouldn't be surprised that if you asked Ernie nicely (and complimented him on his success in marrying above himself ) he just might be willing to share what he has of your boat. http://us.mc840.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ernie@dieballsailing.com
Marilyn Mackay ably led the kitchen crew and the Juniors in again treating us with dinner. The meatball subs, Caesar salad and brownies were great. Thanks gang! It’s a big part of what makes Wednesday nights at North Cape special.
So have you been a part of this year’s Wednesday night action yet? If not, why not? Get your boat out and check out your skills with the fleet or alternatively get on board with somebody else. There’s hardly a boat in the fleet that doesn’t have room for one or two more on Wednesday nights. Don’t be shy, ask for a ride, you might learn a few things and some of them may even be repeatable in public. Wednesdays are all about having fun, seeing your friends and enjoying a night on the water.
Wednesday Night Racing at NCYC: it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
And thanks to all the members of NCYC as well as the other clubs who supported our Commodore Perry race last weekend. We had a fantastic reggae party Saturday night and an excellent turnout of 38 boats for the race on Sunday. I appreciate your support.
Well , that's all the news that is news this week from the chicken boat. See you at the Bay this weeknd!
Commodore Perry was a Reggaemaster!
On Sunday this weekend is the Commodore Perry Race at North Cape Yacht Club. But this weekend is not just the Commodore Perry Race. Saturday evening will also be the Commodore Perry Memorial Reggae Party. Were you aware that when Perry’s fleet sailed from Put-in-Bay to meet the British fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, the Americans were serenaded from the front porch of the Roundhouse by the rhythms of Jacob Marley and the Wailers? Jacob Marley, later to become better known as the deceased partner of Ebenezer Scrooge, was the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Bob Marley who later adopted his ancestor’s musical style and popularized it throughout the Caribbean . During the preparation of the American fleet for battle, Commodore Ollie and the crews of the Lawrence, the Niagara and the rest of the ships of the line spent many a night bellied up to the Roundhouse bar doing the rocksteady and getting their groove on. It’s a little known fact that when Perry’s flagship the Lawrence had been reduced to a floating hulk by broadsides from the British fleet, Perry echoed to his crew the words of his personal battleflag “No Problem, Mon!” That flag, too badly damaged in the battle, was replaced by the backup flag “Don’t Give Up The Ship” once the action transferred to the Niagara .
Saturday evening from 6:00 PM until the battle is won you will have your chance to celebrate this episode of American naval history and get your reggae on at North Cape with the band Crucial 420, a barbecue chicken dinner and, of course, lots of rum drinks.
Be there, Mon!
Saturday evening from 6:00 PM until the battle is won you will have your chance to celebrate this episode of American naval history and get your reggae on at North Cape with the band Crucial 420, a barbecue chicken dinner and, of course, lots of rum drinks.
Be there, Mon!
Notes and Results: Wednesday Night May 27, 2009
We’re dancing in the dark on the edge of the weather systems. As Skip Dieball reports in his write-up, we came out a winner for the second week in a row on the weather lottery. It sure didn’t look promising throughout the day but by the time I got to the club a little before 5 there appeared to be a glimmer of hope (or at least light sky) to the southwest. Sure enough, weather radar indicated the end of the rain except for one little cell a few miles away that couldn’t make up its mind which direction to head. Fortunately that one found someone else to affect and we had another beauteous evening. This time the winds were slightly more east of south than last week and also were a little weaker. Starting at around 11 knots it dropped to five or so by the end.
Most of last week’s fleet was out for the race on Course #3 again with only a few no-shows not having the faith to believe that the day’s weather would come around in time. The Wiz kids on board Wizard were even seen working on shore on a minor modification to their rig to reef the mast to be ready for heavier conditions. Personally I think that boat is much better with a four foot shorter mast. As far as the weather, hey have we let you down yet? What? The first week? Oh, we don’t talk about that. It was good to see a few new boats out for the first time this year including Rocket Science. My crew still won’t forgive me for having sold our Soverel 33.
Sophia got things off and running one minute early in the first start of the night, PHRF C, when they apparently mis-timed the sequence and started at the one minute warning. Unfortunately for them, the rest of their fleet started correctly. Oh well, Sophia, I know how it feels. We’ve been there, done that, got the “penalty for premature withdrawal” teeshirt.
As Skip reports, chute choice was questionable for the first leg. On board Foghorn, Davey says “how about the A-sail?” I responded, “nope go with the grey (symmetrical) chute. Damn, I hate when they are right. It’s my boat, shouldn’t I be the one with all the smarts? Heck, the leg was tight enough that in PHRF B White Star went with a headsail up the leg and still was leading some of us by the North Mark. The long port tack beat to the South Mark and flat conditions gave everyone a perfect opportunity to observe their competition, evaluate “point” versus “speed” and play with their trim to try to optimize things. Unlike last week in our class when Send in the Clowns struggled up the weather leg, this time they were blazing fast on their way to a clear victory in PHRF B. At one point in the leg we were able to outpoint them, but never made any headway on catching up. After the flop onto port near the South Mark, we were about to be overtaken by Time Machine. Where did those guys come from anyway? Turns out they were just out for their first sail of the year and sailing/tuning, but not formally racing. Just as they were close to passing us, they reversed course and threw up the chute to lead the parade back to the club.
The off wind leg to the finish gave us another chance to observe how others attacked it and play with our angles for boat speed and VMG. It was interesting in the dieing conditions watching the differences between the masthead and fractional symmetricals, the A-Sails, those who opted for downwind running and the reachers in the fleet We even pulled off our first gybe of the season successfully. It felt good to catch up to the grocery store boats, Red (Cloud) & White (Star) (that’s an old guy reference for those of you too young to know what I’m talking about), and actually get our nose in front before the finish line. Next we need to work on actually beating the Greiners on corrected time!
I’m liking sailing on these clear and warm evenings, hope we have a bunch more. Hope you all had a fun and worthwhile evening.
In addition to Clowns taking PHRF B, in PHRF A it was Bad Fish with a cast of irregulars who pulled one out of their...uhh…bag to win. PHRF C went to Laszlo and friends on Splash Dance. Orange Crate dominated JAM A (by two seconds on corrected time!) and JAM B went to Aftermath2. We’re having good competition. Come be a part.
