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.