Surprise's Log Day Sailer 11750

April Series #2 - Where's that course sheet?

Things are slowly coming together. Compared to last week everyone had their act together on the water. The Race Committee started on time, their engine operated smoothly, and the racers all knew exactly what to do.

Except me.

For the second week, I forgot to bring a copy of the course sheet. I thought, "No problem, I know courses 1,2,3 by memory now. Courses 4,5,6 are a little more hazy, but course 4 is a triangle, windward, reach to the finish, course 5 was a trapezoid, with the offset windward leeward being rounded twice, and course 6, just has two more legs to it, and so round the windward mark three times." The devil is in the details, I would learn.

We sailed out to the course area, and saw that we had a trapezoidal course set up. OK, no problem.

We got ready to start, and proceeded to foul another boat that was on starboard with less than 2 minutes to the start. We did our turn, and started on starboard, which turns out to have been the headed tack. We worked our way to the weather mark, about 4130 feet from the starting line. We bore off for the offset windward mark, about 1200 feet away. The wind was too close to let us set the spinnaker, and so we set it as we rounded the offset windward mark. The legs that followed were short, being only about 1100 ft long. We did our best to keep up with the fleet, but the winds were fairly strong, 10-20kts, and it's hard to keep up with boats that can plane upwind. However, it was less gusty than last week, with relatively clear skies. We worked to get the boat on plane with the spinnaker and managed at some point during the leg to get up to 8.8 kts, but averaged 6.1kts.

So we began to repeat ad infinitum, at least that's how it seemed at the time. Our first downwind was our best of them, taking 1:56 to complete. The first up wind took us 3:42. Our second downwind we took 8 seconds longer to complete. Our upwind performance likewise was worst, taking us 12 seconds longer than the prevoius upwind leg.
At this point I was certain we should head to the finish, but the faster V-15's were not doing so, nor was the Sunfish fleet on the same course but ahead of us. I was annoyed with myself for not bringing the course sheet, and debated the entire last third of the leg over the right course of action: Do I go into Lemming Mode as last week, or do I trust my memory and risk the race on a hazy recollection? In the end I chose to be a lemming, since none of the other boats were sailing to the finish yet. and I doubted anyone else could be as dumb as me to foget the course sheet a second time.

We rounded the mark ,and tried to get the spinnaker up, but a gust hit us at the wrong moment and sent hte boat rolling wildly. The gust continued and I was not confident in our skills in keeping the weight in the right place to avoid a knock down. As we brought the spinnaker pole down, the sheet fell over the bow and went under the boat. I was able to become philosophical about that later, but it vexed me at the time, I'm sorry to say. As we rounded the leeward mark for the last time, I saw one of the V-15's capcized with his mast apparently stuck in the mud. All the more reason to be cautious. A powerboat was nearby rendering aid. We rounded the mark afer what seemed an eternity, which was our slowest downwind, taking 2:08.

But we made up a little during our last beat which took us 3:34, the best time we had of the upwind legs. We bore off and worked to keep the boat on plane as much as possible in the breezey conditions, averaging 6.9 kts, for the 1840 foot reaching leg that took us to the finish. I had an indication of 9.9kts from the data taken during this leg, but I do wonder at the accuracy of that one data point. The remainder of the data were in the 5-8 kt range.

So we turned and began our reach back to the dock. The V-15 that had capcized was still being helped, so we decided that attempting to render any aid would be more hazardous than keeping out of the way.
On the way back to the dock we had the chance to enjoy some time on plane, working the boat on top of the waves as the wind pulled us along. The data said we reached 11kts at one point in time, but the rest of the data in that time frame indicated speeds greater than 9 kts.

We found that after the handicaps were computed, that we had finished in 4th place after three V-15s, one of which was a national champion level sailor. So we were sailing against some good competition.

I was a little disappointed in our performance, and looking a the tracks, it appears we were out of phase on a couple of the upwinds, or perhaps we should have tacked earlier at the beginning of the upwinds, and perhaps on one of the legs, we took a header and did not tack, but rode it too long to get to the layline. Part of my impression is that I'm not used to short legs, and I need to get better at gauging the angles right after the mark rounding because it makes more difference with short legs.