Don’t forget the Commodore Perry Memorial Reggae Party at the club on Saturday evening. Barbecue chicken dinner from 6:00 to 7:30, band from 7:00 on and rum drinks to be found whenever you ask. And on Sunday it’s the Commodore Perry Race. It’s looking like we will have on the order of a dozen or so boats visiting from the Grosse Isle and Port Clinton areas. Let’s have a great turnout of club boats to give them a challenge.
The results and the second installment of “Skip’n Around the Fleet” are attached.
Oh, I promised to let you know where we would upload these notes on the club website. You can find Skip’s commentary attached as a part of the pdf file of the results for the night. Look here under the Race Results menu for the appropriate week: http://www.ncyc.net/newncyc/racing.cfm
Speaking of “Dancing in the Dark”, and for a chance to win absolutely nothing, who knows the name of the girl that Bruce Springsteen pulled on stage in the video of that song? Man, I’m getting older all the time.
Skip Dieball's stuff follows here:
Wednesday Night Race – May 27, 2009
Race Notes, by Skip Dieball
*************************************************************************************
Weather/Forecast
Throughout our area (NW Ohio/SE Michigan) there were many rain & thunderstorms all day. It looked
like there was going to be a clearing in the evening, but there was a chance of more storms. As these
storms moved through, they were tracking from SW-NE. They caused a lot of changes in the wind
direction and velocity as they passed. It was going to be tough to know exactly what was going to
happen for the Wed Night Race, as there was one small cell that looked like it would influence the
breeze.
Pre-Start
On May 27, I sailed on the Badfish (Melges 32), PHRF A. All the Badfish team regulars had other
commitments, but Bill wanted the boat to sail and asked that I field a team. With Wizard’s mast issues,
having Jeff Mackay and his team join myself, Rick and Andy from the loft made for a fun line-up and we
definitely needed to make sure the cooler was full! Our pre-race list didn’t change from last week, in
fact we needed more time to run through some maneuvers:
• Get Course Number and analyze the angles
• Sail Upwind and get some target average compass numbers
• Check the overall rig tune and set up
• Run through a few maneuvers to get the crew coordinated and comfortable
• Enjoy the starts of PHRF C & B
Again we sailed course was 3, which meant we were going West-North-South-West. The wind was SE,
which made the first leg a tight reach…2nd leg was a lopsided beat…last leg a run.
We knew our overall strategy, but we just couldn’t make up our minds on which spinnaker to use on the
tight reach. A little stubborn and confused from last week’s tight reach, I called for the Code 1 to prove
that the sail could be used effectively with a tight AWA. Somehow I mentally felt that if we went with
the Code 0, it would be too flat and not fast. Rick suggested the Code 0, and I should have listened!!!
Start
Again, we’d start downwind. I think that I’m becoming more comfortable with these starts ;-). We
positioned ourselves toward the leeward (committee boat end on this downwind start) end of the line.
Jeff Mackay reasoned that the AWA would be so far in front that clean air wouldn’t be an issue and he
was right. Both Abracadabra (Melges 30) and the Badfish were making our way down the tight reach
pretty well. Abra had their new Code 1 up and handled it better than we did. We were out of the AWA
for the Code 1, but did our best to keep the boat going. Dale White did a great job of keeping the spin
as loose as possible as we were on the edge most of the leg.
First Leg (West to North)
For a short time we were fetching the first mark. It wasn’t the fastest point of sail for the Badfish, but
we were working hard to make it work. We had great communication between Dale (spin trim), myself
(driving) and Jacq Dieball (calling puffs). Ultimately, with Rick and Jeff’s help, we determined it was time
to douse the spin as we were getting headed on this reach and wouldn’t fetch the mark.
Our takedown was interesting, but we managed for a bunch of newbies to the M32. Andy Nixon on the
bow did a good job of staying focused as things became chaotic. Everyone jumped to it and got the spin
down. Abra and Fupastank (Hobie 33) and Legs-a-Shakin (Beneteau 10) sailed a great 1st leg. Roger
Stark was punched out in front of the PHRF A division. We managed to round 2nd after our takedown.
Looking ahead to the other divisions and sizing up the beat, we saw that in PHRF C Splashdance (S2 9.1)
and Wildcat (J30) had great races going. Full Tilt (J/92), last week’s O/A winner, was looking strong as
was Send in the Clowns (J/29). All were on port tack sailing vastly different upwind angles.
Second Leg (North to South)
The beat was about 95% port and 5% starboard. Getting the Badfish on her target upwind speed wasn’t
hard and we kept a close eye out for veins of breeze and they rolled through the course in narrow
streaks. Again Jacq Dieball did a great job of calling the breeze. Tim and Rick managed our lane and Jeff
and Dale had the sails nicely trimmed. It wasn’t the most exciting leg. The wind was up and down
between 5-7 knots. We made up some ground from my botched spin call on the 1st leg.
Last Leg (South to West)
This leg became a lopsided run with about 80% port and 20% starboard. The wind was dying steadily.
We rounded the last mark behind Spashdance and Send in the Clowns (C & B, respectively) and knew
they had good races going. We were pretty confident that we were on pace to win our division, but
needed to stay focused on the speed-o and work what little pressure was still out there. Tim Arkilander
was trimming the spin and basically steered the boat with his pressure calls. “Light” we went up,
“Medium” did nothing, “Building” we went down. We had these updates as they happened …or if
nothing happened Tim would give feedback every 30 seconds or so.
This was the leg that we made the most time on. The boat amazingly finds its sweet spot. For fun we
heated up to see how the speed would react and it didn’t go up as high or as quick as we thought….so
just like and One Design boat, it comes down to communication between breeze calls,
acknowledgement from the spin trimmer and reaction on the helm.
Observations/Notes
Another great evening off North Cape. A few less boats than last week, but the forecast might have
scared some off (storms all day). Next week there will likely be some additional players out there, so
hopefully we can get up to 50 boats early in the season.
On the Badfish, we still need to work on spin shape calls (my job!), especially on the tight reaches. The
boat is plenty tender when it has a bit on. I am happy we have these Wed evening races to sort through
these details.
From a fleet standpoint, last night’s race was easy from a crew-work standpoint. It was tough on the
trimmers and drivers to make the necessary tweaks to get that .5 of a knot! We goofed around with a
number of settings and tried to watch and gain confirmation on the speed-o. With the wind velocity and
angle so unstable, it was tough to gain knowledge on the settings, but we were patient in some cases
and some of the tweaks worked well for us.
