Thought process

AHMEN V was on Sat.. I was dreading the event as Windguru was calling for 19 knots sustained and gusts of 25. Not pleasant beating to windward in a little boat. I was thinking about what we needed to do to make things better.

I made sure that the rig tension was for heavier winds but a at ‘creative’ level and not just as per the guide. There was no excessive wind now but I expected the wind to increase as the day wore on. The wind had in fact increased by the time we headed out. One thing we did was all wear life jackets, never a bad decision.

The big question then was what sail we should be use: Jib or Genoa. We sailed out under genoa. The boat handled well and it was my view that we were not overpowered using it. Another observation as that other boats were not reefed. There was a fair amount of chop; waves were about 2 feet. We needed power to get through that chop. There were arguments against this: we were under crewed; some (a) boat(s) did reef (although none in our division); switching to jib in heavy seas would be not fun.

In the end we used the genoa. That was a good choice but it may not have been. When faced with an uncertainty you can make a bad call and not be idiot. What will be a good idea is always an uncertainty; we do things in the present that will affect us in the future when we do not know what the future will be.

We did not do well (still waiting for results, but we think 4th) but we were not over powered by our choice of sail. The point here is that the pre race discussion got us to the right decision.

Fall Series II

The crew was in time so that we were able to do a pre start practise hoist. Good thing, as I had not feed the guy through the tweeker. That sorted, we were ready!

There was a good turn out. The J 22 Eclipse was an almost level competitor. Jazz was there as was Harrier, two competitive boats who are not always participating. Victory Dance, Windburn, and Hard Tack as per usual were in attendance. All potential winners.
The course was Foxtrot: fixed marks. “0” was designated windward with a start at “1”. Our wind reading and estimate of the bearing to the mark indicated that the course was skewed in a way that favoured port tack. It was a boat favoured line.

We had an OK start. Harriar had a better set up and was closer to the boat then we were. We wanted to tack away but had to wait until we had a clear path. There was an over early. We didn’t have the radio on and hailed Harriar. They didn’t either. We both sailed on. I was relieved to see Jiggers heading back and that the crew reported the over early flag was dropped.

Although Eclipse was later to the line they were able to get clear air and were at the RC boat; in effect later, but as good as us. We basically match raced with Eclipse, to the windward mark. They seemed to be able to point higher and were fast. We ended up having to tack away and they followed. Eclipse was clear ahead as we rounded “0”.

We had a bit of an issue with the hoist. The sheet came lose and went flying. We had to recover it and refeed it through the blokes. The crew did an excellent job at recovery. Good crew work isn’t just doing things right but doing a good recovery when, inevitably, things don’t go right.

Harriar rounded behind us and did cause us some concern. We stayed north of Eclipse. Harriar did not blanket us or slow us down; they stayed south and this may have been due to an equipment problem. It’s possible that Eclipse was trying to stay windward of Harriar and so kept more south. We managed to keep boat speed up in clear air and slowly caught up to Eclipse. We stayed on port gybe. As we approached the mark we discussed whether or not to gybe or do a windward takedown. The wind was shifting north. Once we realized that we could bear away to the mark and keep up boat speed we opted for the windward takedown. The crew did an excellent job of getting sorted. We rounded ahead of Eclipse.

Eclipse kept us under control on the first upwind. On the second upwind we repaid the favour. Eclipse was now leeward boat and we kept them under control. They may have stayed too long in our draft. Once the separation was too great for us to have an effect we tacked away and let them go south. We had clear air as we approached the layline. We think that Eclipse got into further trouble with bigger boats but by this point we had lost contact.

We overstood the layline as I was concerned that bigger boats approaching closer to the layline on port would tack in front and give us their exhaust. Avra and Water Dragon did that. They overstood even more than we did; as we converged at the mark they blanketed us. The boat slowed and we fell to wards the mark. I headed up and got a bit more windward. We rounded the mark comfortably but we certainly didn’t overstand too much!

We stayed on port on the last downwind leg. There was a group of bigger boats on their first downwind leg to windward. We were concerned that they would gybe and have rights and force us off our course. They were enough ahead that when we crossed they were just ahead. Now we had clear air to the finish.

The resutls: Aristosera, Eclipse, Harriar. Staying in clear air and good team work (and luck?) paid off again!