Notes and results: Wednesday July 8th

So, just another perfect weather night on the lake was waiting to greet us for the Wednesday night race. Is the lack of significant meteorological events depressing you too? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AFf0ysgNiM What I wouldn’t give for a good line squall or maybe just an old fashioned twenty-plus on the nose with short-spaced three-foot Lake Erie chop to make the weather leg interesting. Not buying this, huh?

Just so I don’t forget, let me start with upcoming events: Two more racing opportunities at North Cape this week plus Jolly Roger’s Buccaneer Race on Saturday.

Friday evening (July 10th) is our Full Moon Friday Night race for July. If you haven’t been out for a FMFN, they are laid back Jib and Main events giving us an opportunity to go sailing in a relaxed situation. Have someone different that normal steer, be sure to bring along some wine or another favorite beverage, provide a snack for the crew (aerosol spray cheese in a can is always a classy touch!) and enjoy! You don’t need to be a regular racer or have registered your boat and there is no fee for the race. Everyone is welcome! Starting time will be 7:00 PM. Oh and best of all, Barb Hickey has said she will have Lasagna available for us for after the race. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhp_pLWHIvU Good Food! Good Times! Good drinks! It’s all a sailor needs. See you there. If the weather is questionable we’ll just eat drink and be merry and save the sailing for another day!

Sunday afternoon (July 12th) is the Summer Series Sunday Afternoon Midweek Race (SSSAMR, I’ve got to start working on better acronyms). If you missed this during the Spring Series, we have added one Sunday afternoon race to each five week Wednesday Night Series. Normal weeknight course followed by a potluck meal after. Bring some meat to do on the grills behind the club and something to share. It was a fun afternoon and a great feed last time and this one promises to be even better.

The Buccaneer Race (Saturday July 11th) is JRSC’s annual long distance race. I’m sorry I don’t have a lot of info to share but the start time is 10:00 AM and registration will be Friday evening at JRSC’s clubhouse on Edgewater Drive in Point Place. Come out and support the sport!

Now on to the business at hand. Last night aboard Foghorn we decided to change things up a tiny bit. Sandy drove the whole race except the start and did very nicely. She still needs to work on improving her ability to shoulder her way and slug it out in close quarters with other boats, but overall the race went well. I got to apply my considerable bulk to rail meat duties and handling the traveler during the tacks as I passed through the cockpit on my way from one rail to the other and I also got a whole new perspective on the crew’s interaction from that vantage point. Saw some things and overheard some stuff on the boat that I just don’t get to absorb when I’m attending to my duties behind the wheel. Can you say uuuuggggllllyyyy? Wow, it’s scary knowing what goes on in the rest of the boat!