Most of last week’s fleet was out for the race on Course #3 again with only a few no-shows not having the faith to believe that the day’s weather would come around in time. The Wiz kids on board Wizard were even seen working on shore on a minor modification to their rig to reef the mast to be ready for heavier conditions. Personally I think that boat is much better with a four foot shorter mast. As far as the weather, hey have we let you down yet? What? The first week? Oh, we don’t talk about that. It was good to see a few new boats out for the first time this year including Rocket Science. My crew still won’t forgive me for having sold our Soverel 33.
Sophia got things off and running one minute early in the first start of the night, PHRF C, when they apparently mis-timed the sequence and started at the one minute warning. Unfortunately for them, the rest of their fleet started correctly. Oh well, Sophia, I know how it feels. We’ve been there, done that, got the “penalty for premature withdrawal” teeshirt.
As Skip reports, chute choice was questionable for the first leg. On board Foghorn, Davey says “how about the A-sail?” I responded, “nope go with the grey (symmetrical) chute. Damn, I hate when they are right. It’s my boat, shouldn’t I be the one with all the smarts? Heck, the leg was tight enough that in PHRF B White Star went with a headsail up the leg and still was leading some of us by the North Mark. The long port tack beat to the South Mark and flat conditions gave everyone a perfect opportunity to observe their competition, evaluate “point” versus “speed” and play with their trim to try to optimize things. Unlike last week in our class when Send in the Clowns struggled up the weather leg, this time they were blazing fast on their way to a clear victory in PHRF B. At one point in the leg we were able to outpoint them, but never made any headway on catching up. After the flop onto port near the South Mark, we were about to be overtaken by Time Machine. Where did those guys come from anyway? Turns out they were just out for their first sail of the year and sailing/tuning, but not formally racing. Just as they were close to passing us, they reversed course and threw up the chute to lead the parade back to the club.
The off wind leg to the finish gave us another chance to observe how others attacked it and play with our angles for boat speed and VMG. It was interesting in the dieing conditions watching the differences between the masthead and fractional symmetricals, the A-Sails, those who opted for downwind running and the reachers in the fleet We even pulled off our first gybe of the season successfully. It felt good to catch up to the grocery store boats, Red (Cloud) & White (Star) (that’s an old guy reference for those of you too young to know what I’m talking about), and actually get our nose in front before the finish line. Next we need to work on actually beating the Greiners on corrected time!
I’m liking sailing on these clear and warm evenings, hope we have a bunch more. Hope you all had a fun and worthwhile evening.
In addition to Clowns taking PHRF B, in PHRF A it was Bad Fish with a cast of irregulars who pulled one out of their...uhh…bag to win. PHRF C went to Laszlo and friends on Splash Dance. Orange Crate dominated JAM A (by two seconds on corrected time!) and JAM B went to Aftermath2. We’re having good competition. Come be a part.
Don’t forget the Commodore Perry Memorial Reggae Party at the club on Saturday evening. Barbecue chicken dinner from 6:00 to 7:30, band from 7:00 on and rum drinks to be found whenever you ask. And on Sunday it’s the Commodore Perry Race. It’s looking like we will have on the order of a dozen or so boats visiting from the Grosse Isle and Port Clinton areas. Let’s have a great turnout of club boats to give them a challenge.
The results and the second installment of “Skip’n Around the Fleet” are attached.
Oh, I promised to let you know where we would upload these notes on the club website. You can find Skip’s commentary attached as a part of the pdf file of the results for the night. Look here under the Race Results menu for the appropriate week: http://www.ncyc.net/newncyc/racing.cfm
Speaking of “Dancing in the Dark”, and for a chance to win absolutely nothing, who knows the name of the girl that Bruce Springsteen pulled on stage in the video of that song? Man, I’m getting older all the time.
Skip Dieball's stuff follows here:
Wednesday Night Race – May 27, 2009
Race Notes, by Skip Dieball
*************************************************************************************
Weather/Forecast
Throughout our area (NW Ohio/SE Michigan) there were many rain & thunderstorms all day. It looked
like there was going to be a clearing in the evening, but there was a chance of more storms. As these
storms moved through, they were tracking from SW-NE. They caused a lot of changes in the wind
direction and velocity as they passed. It was going to be tough to know exactly what was going to
happen for the Wed Night Race, as there was one small cell that looked like it would influence the
breeze.
Pre-Start
On May 27, I sailed on the Badfish (Melges 32), PHRF A. All the Badfish team regulars had other
commitments, but Bill wanted the boat to sail and asked that I field a team. With Wizard’s mast issues,
having Jeff Mackay and his team join myself, Rick and Andy from the loft made for a fun line-up and we
definitely needed to make sure the cooler was full! Our pre-race list didn’t change from last week, in
fact we needed more time to run through some maneuvers:
• Get Course Number and analyze the angles
• Sail Upwind and get some target average compass numbers
• Check the overall rig tune and set up
• Run through a few maneuvers to get the crew coordinated and comfortable
• Enjoy the starts of PHRF C & B
Again we sailed course was 3, which meant we were going West-North-South-West. The wind was SE,
which made the first leg a tight reach…2nd leg was a lopsided beat…last leg a run.
We knew our overall strategy, but we just couldn’t make up our minds on which spinnaker to use on the
tight reach. A little stubborn and confused from last week’s tight reach, I called for the Code 1 to prove
that the sail could be used effectively with a tight AWA. Somehow I mentally felt that if we went with
the Code 0, it would be too flat and not fast. Rick suggested the Code 0, and I should have listened!!!
Start
Again, we’d start downwind. I think that I’m becoming more comfortable with these starts ;-). We
positioned ourselves toward the leeward (committee boat end on this downwind start) end of the line.
Jeff Mackay reasoned that the AWA would be so far in front that clean air wouldn’t be an issue and he
was right. Both Abracadabra (Melges 30) and the Badfish were making our way down the tight reach
pretty well. Abra had their new Code 1 up and handled it better than we did. We were out of the AWA
for the Code 1, but did our best to keep the boat going. Dale White did a great job of keeping the spin
as loose as possible as we were on the edge most of the leg.
First Leg (West to North)
For a short time we were fetching the first mark. It wasn’t the fastest point of sail for the Badfish, but
we were working hard to make it work. We had great communication between Dale (spin trim), myself
(driving) and Jacq Dieball (calling puffs). Ultimately, with Rick and Jeff’s help, we determined it was time
to douse the spin as we were getting headed on this reach and wouldn’t fetch the mark.
