Sundowner Series, final race of first series

The ALYC Sundowner series is actually two series; the first is May and June, the second is July and August.  The last race of the first series was held last night in 6-10 knot winds inside Newport Harbor and started between Lido Island and the mainland.  Our group of six UCI J22s lined up for the start about 150 yards downwind from the sailbase.  Very convenient, in a way.  It's a very crowded start area. 

One of our group, Jonathan, elected not to raise his jib until the start, and had his jib already set up in the whisker pole.  Very clever, I thought.  I was about 10 seconds late to the start due to a misjudgement, and the series leader, Bruce, got a great start.  He tried to escape the wind shadow to the right, then was immediately blanketed by two other boats, so didn't get away, and we caught up gradually on the left side of the course.  The six boats jockeyed position all the way down the harbor to mark 6, a pylon channel marker, and I was about third rounding, right behind Bruce.  I tacked to get clear air and the next time I was in the group was in fifth position.  Every tack, I would look upwind and see one of our boats on my wind.  I started to feel like I had a target on me. 

The series leader and the third place boat for the series, Jonathan, were first and second at this point, and everyone else just ahead of us would tack onto our wind.  Oh, well.  We tried to ignore them and sail for speed on the shifts, but it was a challenge.  Definitely went the wrong way at least once, as one of the boats behind, Dave O' passed us.  We got ahead of two of the boats and Dave got by and away from us, so we established a solid 4th place.  As we went up the channel, the wind picked up a bit, and we were coming closer and closer to the third place boat, Dave O' who also was closing on second place Jonathan, but were unable to get close enough to threaten.

It was a very satisfying race, despite finishing 4th out of 6 boats, because it was so tight overall.  Going dead downwind in evenly matched boats is a very interesting exercise in tactics (protecting your wind, getting inside at the mark), and strategy, seeking the strongest winds.  I believe we ended up in 2nd place in the series, maybe 3rd.  We'll see how the scorers count it.

ALYC Sundowner Series 1, penultimate race

As the club is scoring this race, Bruce Thompson and I are tied for first heading into this one.  Naturally, I plan to get a great start, lead wire-to-wire, and win.  So much for that plan. 

We got a great start at the pin end, which appeared to be favored for getting down the course - closer to the leeward mark on the downwind start.  Again,  a traditional downwind start for the ALYC.  Would it have been so painful to send us up to a weather mark first?  Apparently, downwind is how ALYC starts, and that's that.

Only half of my regular crew was on board, B, plus Claudia who is delightful, obedient and very new.  While I thought B was up to speed with whisker pole work, I learned quickly that I was mistaken.  He and I have only spent one session doing the pole, and that simply wasn't enough to get the concepts cemented in place.  We spent the first 4 minutes of the race discussing how to set the whisker pole, and quickly slid from first to last place. 

In retrospect, I should have had him hold the tiller and keep the boat on course, while I set the pole up... but i didn't realize until too late that would have been the right course of action.  Oh, well.  We live and learn, right?

I spent the long downwind leg jockeying for position between Jane and Dave, i.e. between 4th and 6th place.  Somehow, I managed to break the overlap ahead with Dave toward the leeward mark, and then Jane had an encounter with a starboard tacker coming the other way, and took my stern.  So I got the mark rounding ok, then spent the rest of the race trying to figure out what tack to be on.  We did catch up a little on the boats ahead, but not nearly enough. 

So Bruce ended up over the horizon in first place, and I got a well earned fourth place.  I think this series will go to Bruce, unless a miracle happens next week. 

Sailing for Performance III

One thing Frank B talks about in High Performance Sailing is "modes."  There are three basic modes of sailing: underpowered, adequately powered, and overpowered.  When underpowered, the sails need to be tuned to maximize lift, which pulls the boat forward most effectively.  The extra drag that goes with it is not important (or not so important) because we need full sails that give lots of power to accelerate and move quickly in light air.

When the power is adequate to power a boat at hull speed, the situation changes a lot.  To go upwind in this situation, the sails need to be set for maximum efficiency, or max lift/drag ratio.  To get there, we pull on some vang, flatten the jib some with halyard, apply some cunningham and outhaul to the main.  Twist is not needed, and the jib should flow as smoothly around the back side of the main as possible.  Efficiency means smooth airflow, sticking to the sail as much as possible.

Of course each of these three modes are subdivided further.  Underpowered goes down to "drifting" where you heel the boat like crazy just to get the sails to hang in a sail shape.  We do this so that when some air does start moving, it moves the boat in the desired direction.  Then as wind picks up to 2-4 kt, you set the sails for maximum fullness with lots of twist and flatten the hull out, maybe heeling a few degrees to leeward to help the sails keep their shape and give some weather helm.  Twist is needed because the apparent wind is more forward at the bottom of the sail than at the top.  Why?  The wind at the top of the sail is stronger than that at the bottom of the sail, and so the boat's forward motion affects the low, weaker wind more than the stronger, higher wind.