We had one close crossing about three-fourths of the way out the weather leg with Group Therapy (we were on port but in retrospect clear ahead by a couple of boatlengths) but since Sandy has not normally been the person to assess the closeness of the crossing and whether to cross or duck or alternatively tack to avoid, that lack of experience resulted in a cluster eff for us. I probably should have been more aware of the possibility but from my spot on the rail the jenny blocked my view of GT (and other starboard tackers) coming at us and wasn’t able to help judge. When I am on the helm on a weather leg I am always tuned in to the concept of whether I am “making trees” on the crossing boat or whether conversely they are “making trees” on us and so it has become instinctive over the years as to whether we will cross, duck or tack. Bearing off ever so slightly and subtlely so as to duck a starboard tacker and having that boat appear close in front around our headsail at the very last possible moment is one of those few pleasures I get from the back of the boat as our weather rail crew instinctively sucks in their breath and goes “Woah, Baby” when the other boat suddenly appears. Perhaps that’s just sadism on my part to my crew, but then, hey, they undoubtedly deserve it for everything they put me through! While crossing situations can and do occur on the off-wind legs too, on a weather leg they are much more frequent, more intense, and the potential for harm seems much higher. But if you aren’t the one responsible for making that call on a regular basis then the natural reaction is to no doubt be conservative. So, back to our cluster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFbwkO2nDU8 Sandy is driving and Cris is trimming the main. Cris is assessing the cross and telling Sandy that we are clear ahead. Not by a ton, mind you, but none the less, clearly ahead. Sandy, however, resorts to the natural reaction and decides at the very last moment to bail out and tack. It’s the natural reaction and that’s okay because you have to experience these situations in order to learn what is the correct choice, but it comes without warning to the five of us with our legs over the rail. Needless to say it’s scramble time as the boat starts its turn. Foghorn spins onto the new tack but unfortunately the old sheet can’t be released in time and the sail backwinds. Then as the old sheet is being unwound from the winch it fouls due to the new load from backwinding. So we are stuck in limbo, boat speed is gone and we can’t trim in to the new tack because of the fouled sheet on the other side. Nothing left to do but to tack back onto port and try to get the boat moving again. We do but lost a good number of boatlengths in the process. Oh well, that‘s part of the learning process, no collision, nothing broke, no injuries. Life goes on and Sandy will be better equipped to judge that kind of crossing in the future. In another of those close maneuvering situations, as we turned the East mark to set the chute Jubilate Deo turned just inside us and Sandy headed down to stay away from them. Jubie didn’t come up to course right away however as they were getting their chute up and so we found ourselves on the outside going the wrong way. Sandy, naturally enough again, kept going down with them to avoid them even those there was a margin of room for us to take Jubie’s stern. After a few subtle (well maybe not so subtle) words of encouragement from me, Sandy did poke our nose in there and we were on our way. Again, a case of learning to judge the available distance and the consequences of your actions. Another valuable lesson learned.

On the spinnaker leg from East to West I trimmed the pole to the wind the whole time and re-realized that the pole trimmer can make life a whole lot easier for the spinnaker sheet trimmer and their person on the sheet winch rather than if the pole is left static except for the occasional major readjustments during the big shifts. Last night the wind was great and it made for a nice ride on the offwind leg but it did come with some fairly constant changes in direction. With the spin sheet trimmed right for the curl, through my continually playing the pole it was a lot quicker and easier to keep the chute trimmed on the edge than it was by trimming the sheet continually. Many times when Helene would be calling to Barb for winch trim on the spin sheet I was already ahead of the game with the pole adjustment and before they could react to the angle shift the pole was already readjusted and the need for trimming the sheet was alleviated. The advantage in last night’s conditions of variable apparent wind angles was that the spin shape stayed relatively constant and oriented to the wind angle rather than flattening the chute through overtrimming to compensate for a tighter wind angle or easing the chute to belly it out when the wind comes back. This is pretty basic stuff that we as sailors all theoretically know, but it’s surprising how much more obvious it is when you adopt a different role on the boat and can see how the many parts interact. I know there are some crews who do a good job of rotating bodies around their boat so that everyone gets a chance to experience what others are doing on the boat and how their own particular job affects those others. I think it is good for all of us to do that occasionally so that when you get your chance to experience being on the bow during a gybe and realize that the person on the spinnaker guy hasn’t given you enough slack to work with to make the pole, then you gain a new realization and appreciation of how what you are doing (or not doing) on the other end of that line affects the success of the operation. Tailing in the cockpit during tacks, a seemingly simple (but critical) operation can gain you a ehole new appreciation for how your flying elbows can affect those around you. I think that rotating of crew members around the boat is a great practice and can only help to make all of your crew members more valuable to the success of your boat and unquestionably it makes all of them feel more a part of the operation.