Our takedown was interesting, but we managed for a bunch of newbies to the M32. Andy Nixon on the
bow did a good job of staying focused as things became chaotic. Everyone jumped to it and got the spin
down. Abra and Fupastank (Hobie 33) and Legs-a-Shakin (Beneteau 10) sailed a great 1st leg. Roger
Stark was punched out in front of the PHRF A division. We managed to round 2nd after our takedown.
Looking ahead to the other divisions and sizing up the beat, we saw that in PHRF C Splashdance (S2 9.1)
and Wildcat (J30) had great races going. Full Tilt (J/92), last week’s O/A winner, was looking strong as
was Send in the Clowns (J/29). All were on port tack sailing vastly different upwind angles.
Second Leg (North to South)
The beat was about 95% port and 5% starboard. Getting the Badfish on her target upwind speed wasn’t
hard and we kept a close eye out for veins of breeze and they rolled through the course in narrow
streaks. Again Jacq Dieball did a great job of calling the breeze. Tim and Rick managed our lane and Jeff
and Dale had the sails nicely trimmed. It wasn’t the most exciting leg. The wind was up and down
between 5-7 knots. We made up some ground from my botched spin call on the 1st leg.
Last Leg (South to West)
This leg became a lopsided run with about 80% port and 20% starboard. The wind was dying steadily.
We rounded the last mark behind Spashdance and Send in the Clowns (C & B, respectively) and knew
they had good races going. We were pretty confident that we were on pace to win our division, but
needed to stay focused on the speed-o and work what little pressure was still out there. Tim Arkilander
was trimming the spin and basically steered the boat with his pressure calls. “Light” we went up,
“Medium” did nothing, “Building” we went down. We had these updates as they happened …or if
nothing happened Tim would give feedback every 30 seconds or so.
This was the leg that we made the most time on. The boat amazingly finds its sweet spot. For fun we
heated up to see how the speed would react and it didn’t go up as high or as quick as we thought….so
just like and One Design boat, it comes down to communication between breeze calls,
acknowledgement from the spin trimmer and reaction on the helm.
Observations/Notes
Another great evening off North Cape. A few less boats than last week, but the forecast might have
scared some off (storms all day). Next week there will likely be some additional players out there, so
hopefully we can get up to 50 boats early in the season.
On the Badfish, we still need to work on spin shape calls (my job!), especially on the tight reaches. The
boat is plenty tender when it has a bit on. I am happy we have these Wed evening races to sort through
these details.
From a fleet standpoint, last night’s race was easy from a crew-work standpoint. It was tough on the
trimmers and drivers to make the necessary tweaks to get that .5 of a knot! We goofed around with a
number of settings and tried to watch and gain confirmation on the speed-o. With the wind velocity and
angle so unstable, it was tough to gain knowledge on the settings, but we were patient in some cases
and some of the tweaks worked well for us.
Champagne Series: Sunday May 24, 2009
CHAMPAGNE SERIES
Memorial Day weekend at North Cape is the traditional occasion of the Champagne Series. One race on Saturday afternoon, two races on Sunday. With the other club activities on Saturday: the Commodores Memorial Service and Opening of the season, the brunch and the Steak roast on Saturday evening, it makes for a very busy day for those members who try to participate in everything. This year we decided to try something a little different and just hold all three races on Sunday so as not to overlap with the Saturday events. I’d be interested in getting your feedback on whether that proved to be a good idea. Please let me know your thoughts.
Sunday morning looked to be a good day for racing with predicted winds of 10 to 12 knots from the northeast. A front was moving through about two hours before racing was scheduled to start with the rain staying to our north. At the club we got the higher winds from the front. By race time at 11:00 AM, the winds were still blowing about 17-20 knots, consistently out of the northeast and the seas had built into the three or maybe four foot range. The wind direction would stay fairly steady all day, shifting around five to ten degrees more easterly by the end of the racing with the wind staying up longer than expected and then gradually lessening to about 8-10 knots by the end of the third race. Sixteen boats signed up, thirteen in PHRF and three in JAM but by race time Three Niner, a Farr 30 new this year to Dave Branson, had decided to climb the learning curve a little more conservatively and changed to JAM for the day so we had four good fleets of PHRF A, B, C and JAM.
In PHRF A, Jeff Maludy’s Farr 30 Adrenalin show consistent boat speed and excellent crew work all day in sweeping the class wins. Roger Stark’s Abracadabra and Rob and Beth Olson’s Lynx traded 2nd and 3rd in the first two races with Abracadabra prevailing in the third and final race to capture second. Lynx provided the best sights of the day at the weather mark in the windy first race when a knotted spin sheet resulted in a big roundup and subsequent dumping of the chute prior to resetting.
In PHRF B, a good mix of five boats: three Hobie 33s: Viva Las Vegas, 007 and Fupastank; Baci, a C&C 110; and Legs a Shakin, a Beneteau 10R mixed it up all day long. Positions were traded in every race with ultimately Connie and Steve Attard’s Viva Las Vegas putting together wins in races two and three after a 3rd in the first race to take the class win. Rick Pethoud’s 007 did the opposite, winning the 1st race and then taking 3rd in the next two to secure 2nd in the series. And Dave Sullivan’s Legs a Shakin combined seconds in races one and three with a 4th in the middle race to secure third for the series. Beth and Jeff Eischen’s Baci found that the handicap of sailing with only four on board was a little too much to overcome in the windy conditions and Spencer Norris and crew were coming to grips with Fupastank, and played it close to the vest in this new Hobie to him. Some of you will recognize Fupastank, which this year sports a new bright yellow paint job as the resurrection of the former Fish With Legs after some significant repair work.
In PHRF C, there was the normal tussle at the top by the usual suspects. John and Judy Greiner’s Red Cloud and Jeff Mackay’s Wizard traded with 1st and 2nd places in races one and two with Mark and Lynne Melchior’s Full Tilt close behind. Race #2 saw only the slimmest of margins, with a one second win going to Wizard. As the wind dropped a little in Race #3 Wizard pulled out the win to take the class series with Red Cloud in second. Full Tilt matched their previous results with a 3rd in taking third for the series. Matt Notario’s Chaser 29 Red Pearl had a difficult challenge facing those three veteran campaigners and while not quite matching the speeds of the larger and faster boats was still showing progressively better results as the day went along. Matt, we’re just sorry we didn’t have a camera at the weather mark to capture the infamous upside-down spinnaker set in race #2. Not to worry, it happens to everybody sooner or later and is always good for a story!
