JULY 14, 2015: PLENTY OF WIND, SHORT CREW

Tuesday July 14, 2015

PLENTY OF WIND, SHORT CREW

The first sight of the bay was whitecaps as far as I could see.  And yet another night of great wind!  On Pair A Dice, we were a little short of crew.  We had Jeff and Don with me on the helm.  We set up for course number two and gave the 5 minute horn.

On pair a dice we wanted to start on starboard down the line a little.  Everyone was setting up for the start and a gust of wind hit the line and increased everyones speed, making it rather tricky negotiating the start.  On Pair a Dice, I realized we were closing in way to fast on the start mark and implemented one of our primary rules: do not make any radical moves in the last minute before the start.  I immediately announced to the crew that we were jibing around to kill speed.  It was not pretty with no one in position, the jib was back winded but it was effective.  We finished our 360 and sped toward the start line and came off windward of the whole fleet in great position.

After the lesson I got last week to tack over on port right after the start, I followed through with this tactic. All of the boats traded tacks on their way to Wharf.  On our first  crossing with Diver Down we crossed ahead.  I was tempted to tack to cover, but thought sailing further inside was a better decision.  In retrospect, this was a bad decision because the next time we crossed, Diver Down was clear ahead.  We judged the lay line to wharf a little short and had to pinch to make it, but Diver Down tacked a little earlier than we did. Alas their lift never developed so they had to tack again to get around the mark.

Diver Down rounded wharf comfortably ahead with Pair A Dice following, then Makani, Kicks and Perfect 36 all in quick unison.  The trek to Mile was rather interesting with all of the boats breathing down our neck.  Alas we were able to round Mile quite a distance behind Diver Down but just in front of Makani and the rest of the pack. 

On the way to Gov, Makani was trying to crawl up over us to windward. Alas we had inside overlap at Gov and rounded just ahead of Makani and Perfect 36.  On the way back to the start mark, Makani set their pole and pulled ahead of us.  I tried to steer up and take their wind, but with all of my extra steering to pull this off, Makani cleared our wind and skated away from us.

We set our pole and dipped below Perfect 36.  At the finish it was Diver Down way out in front, then Makani and we crossed the line just in front of Perfect 36.  After Perfect 36 was Kicks, a Saber 34, Tres Santos, Sea Quake and Toad.

Tactics: Inside Overlap

One critical tactic when racing is to have inside overlap when approaching any mark.  This overlap is considered at the 3 boat length ‘zone’.  Frequently it takes a lot of planning to accomplish this. Planning for inside overlap at a mark takes place as you are rounding the previous mark.   There are always other considerations, such as trying to pass and roll someone to windward.  If you try to roll someone to windward, be sure you can break the overlap before the “zone”.  Sometimes you can break an overlap right at the zone by radically steering your boat to clear an overlap.

Barry Keeler

Sailing Pair A Dice