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