JAM found the original class of three of Orange Crate, Jagen and Wing Jammin joined at the last minute by Three Niner. Jim and Chris Davis on Orange Crate and Tim Branson on Jagen always have good battles but on this day Jagen was sailing shorthanded and with it huge sailplan and high winds, Jagen decided to call it a day during the first race. This left Tim’s son Dave Branson on Three Niner and Bill Pribe’s Wing Jammin to battle it out with the Crate. On this day, the 35th anniversary of the launching of Orange Crate, the Davis ’s brought home the bacon, err, the champagne, sweeping all three races to take first place. Three Niner captured the red flag for second and Wing Jammin, also sailing shorthanded hung in for third place.
Dave and Barb Shaffer headed up the race committee on their boat Wooly Bully. They were ably assisted by Cris and Leanna Hastin, Dave Snyder and Sandy Gardam. Ron Coons volunteered to help me with setting the marks on Foghorn. Many thanks to all of the above for surviving the lumpy conditions on the committee boats and to the many racers who came out to support the series. I trust the good sailing and the champagne afterwards for all competitors made the effort worthwhile.
HELP NEEDED
On a down note, Jeff Mackay discovered after the race that the mast on Wizard, his Evelyn 32, had cracked almost clean through right where it passes through the deck. On seeing it after it was pulled, I’m actually damn surprised that they didn’t lose the rig during the race. However, because the break is pretty clean, Jeff feels that it is probably repairable by sleeving the mast on the inside and bolting the sections back together. As of this writing, I think that Jeff is still looking for an aluminum section with which to splice the mast. If you happen to have about a six foot chunk of old mast or even boom that might be appropriate and that you’d be willing to part with, I’m sure Jeff would like to talk with you. Please contact Jeff directly at (734) 243-6026 or by email at jeff6026@charter.net . If you can help get this boat and its veteran crew back to the race course, we will all be the better for it.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Don’t forget that this coming weekend is NCYC’s Commodore Perry Race on Sunday May 31st. Leading up to that on Saturday May 30th are two port-to-port feeder races, one from Port Clinton Yacht Club and one from Grosse Isle Yacht Club. Contact those clubs for details on how to participate. The Commodore Perry leads us into Toledo Yacht Club’s Mills Race the following weekend so we are in the midst of the height of the racing season already! NCYC will provide a place to dock for any visiting boats that are coming for the Perry and then staying over for the Mills. Be a part of the fun of racing on Lake Erie !
Saturday night, May 31st at North Cape we are having a Reggae Party with food, drinks and a live reggae band to get you all in the mood for the Perry Race. See you all there!
Thanks again to all who were a part of the Champagne Series.
Kent Gardam
NCYC Yachting Activities
Memorial Day weekend at North Cape is the traditional occasion of the Champagne Series. One race on Saturday afternoon, two races on Sunday. With the other club activities on Saturday: the Commodores Memorial Service and Opening of the season, the brunch and the Steak roast on Saturday evening, it makes for a very busy day for those members who try to participate in everything. This year we decided to try something a little different and just hold all three races on Sunday so as not to overlap with the Saturday events. I’d be interested in getting your feedback on whether that proved to be a good idea. Please let me know your thoughts.
Sunday morning looked to be a good day for racing with predicted winds of 10 to 12 knots from the northeast. A front was moving through about two hours before racing was scheduled to start with the rain staying to our north. At the club we got the higher winds from the front. By race time at 11:00 AM, the winds were still blowing about 17-20 knots, consistently out of the northeast and the seas had built into the three or maybe four foot range. The wind direction would stay fairly steady all day, shifting around five to ten degrees more easterly by the end of the racing with the wind staying up longer than expected and then gradually lessening to about 8-10 knots by the end of the third race. Sixteen boats signed up, thirteen in PHRF and three in JAM but by race time Three Niner, a Farr 30 new this year to Dave Branson, had decided to climb the learning curve a little more conservatively and changed to JAM for the day so we had four good fleets of PHRF A, B, C and JAM.
In PHRF A, Jeff Maludy’s Farr 30 Adrenalin show consistent boat speed and excellent crew work all day in sweeping the class wins. Roger Stark’s Abracadabra and Rob and Beth Olson’s Lynx traded 2nd and 3rd in the first two races with Abracadabra prevailing in the third and final race to capture second. Lynx provided the best sights of the day at the weather mark in the windy first race when a knotted spin sheet resulted in a big roundup and subsequent dumping of the chute prior to resetting.
In PHRF B, a good mix of five boats: three Hobie 33s: Viva Las Vegas, 007 and Fupastank; Baci, a C&C 110; and Legs a Shakin, a Beneteau 10R mixed it up all day long. Positions were traded in every race with ultimately Connie and Steve Attard’s Viva Las Vegas putting together wins in races two and three after a 3rd in the first race to take the class win. Rick Pethoud’s 007 did the opposite, winning the 1st race and then taking 3rd in the next two to secure 2nd in the series. And Dave Sullivan’s Legs a Shakin combined seconds in races one and three with a 4th in the middle race to secure third for the series. Beth and Jeff Eischen’s Baci found that the handicap of sailing with only four on board was a little too much to overcome in the windy conditions and Spencer Norris and crew were coming to grips with Fupastank, and played it close to the vest in this new Hobie to him. Some of you will recognize Fupastank, which this year sports a new bright yellow paint job as the resurrection of the former Fish With Legs after some significant repair work.
In PHRF C, there was the normal tussle at the top by the usual suspects. John and Judy Greiner’s Red Cloud and Jeff Mackay’s Wizard traded with 1st and 2nd places in races one and two with Mark and Lynne Melchior’s Full Tilt close behind. Race #2 saw only the slimmest of margins, with a one second win going to Wizard. As the wind dropped a little in Race #3 Wizard pulled out the win to take the class series with Red Cloud in second. Full Tilt matched their previous results with a 3rd in taking third for the series. Matt Notario’s Chaser 29 Red Pearl had a difficult challenge facing those three veteran campaigners and while not quite matching the speeds of the larger and faster boats was still showing progressively better results as the day went along. Matt, we’re just sorry we didn’t have a camera at the weather mark to capture the infamous upside-down spinnaker set in race #2. Not to worry, it happens to everybody sooner or later and is always good for a story!
