OCTOBER 29, 2019 LAST TUESDAY OF THE SAILING SEASON

OCTOBER 29, 2019

LAST TUESDAY OF THE SAILING SEASON

Douglas Mahone
to me

This was the night of the short course and early sunset.

Fifteen boats showed up for racing, with a light breeze out of the north (actually, a few degrees west of north).  A short course (about one mile) of Start to finish at Gov was called, and the race began at 5:45p. It was a starboard tack close reach the whole way.

Because of the light winds at the start, about half of the fleet was caught well behind the line and started late.  The old starting tactic of sailing two minutes away from the line and then two minutes back to start only works if there’s consistent wind.  In light winds, it works better to bob around near the line until it’s time to go. Once we all got going, the wind filled in rather nicely, even building occasionally to 6 to 8 kts as we got farther up toward the mark.

There was apparently some shouting around the starboard end of the start line before the start.  I didn’t witness it, but I was told that about four boats were stacked up heading to the line.  The leeward boat was trying to push up the boats above it, which is allowable, but the upwind boats didn’t yield.  Apparently, one or more would have had to sail above the start mark, and would have had to circle back to start properly. Because they were close together, the ability to yield to the leeward boat depended on the farthest boat upwind yielding first, because the others below couldn’t push up without collisions. Nobody was allowing the leeward boat to push up, hence the shouting.  If I have this story right, it illustrates how the rules can require multiple boats to change course because of the action of one boat.  At least they all observed Rule 14, and avoided collisions.

Once the race was underway, a lot of the outcome turned on who got the best wind.  Although it was blowing rather well, there were puffs and lulls, and the northerly was often a bit stronger closer to shore.  Avatar and Perfect 36 were farther offshore, while Pair-a-Dice, Tusitala and Nidaros were closer inshore; the rest of the fleet was scattered.  Avatar was leading for most of the first leg, PAD and Perfect were in close pursuit, and Tusitala was coming up hard on the inside. As we approached the finish, Avatar was still in the lead, but the wind inshore was stronger so PAD and Tusitala had pretty much closed the gap. As Tusitala tried to pass PAD, PAD (the leeward boat) pushed her up, away from the mark.  Then, PAD quickly turned down toward the finish, leaving Tusitala behind.  A classic match racing tactic, well executed by guest skipper Fred Molnar.  PAD ended up crossing 11 seconds ahead Tusitala, and Avatar came in one second behind Tusitala.  The whole thing took less than 15 minutes of actual racing. Who says short races can’t be exciting?

For the final results, there were ten boats that recorded their tracks.  RaceQs reported final corrected times of PAD 10:30, Avatar 11:33, Perfect 36 12:05, Tusitala 12:15, Pacific Spirit 13:10, Patricia J 13:11, Sandpiper 13:54, Nidaros 14:38, Kicks 15:53, and Aeolian 16:25. Please note: these are corrected times not elapsed time as I usually report.

This was the last race of the season, which began last March. We’ve had a lot of interesting races, some informative rules infractions, a lot of boat and crew improvements, and more fun than we can count. The last BBQ of the season followed this last race, and it was one of the liveliest and best attended yet. We’ll declare it a great success! Looking forward to starting the next season when daylight savings time returns in the spring.  In the meantime, please try to participate in the Midwinters and other off-season racing to keep your skills up and your crews engaged.

A huge thanks to Doug for an excellent recap of the last race for the season!

The race QS track can be reviewed at: https://raceqs.com/tv-beta/tv.htm#userId=1009265&divisionId=62884&updatedAt=2019-10-30T03:26:33Z&dt=2019-10-29T17:35:10-07:00..2019-10-29T18:04:42-07:00&boat=PAD&model=Express27&time=1572397452552&focus=PAD&rival=Tusitala&tab=match&view=manual&lat=36.957836&lon=-122.013093&tilt=1&range=333&heading=4

TUESDAY NIGHT SEMINARS:

Our first Tuesday night seminar will be downstairs at the Yacht club on November 5 and will be conducted by Fred Molnar and Chris Hofmann.  This will start at 6pm and the topic will be Race QS.  A discussion will be held about the Moore 24 incident that lead to the death of a racer earlier this year in Monterey.  There will be an open question and answer session on rules and tactics and anything else people want to talk about.

We have some amazing talent in our group and these seminars will be an incredible learning experience if you choose to participate.

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I want to thank all of the participants we have had this year.  I have really enjoyed seeing the number of participants grow and everyone having so much fun.

We will see you at the seminars.

Barry L Keeler

Sailing Pair a Dice