All in all, a fun race!

April Series #1 - Lemming Mode

I arrived at the park to rig Surprise and noted the gray, windy sky. I found my stomach had been getting that closed off feeling. Not like having butterflys, but more as if it had compressed on itself and found that a stone or a baseball was there. I've been sailing Wednesdays a lot...is it ten or eleven years? Yet every year at the first race I still get this feeling. The water was a brownish gray, and capped with foam. For some reason I found no desire to cast off the lashings that make fast the boat's gear for road travel. I tuned the radio to 830kHz, where the city of Shore Acres, a few miles aways, repeats the NOAA weather radio broadcasts. "Winds 15-20 knots, gusts to 25." The waves splashed over the shoreline at the park. Not the optimum conditions.

The crew (all one of him) showed up, and after asking him if he wanted to go, and getting the usual "I'll do what you want" response to such questions, I decided to sail and we rigged up. We left the dock and were glad to have put on foul weather gear, the lake had been whipped up into a considerably choppy state by the winds.

We tacked and headed east toward the starting line. As we neared the old starting area, near what used to be the Seabrook Beach club, we saw a few boats, including one Laser that had capcized. The Race committee boat showed up and we found the weather mark.

We had two Lasers, a Vanguard Nomad, four Vanguard-15's and a Catamaran in addition to Surprise.

We were given course 2, which is a windward, leeward, windward, finish course. The kicker was where's the finish?

The start was unimpressive on our part, we were too early. We bore off and jybed at the pin end, came up close on port and were able to find a space to tack into in the fleet.

The winds kept us hiking out to keep the boat flat, but nevertheless we were overpowered. Perhaps easing the wire jib halyard to let the mast bend aft a little more would have helped.

We rounded the first mark, and set the spinnaker in a bear away set. We got the boat up on plane and sailed leeward. We had fewer gusts than I expected, and about halfway down the course we jybed for the mark. We rounded the mark and started working out way back upwind. I saw that the Race committee boat was still in the area, but was being towed by another boat. Engine trouble apparently.

As we approached the windward mark, I saw the Vanguard-15's were heading back down wind again. I figured that the finish must be back down near the leeward end of the course, and I saw nothing near the club classic. Perhaps another boat was being used down there. As we approached the leeward end of the course, there was nothing. The leaders in both the Sunfish fleet and our fleet had led the rest of us astray. I was annoyed with myself for not figuring it out earlier. We briefly discussed throwing in the towel and sailing home, but decided we would sail back and find the finish. We worked our way upwind yet again, and I was not going to round the weather mark again which several of the Vanguard fleet had done. So, we caught up to them again. We crossed the finish line and headed back to our dock. We hit a nice gust coming home and planed for a couple of minutes.

It was rather lonely at the dock with no other boats there and no one else sailing back to the dock with us. We pulled Surprise back onto her trailer and de rigged her.

At the Club Classic, the parking lot was packed with cars. I was lucky to find a place at all. Good thing I keep the boat at a shed on the way to the club. I learned at the club that one of the Vanguards had snapped out of Lemming Mode and had sailed back to the finish line. Since we were near the rest of the fleet, we correctted out over them and got the second.

It was fun to look back on, like all heavy weather sailing. I'm ready for more controlled conditions.

Wednesday nights 2008

Tonight starts the annual Wednesday night race series on clear Lake Texas. Right now the weather looks ok, although cloudy. I've been excited to get back into the sailing, but I was concerned at the end of last year because the location used for the after race party/awards and the spectator stands was sold and will be torn down to be turned into a high rise condominium building.
By Baldridge and Brad Emel, the owners of the Classic Cafe in Seabrook bought a place that has been several failed restuarants and turned it into a club where they will host the races. Whether or not they will run the start finish nearby I don't know yet. I'm just happy the Wednesday night races here will be continuing!