So what else did I learn from my new perspective on the rail during last night’s race? One thing that hadn’t been obvious from behind the helm. The compasses on Foghorn (we have four: one magnetic built into the binnacle, one magnetic on the bulkhead, one electronic on the instrument pod over the companionway, and one more electronic mounted to the top of the grab rail on the binnacle. We also have the GPS on a swivel in the companionway.) are well positioned for use by the helmsman. With those five readouts, everywhere the helmsmen looks there is an indication of the current course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac8ODZqe0mI However moving forward in the boat from the helmsman, that information is much less available to the crew. The main trimmer can see the GPS and two compasses. The jib trimmer can see the same if they are in the cockpit, but once you get to the rail, you can’t see nothing baby! From my spot on the rail I was left with judging tactics of when to tack by just observation of others around us. That’s okay but certainly is secondary knowledge and puts you in the position of reacting to what other boats are doing rather than making your own decisions. Gone was my ability to react to the changing heading and deciding whether a shift was something to tack on or not. Sandy steered well and kept us on the wind, but from the rail you don’t have that same innate sense of where you are with respect to the angle to the mark. In last night’s shifty conditions it definitely was a handicap for me. So the solution? I’ll be moving the electronic compass that is on the binnacle rail up to the mast where the rail crew will be able to access the info also and help to pick up on wind direction changes. Many eyes observing the changing situation is always better than only a few who may be distracted by other developments.

So all in all, another good night on the water. The choice of Course #6 (start at West, beat to South, reach to East for PHRFers or center for the Jammers and then offwind to the finish at West) was fun. The beat was good, there were enough shifts that playing them correctly was critical, the second leg turned out to be a fairly non-typical headsail reach for the PHRFers allowing them to play with jib lead positions forward and back and also athwartships (I always wanted to use that word) out to the rail to get best boatspeed, and then the final downwind leg was fun as the JAMMERS came from 90 degrees to our left and turned at Center to accompany us to the finish. There were lots of overlap situations and the Race Committee (thanks to John Kosmalski and his J80 crew aboard John Heagy’s boat for fine work) were challenged by forty-plus boats all finishing within a relatively few minutes, but the RC got the finish times, got almost all the sail numbers and we were ultimately able to get it all sorted out correctly.

In JAM A Berakaway finished a minute and 45 seconds in front of Tyrannous while owing them a minute and 45 seconds. A flat footed tie for first! Orange Crate corrected just behind in 3rd among a strong group of nine boats in class. Wooly Bully made its first appearance of the season with a good 6th place. The class as a whole sailed so well that perennial contenders Wing Jammin and Erie Grog ended up contending for last. Nice going JAMMERs. In JAM B we almost gave out first place honors to Caprice, even though the boat didn’t leave the dock. Once we straightened out the sail number issue, Aftermath2 took the glory with Full Ride and La Chiva edging out Fiasco and Autumn wind for the remaining podium places.

In PHRF A, ten boats battled it out with Abracadabra taking the measure of the class. Viva Las Vegas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knbh7TkX6A&feature=related and Holy Toledo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIUCQsmyA (now that one is good!) took 2nd and 3rd with their Hobie 33s just ahead of Legs-a-Shakin. In PHRF B, another ten boats were led around on corrected and almost on the water by Red Cloud in 1st with Team I-Ball slipping into 2nd (once we figured out the wrongly recorded sail number issue, what is it with that T10 and sail numbers anyway?). Send in the Clowns was a strong 3rd narrowly edging out Full Tilt and Wizard. In PHRF C, Flak Bait http://www.flakbait.com won the class (and were 4th overall) narrowly edging out Splash Dance in 2nd and Jeff Gordon’s Presto in 3rd http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2063583/presto/ (how come the sail number on that boat isn’t 24 anyway?).

Overalls in JAM went to Breakaway and Tyrannous in the aforementioned tie and to Red Cloud in PHRF. Congratulations one and all!

Sorry, this week’s report is a little short on humor (well, I think of it as humor regardless of what the rest of you think!) but hopefully a couple of the things I pointed out are of some value to others of you too.

Thanks to all for making our Wednesday night races the recreational highlight of my week.

Kent

Oh and don’t forget to check out the NCYC sailing blog. www.ncycsailing.blogspot.com It is incredibly well written and comes highly recommended (by me at least). J