AUGUST 25, 2020: SMOKIN WIND

AUGUST 25, 2020

SMOKIN WIND!

With Predict Wind forecasting light and variable winds for the evening, I was surprised to see the Crow’s Nest flag showing a fairly stiff breeze when I arrived at the harbor. It did not look like it was going to die so we swapped out to the 135 jib.  Leaving the harbor, the conditions were staying the same.  At the start mark, we determined the wind was coming from about 230 at about 16 knots.  There were about 19 boats out for the fun.  Since we were having a barbecue this night, we called a shorter course than normal: W3.  We blew the five minute horn and set up for our start.

In our sailing around before the start, we determined that the wind was about the same on both ends of the line and there did not seem to be much difference further out.  We decided to do a starboard tack starting as close to the beach end of the line as possible.  Wow, what a cluster of boats on the line.  It is great seeing everyone follow rules and get off with a clean start!

We tacked over toward the inside as soon as we could.  Our thought was smoother water inside would be better.  Pacific Spirit, tacked to windward of us to cover (a great tack-tical move!;).  All boats were tacking and crossing each other on their way to Schuyler mark.  At Schuyler, first around was Sagittarius, followed by Jersey Girl, Perfect 36, Pacific Spirit, Avatar, Pair a Dice, Toad, Nidaros and Sophia.

On the long run back to Blacks, some boats sailed the rhumb line to the mark, others went inside.  On Pair A Dice, we sailed outside thinking the wind was a little better and a little hotter point of sail. It seems like the boats sailing straight to the mark did a little better.   The first around Blacks was Jersey Girl, Sagittarius, Avatar, Perfect 36, Pacific Spirit, Pair a Dice, Nidaros and Toad.

At the finish, it was Sagitarrius 46:43, Jersey Girl (took start mark to port), Perfect 36 48:35, Avatar 49:05, Pacific Spirit 50:45, Pair A Dice 52:34, Guenther and his Finn,  Nidaros 55:24 and Toad 55:40.  The course length was 3.55NM.

The wind held for the evening and it was an awesome sail, even though we were in “smokin winds”.

Thanks to Mike Gross for cooking for our end of month Barbecue!

Race QS:

More boats are using this app which is great.  We are stuck at about 50% of the boats using and uploading their tracks.  We are using Race QS as a race committee.  If you do not use this app and upload your track, you are invisible to the race committee!  The app is free and yields a lot of information about your sailing and boat handling.  The track for tonight can be found at: https://raceqs.com/tv-beta/tv.htm#userId=1011635&updatedAt=2020-08-26T02:20:43Z&dt=2020-08-25T17:10:02-07:00..2020-08-25T19:20:28-07:00&boat=Dice&model=J24&time=1598404565349&focus=Dice&rival=Pacific%20Spirit&tab=match&view=manual&lat=36.952571&lon=-122.013965&tilt=12&range=3027&heading=240

HAVE YOU REGISTERED YOUR BOAT?

We are trying to get all of our Tuesday night boats to register for the series.  The fee for this shortened season is $20 for SCYC members and $35 for nonmembers.  The forms can be found on the March 3 blog posting. It is great to have information about all of the boats.  Please fill out the form and leave it with Greg at the clubhouse.  Mark the outside of the envelope ATTN BARRY.

CURRENT EVENTS:

The wild fires are running rampant, not this current event!   I’m talking about currents in the ocean and how to use them to your advantage. San Francisco sailors cannot race without current considerations! We have used the Easterly current that runs along the beach close to shore before, but that is not the only current we deal with.  Further out, just inside of Mile Buoy there is a current that flows from the West back toward Pleasure point.  My suspicion is that this current is a combination of the effects of the wind direction and force outside, with possibly some effect from tidal variations.

Who among us has never had trouble rounding Schuyler with the currents swirling around it.  This may explain some of that difficulty.

BBBS

Sunday September 6 is our annual Big Brothers Big Sisters day on the bay regatta.  This is always a fun event.  A short race followed with a big party and food.  It will be restrained somewhat this year because of Covid, but we all know the real fun is out on the water anyway!  This is a reverse PHRF, pursuit race.  The slow boats take off first and the faster boats get to chase us down.  So sign up and do your part to help the kids with this fundraiser. 

See you next Tuesday.

Barry Keeler

Sailing Pair A Dice