TUESDAY MAY 10, 2016: STEADY WINDS

TUESDAY MAY 10,2016

STEADY WINDS

The predictions were for 12 to 13 knot winds out of the North.  We left the harbor anticipating a fun night on the water.  The wind seemed steady, but would it hold long enough for a decent course?  We rolled the dice and decided on Whiskey 3: start, Wharf, Blacks, Start.  We gave a 5 minute horn and all boats jockeyed for position.

Pair A Dice was determined to start on starboard at the buoy.  As usual the start line was getting very crowded.  We knew we were too early so we threw in a jibe and ended up right on time at the buoy.  One other boat thought they could come in on port and tack right in front of us.  We had to pinch up to avoid collision.  We may have been able to roll them, but had another boat to windward destroying our wind and slowing us down.  Our skipper wisely called for a tack to clean air.  This worked well for us.  We seemed to be further out in a little more wind (?).  Additionally, we were not taking the waves on our bow.  We finally tacked over for wharf mark and rounded just ahead of Makani for the long run to Blacks.

The tactics on the way to Blacks involved trying to stay out of Makani’s wind shadow and heat it up enough for speed.  We studied our masthead windex and at no point did it point at Makani, so we were in the clear.  We rounded Blacks ahead of Makani and marched on ahead to finish first (finally!).

I have to compliment Makani for such a great race.  With only two people on board, they managed to set and take down the whisker pole for a very intense rounding of blacks.  They did an awesome job!

The order at finish was PAD, Makani, Pacific Spirit, Kicks, Aeolian and Sea quake, Odonata and Toad.

Tactics:

It is critical when caught in a bad situation, whether being lee-bowed or shadowed, to get out of the situation as soon as possible.  Do not continue in a bad situation and think it will improve.   When going downwind, your windex and the windex of the boat to windward of you indicate where their wind shadow is.  Do not be in a position where your windex is pointing directly at the windward boat!

Rules:

Starboard has right of way over a port tack!  If you are on port, you must yield to a starboard tack boat.  If you tack right in front of the starboard tack boat and they must steer to avoid collision, you have fouled them.  The penalty is normally two turns to exonerate yourself.  Most SI’s now indicated a one turn penalty.  In order to prevent this situation, the starboard boat should hail  “STARBOARD! NO ROOM, DO NOT EVEN THINK OF GOING IN THEIR!”

Looking forward to next week.

Barry Keeler

Sailing Pair A DIce