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
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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!