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.
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