JAM found the original class of three of Orange Crate, Jagen and Wing Jammin joined at the last minute by Three Niner. Jim and Chris Davis on Orange Crate and Tim Branson on Jagen always have good battles but on this day Jagen was sailing shorthanded and with it huge sailplan and high winds, Jagen decided to call it a day during the first race. This left Tim’s son Dave Branson on Three Niner and Bill Pribe’s Wing Jammin to battle it out with the Crate. On this day, the 35th anniversary of the launching of Orange Crate, the Davis ’s brought home the bacon, err, the champagne, sweeping all three races to take first place. Three Niner captured the red flag for second and Wing Jammin, also sailing shorthanded hung in for third place.
Dave and Barb Shaffer headed up the race committee on their boat Wooly Bully. They were ably assisted by Cris and Leanna Hastin, Dave Snyder and Sandy Gardam. Ron Coons volunteered to help me with setting the marks on Foghorn. Many thanks to all of the above for surviving the lumpy conditions on the committee boats and to the many racers who came out to support the series. I trust the good sailing and the champagne afterwards for all competitors made the effort worthwhile.
HELP NEEDED
On a down note, Jeff Mackay discovered after the race that the mast on Wizard, his Evelyn 32, had cracked almost clean through right where it passes through the deck. On seeing it after it was pulled, I’m actually damn surprised that they didn’t lose the rig during the race. However, because the break is pretty clean, Jeff feels that it is probably repairable by sleeving the mast on the inside and bolting the sections back together. As of this writing, I think that Jeff is still looking for an aluminum section with which to splice the mast. If you happen to have about a six foot chunk of old mast or even boom that might be appropriate and that you’d be willing to part with, I’m sure Jeff would like to talk with you. Please contact Jeff directly at (734) 243-6026 or by email at jeff6026@charter.net . If you can help get this boat and its veteran crew back to the race course, we will all be the better for it.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Don’t forget that this coming weekend is NCYC’s Commodore Perry Race on Sunday May 31st. Leading up to that on Saturday May 30th are two port-to-port feeder races, one from Port Clinton Yacht Club and one from Grosse Isle Yacht Club. Contact those clubs for details on how to participate. The Commodore Perry leads us into Toledo Yacht Club’s Mills Race the following weekend so we are in the midst of the height of the racing season already! NCYC will provide a place to dock for any visiting boats that are coming for the Perry and then staying over for the Mills. Be a part of the fun of racing on Lake Erie !
Saturday night, May 31st at North Cape we are having a Reggae Party with food, drinks and a live reggae band to get you all in the mood for the Perry Race. See you all there!
Thanks again to all who were a part of the Champagne Series.
Kent Gardam
NCYC Yachting Activities
Notes and Results: Wednesday Night Race May 20th, 2009
Hi all,
Well, Wednesday Night racing at NCYC is off and running strong. After last week's questionable weather resulted in our decision to cancel the race (sorry about that to those of you who love heavy weather!), we did have a perfect night this week. Absotively posolutely gorgeous wind and weather. If you missed it, be sure to come see what we have in store for next week!
This year we're going to try something new and hope to send out these emails after each of our races so that we can distribute the results to everybody who didn't have a chance to stay to hear them the night of the race and also to share any relevant, irrelevant and/or irreverent thoughts. If you know of anyone else that would like to get these emails (your crew, other boats, people from other clubs, friends at Toledo Beach , anyone) please let me know. Email with their names and email addresses and I'll gladly add them to the list. Let's grow our virtual community to match our on-the-water community. If by some chance, you'd rather not get these emails, just let me know that too. It won't hurt my feelings...too much. Don't mind me, I'll just be the one silently sobbing over in the corner.
I am really pleased to let you know that Skip Dieball has very generously agreed to write up his thoughts from the race course whenever he can. He will also have back up support from brother Ernie and the others at Quantum Toledo. The first of Skip's reflections is attached to this email. He'll be discussing whatever occurs to him: weather, strategy, tuning, rules, mark roundings, things he sees that are good and/or bad, basically any stream of consciousness stuff that we can all benefit from. Hopefully he doesn't choose to use Foghorn every week as the example of how not to do things, even if we are a logical candidate! This should prove to be invaluable to all of us. Thanks tons, Skip!
I have also attached the results of the race to the email. The results are also available now on the club's website, http://www.ncyc.net/newNCYC/index.cfm , under the Racing & Results Homepage. I will also try to load Skip's thoughts too so that they are accessible. I'll check with our webmaster to see if they can also be accessed from that Racing homepage, or if not I can attach them to the calendar listing for the event. Hopefully I'll let you know next week where to look for them.
Aboard Foghorn, we discovered how little it is that old people retain over the course of a long winter and how much one can forget. We laughed, we cried, but amazingly no one fell overboard or was injured! We welcomed new club member Naim Yapragigur aboard for the race. Naim normally races with Vice Commodore Bill and was available because Bill was still putting his boat together. I think we probably helped Naim to realize how good he has it on Wing Jammin.
Thanks to all who came out Wednesday. We had 35 boats, a great start to the season, but there are still lots more of you who need to make your presence felt. Let's see how soon we can get the numbers up to 50 boats! After that, the sky's the limit.
Come out and see all the fun (and food and drinks: Wednesday Night Dinners at North Cape are cheap and fantastic) your friends are having.
This weekend don't forget about Saturday's Commodore's Memorial service, the great brunch that follows, and on Sunday is our Champagne Series of three easy races followed by Champagne for winners and everyone else too! Check the club website for all the details you will need. See you there!
And don’t forget: we’ll see you next Wednesday.
Kent Gardam
Skip Dieball's stuff follows here:
Wednesday Night Race – May 20, 2009
Race Notes, by Skip Dieball
*************************************************************************************
Weather/Forecast
The forecast for May 20’s race was nearly spectacular. With temps in the mid 80s and a dying South wind, going SSW (7-12 knots). Generally the wind in May at NCYC is frontal and this wind was no different, other than it seemed to have some thermal effect, due to the warmth. Most warm frontal winds tend to die off in the early evening hours and fade to the left. We see this more in the summer time. On May 20, the wind supported the forecast with a shift to the right, which meant that Thursday we would see more wind out of the West.
Pre-Start
On May 20, I sailed on Badfish (Melges 32), PHRF A. We wanted to get out to the course a little early to:
· Get Course Number and analyze the angles
· Sail Upwind and get some target average compass numbers
· Check the overall rig tune and set up
· Run through a few maneuvers to get the crew coordinated and comfortable
· Enjoy the starts of PHRF C & B
The course was 3, which meant we were going West-North-South-West. We were hoping (maybe influenced by the forecast) that we’d go West-East-North-West, thinking that the North-West leg would be a more true beat. When dealing with fixed mark courses, this is a tough call for any RC and their decision to go with a 3 was a good one.
