OCTOBER 12, 2021 SHORT BLUSTERY SAIL

 

OCTOBER 12, 2021

SHORT BLUSTERY SAIL

There has been some wild weather recently with rumors of wind as high as 60mph further out in the ocean.  My flight home from Hawaii on Sunday had such tail winds that it only took four and a half hours.  Monday the wind was really excessive with strong gusts throughout the day.  Predict wind was indicating gusts of 24 knots between 5 and 9pm.  With such extreme conditions, I went to my boat early Tuesday morning and took my 155 jib off.  When I returned to my boat in the afternoon, I had reports of minor wind on the water with mild gusts of 15 knots, so we put the 155 back on.

As we left the harbor around 5:15, the wind was coming from between 280 and 310 with enough strength for a good race.  We set a start line that was not square to the wind, but roughly splitting the angle from square to the mark and square to the wind, which seemed to work well for the night.  As strong as the wind was, we initially called for course Golf 2, but as we approached start time the wind seemed to be dying and we shortened the course calling for Golf 3: Start, Gov, finish.  I missed the 5 minute horn at 5:55 so I announced and blew a 5 minute horn at 5:56 for a 6:01 start.

On Pair A Dice, as the Northerly wind seemed to be dying, we tried to time the line to start at the yellow ball with the tempting stronger Northwestern breeze just out of reach.  We also had the swell right on our nose which impeded our progress.  Meanwhile, we looked back to shore to see the strong Northerly propelling the boats closer to shore briskly toward Gov.  We were stuck in the transition zone and didn’t even have enough speed to tack over toward the better wind at the beach. 

At Gov, the first around was Aquavit followed by New Wave, Pacific Spirit, Kicks, Perfect 36, Avatar, Nidaros, Good Timin’, Pair A Dice and Simpatico.  After rounding Gov, it was a speed run beam reaching back to the finish line.

At the finish, first over the line was Aquavit 20:38, followed by New Wave 22:07, Pacific Spirit 25:21, Perfect 36 25:21, Avatar 26:37, Kicks 27:26, Good Timin’ 27:27, Nidaros 27:29, Simpatico 34:01 and Pair a Dice 34:16.   These times are elapsed and the course distance was 1.95 NM. Notice how close the finish was with Kicks, Good Timin’ and Nidaros all finishing within 3 seconds of each other!  With PHRF adjustments, the standings are as follows.

1074.2	1	AQUAVIT
1110.55	2	NEW WAVE
1205.1	3	PACIFIC SPIRIT
1240.2	4	THE PERFECT 36
1295	5	KICKS
1339.6	6	AVATAR
1372.05	7	GOOD TIMIN'
1422.7	8	NIDAROS II
1705	9	SAILING PAIR A DICE
1713.4	10	SIMPATICO

 With the short time to sunset, and the unpredictable gusts of wind it was a short Blustery sail.

Race QS:

Even with the short evening, we still had 12 boats out for the fun.  The only way to be counted is to run your Race QS track.  For this night we had 2 boats that did not run Race QS. The track for tonight can be found at:  https://raceqs.com/tv-beta/tv.htm#userId=1011017&updatedAt=2021-10-13T02:10:58Z&dt=2021-10-12T17:45:00-07:00..2021-10-12T19:07:38-07:00&boat=Pairadice&time=1634088916312&focus=Pairadice&rival=Avatar&tab=match&view=manual&lat=36.950833&lon=-121.994277&tilt=7&range=243&heading=236

SAIL TO THE NEW WIND:

Sailing to the new wind is an axiom many top sailors follow.  On Pair A Dice, with the dying Northerly, we thought we were sailing to the new wind and got caught in a transition zone which did not end well for us.  The new wind was actually on the beach and we should have been heading that way.   An important consideration in any transition zone is using waves to get out of the zone and into the new wind.  We delayed this move trying to get enough speed up to tack.  If we had jibed around rather than trying to gain speed to tack,  the waves could have helped  get the boat pointed in the right direction.

Another consideration is being more aware.  We were so focused on getting to the outer wind
line, we did not see the Northerly filling in near the beach until it was too late.

We have two more Tuesday night sails for the season.  Next Tuesday will be a Taco Tuesday.

Sailing Pair A Dice

Barry Keeler