Once we got the course number, we pulled our chart out and looked at the bearing from one mark to the next. First leg, RUN. Second leg, Beat. Last leg, Reach. We discussed our start and how we’d set up for the downwind start, then which side we’d douse for the final leg set. I had the team do 5-7 wind checks so that we could monitor what the wind was doing. It was pretty steady, but knowing that the forecast had the wind going right, we knew that our 2nd leg we’d want to play middle-right.
Start
Starboard gybe was the longer gybe. Starting on Starboard is generally a good idea (all things equal). Our plan was, being the lowest rated boat, to start to windward and try to break free. The approach to the start is always a bit nervous, but on downwind starts it is tough to gauge time/distance and position because of the wide angles and speed differentials. We ended up with a good start just to leeward and ahead of Abracadabra, Legs-a-Shakin and Viva Las Vegas. Thankfully the M32 was off and running in clean air. The tips for downwind starts are:
· Clean Air
· Setting & Exiting the Starting Line on Proper Course
· Not battling too much, which leads to sailing off course, but also
· Protecting your position
I’m not a huge fan of downwind starts, because they are unconventional, but I embrace the challenge involved. This particular start was fun because the wind had backed off into the 10 range, which made sail handling on all boats relatively easy.
First Leg (West to North)
For the conventional spin-pole boats, this leg was pretty straight forward. Fetching the North mark wasn’t a big problem. For those of us with Asym’s, it is always tough to balance and recognize VMG (velocity made good) toward the mark. For the M32, it meant sailing hotter and then gybing into the North Mark. Soaking or sailing more downwind on the M32 is tough to do. The speed variations are too great, so sailing hotter works on that boat. The heavier the boat, the more you can soak an Asym. The bottom line on any boat is that you have to have good concentration on the speed and pressure. The spin trimmer and driver need direct communication so that they can “wiggle” the boat down the leg (up in light spots, down in breeze). This helps achieve the best VMG, no matter the spin configuration.
Second Leg (North to South)
On the run we found some subtle breeze variations both in velocity and direction. We knew that due to the geometry and our angle on the first leg that we’d spend a lot of time on starboard tack. To that end, we wanted to check our upwind numbers to what we had prior to the start, while looking upwind for the best pressure.
We stepped out (tacked) at the bottom to get a little right leverage as we didn’t want any of our competitors getting to the right of us. We spent about 2-3 minutes on port and then got a right hand shift of about 10 degrees. We tacked and got about 5 more degrees of right angle. This put us just below the South mark about ¼ into the beat. Generally you don’t want to pin yourself onto a side so early because if we got another 10 degrees, we’d be overstood…if it went hard back to the left, we’d suffer from the leverage we created. The wind went back left, but never left of our mean number…which ultimately put us in good shape. If the beat was more square, we’d likely have played the right middle on the shifts.
Last Leg (South to West)
We recognized on the beat that the wind went right, which meant that the final leg would be an even tighter reach. We needed to switch to a more “reaching” spinnaker. We went with the Code 1 (from the Code 2). In hindsight, we should have gone with an even flatter spin.
When we set and got everything under control, we recognized that we weren’t laying the finish line. The tactic now was to maximize our time with the spin and then switch back to the jib at some point down the leg. The critical thing with this tactic is to just sail the boat and not look at the mark. If the wind dies off, the boat can come up to course. If the wind increases, then you just have to make the switch quicker. We saw flatter water in closer to shore and hoped that we’d be able to come up with the spin. That didn’t happen and we switched out and jib reached into the finish.
Just like the 1st run, we focused on driving down in the puffs and coming up in the light spots. We also had to play the main and vang aggressively to keep the rudder free of helm. This is true on any boat and hopefully your team did the same.
Observations/Notes
What a perfect night! Great winds, great temps, great turn-out! Perfect!
On the Badfish we did well, but made plenty of errors that we’ll learn from. The last leg we could have handled better. Some fundamental maneuvers need to be cleaned up, but that will come with practice.
Our overall focus was to keep the Wednesday night racing in perspective. Sure it is good competition, but we have to have a good time and keep things fun. I think we accomplished this!
As the members of the local sail loft sail with various folks this summer, we’ll share our experiences and what we see on the water. Hopefully this stuff is of interest and gets more people fired up to go sailing on Wednesdays!
Well, Wednesday Night racing at NCYC is off and running strong. After last week's questionable weather resulted in our decision to cancel the race (sorry about that to those of you who love heavy weather!), we did have a perfect night this week. Absotively posolutely gorgeous wind and weather. If you missed it, be sure to come see what we have in store for next week!
This year we're going to try something new and hope to send out these emails after each of our races so that we can distribute the results to everybody who didn't have a chance to stay to hear them the night of the race and also to share any relevant, irrelevant and/or irreverent thoughts. If you know of anyone else that would like to get these emails (your crew, other boats, people from other clubs, friends at Toledo Beach , anyone) please let me know. Email with their names and email addresses and I'll gladly add them to the list. Let's grow our virtual community to match our on-the-water community. If by some chance, you'd rather not get these emails, just let me know that too. It won't hurt my feelings...too much. Don't mind me, I'll just be the one silently sobbing over in the corner.
I am really pleased to let you know that Skip Dieball has very generously agreed to write up his thoughts from the race course whenever he can. He will also have back up support from brother Ernie and the others at Quantum Toledo. The first of Skip's reflections is attached to this email. He'll be discussing whatever occurs to him: weather, strategy, tuning, rules, mark roundings, things he sees that are good and/or bad, basically any stream of consciousness stuff that we can all benefit from. Hopefully he doesn't choose to use Foghorn every week as the example of how not to do things, even if we are a logical candidate! This should prove to be invaluable to all of us. Thanks tons, Skip!
I have also attached the results of the race to the email. The results are also available now on the club's website, http://www.ncyc.net/newNCYC/index.cfm , under the Racing & Results Homepage. I will also try to load Skip's thoughts too so that they are accessible. I'll check with our webmaster to see if they can also be accessed from that Racing homepage, or if not I can attach them to the calendar listing for the event. Hopefully I'll let you know next week where to look for them.
Aboard Foghorn, we discovered how little it is that old people retain over the course of a long winter and how much one can forget. We laughed, we cried, but amazingly no one fell overboard or was injured! We welcomed new club member Naim Yapragigur aboard for the race. Naim normally races with Vice Commodore Bill and was available because Bill was still putting his boat together. I think we probably helped Naim to realize how good he has it on Wing Jammin.
Thanks to all who came out Wednesday. We had 35 boats, a great start to the season, but there are still lots more of you who need to make your presence felt. Let's see how soon we can get the numbers up to 50 boats! After that, the sky's the limit.
Come out and see all the fun (and food and drinks: Wednesday Night Dinners at North Cape are cheap and fantastic) your friends are having.
This weekend don't forget about Saturday's Commodore's Memorial service, the great brunch that follows, and on Sunday is our Champagne Series of three easy races followed by Champagne for winners and everyone else too! Check the club website for all the details you will need. See you there!
And don’t forget: we’ll see you next Wednesday.
Kent Gardam
Skip Dieball's stuff follows here:
Wednesday Night Race – May 20, 2009
Race Notes, by Skip Dieball
*************************************************************************************
Weather/Forecast
The forecast for May 20’s race was nearly spectacular. With temps in the mid 80s and a dying South wind, going SSW (7-12 knots). Generally the wind in May at NCYC is frontal and this wind was no different, other than it seemed to have some thermal effect, due to the warmth. Most warm frontal winds tend to die off in the early evening hours and fade to the left. We see this more in the summer time. On May 20, the wind supported the forecast with a shift to the right, which meant that Thursday we would see more wind out of the West.
Pre-Start
On May 20, I sailed on Badfish (Melges 32), PHRF A. We wanted to get out to the course a little early to:
· Get Course Number and analyze the angles
· Sail Upwind and get some target average compass numbers
· Check the overall rig tune and set up
· Run through a few maneuvers to get the crew coordinated and comfortable
· Enjoy the starts of PHRF C & B
The course was 3, which meant we were going West-North-South-West. We were hoping (maybe influenced by the forecast) that we’d go West-East-North-West, thinking that the North-West leg would be a more true beat. When dealing with fixed mark courses, this is a tough call for any RC and their decision to go with a 3 was a good one.
Once we got the course number, we pulled our chart out and looked at the bearing from one mark to the next. First leg, RUN. Second leg, Beat. Last leg, Reach. We discussed our start and how we’d set up for the downwind start, then which side we’d douse for the final leg set. I had the team do 5-7 wind checks so that we could monitor what the wind was doing. It was pretty steady, but knowing that the forecast had the wind going right, we knew that our 2nd leg we’d want to play middle-right.
Start
Starboard gybe was the longer gybe. Starting on Starboard is generally a good idea (all things equal). Our plan was, being the lowest rated boat, to start to windward and try to break free. The approach to the start is always a bit nervous, but on downwind starts it is tough to gauge time/distance and position because of the wide angles and speed differentials. We ended up with a good start just to leeward and ahead of Abracadabra, Legs-a-Shakin and Viva Las Vegas. Thankfully the M32 was off and running in clean air. The tips for downwind starts are:
· Clean Air
· Setting & Exiting the Starting Line on Proper Course
· Not battling too much, which leads to sailing off course, but also
· Protecting your position
I’m not a huge fan of downwind starts, because they are unconventional, but I embrace the challenge involved. This particular start was fun because the wind had backed off into the 10 range, which made sail handling on all boats relatively easy.
First Leg (West to North)
For the conventional spin-pole boats, this leg was pretty straight forward. Fetching the North mark wasn’t a big problem. For those of us with Asym’s, it is always tough to balance and recognize VMG (velocity made good) toward the mark. For the M32, it meant sailing hotter and then gybing into the North Mark. Soaking or sailing more downwind on the M32 is tough to do. The speed variations are too great, so sailing hotter works on that boat. The heavier the boat, the more you can soak an Asym. The bottom line on any boat is that you have to have good concentration on the speed and pressure. The spin trimmer and driver need direct communication so that they can “wiggle” the boat down the leg (up in light spots, down in breeze). This helps achieve the best VMG, no matter the spin configuration.
Second Leg (North to South)
On the run we found some subtle breeze variations both in velocity and direction. We knew that due to the geometry and our angle on the first leg that we’d spend a lot of time on starboard tack. To that end, we wanted to check our upwind numbers to what we had prior to the start, while looking upwind for the best pressure.
We stepped out (tacked) at the bottom to get a little right leverage as we didn’t want any of our competitors getting to the right of us. We spent about 2-3 minutes on port and then got a right hand shift of about 10 degrees. We tacked and got about 5 more degrees of right angle. This put us just below the South mark about ¼ into the beat. Generally you don’t want to pin yourself onto a side so early because if we got another 10 degrees, we’d be overstood…if it went hard back to the left, we’d suffer from the leverage we created. The wind went back left, but never left of our mean number…which ultimately put us in good shape. If the beat was more square, we’d likely have played the right middle on the shifts.
Last Leg (South to West)
We recognized on the beat that the wind went right, which meant that the final leg would be an even tighter reach. We needed to switch to a more “reaching” spinnaker. We went with the Code 1 (from the Code 2). In hindsight, we should have gone with an even flatter spin.
When we set and got everything under control, we recognized that we weren’t laying the finish line. The tactic now was to maximize our time with the spin and then switch back to the jib at some point down the leg. The critical thing with this tactic is to just sail the boat and not look at the mark. If the wind dies off, the boat can come up to course. If the wind increases, then you just have to make the switch quicker. We saw flatter water in closer to shore and hoped that we’d be able to come up with the spin. That didn’t happen and we switched out and jib reached into the finish.
Just like the 1st run, we focused on driving down in the puffs and coming up in the light spots. We also had to play the main and vang aggressively to keep the rudder free of helm. This is true on any boat and hopefully your team did the same.
Observations/Notes
What a perfect night! Great winds, great temps, great turn-out! Perfect!
On the Badfish we did well, but made plenty of errors that we’ll learn from. The last leg we could have handled better. Some fundamental maneuvers need to be cleaned up, but that will come with practice.
Our overall focus was to keep the Wednesday night racing in perspective. Sure it is good competition, but we have to have a good time and keep things fun. I think we accomplished this!
As the members of the local sail loft sail with various folks this summer, we’ll share our experiences and what we see on the water. Hopefully this stuff is of interest and gets more people fired up to go sailing on Wednesdays!
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