APRIL 12, 2022
CRAZY WIND EVENING
After a blustery Monday, I was expecting the wind to
decrease for Tuesday. I got to the
harbor at about 3:30 and watched the ocean for a while to see what the wind was
doing AT THAT POINT IN TIME. The flags
on the Crow’s Nest showed a light breeze with a wind line about a half mile off
shore. The wind offshore did not look like
it was more than 18 knots. Seeing the
light wind on the flags, I took this as an omen of decreasing wind through the
evening and I kept my 155 jib on. Little did I know what was in store for us. While sitting in the slip, we saw hints of an
Easterly blowing, then a Northerly as the wind continually clocked around.
As we left the harbor at about 5:15 I scanned the ocean and
felt that the 155 jib was the right sail for the evening. As we approached the start mark area, the
wind was increasing and changing direction constantly. We decided to call an “inside course” of
start to Gov, Blacks and finish at the start mark. It was impossible to set a
line square to the constantly changing wind so we set a line square to the
first “windward” mark. We blew a 5
minute horn for the 6pm start and set up for our start.
All boats got over the line, but PAD ended up tapping the
start mark and did a quick Jibe and tack to exonerate. Most of the smaller boats put reefs in to
decrease sail area in the puffs that were blasting across the bay. The larger boats enjoyed the full power of
the wind in full sails as we all made our way to Gov. The first around Gov was Sweetheart followed
by Aboriginal, New Wave, Patricia J, Perfect 36, Sanctuaire, Zoop, Makani,
Pacific Spirit, Big Mack, Pair A Dice, Kicks and Toad.
All boats sailed downwind toward Blacks, with some using
their whisker poles and shaking out reefs. At Blacks, the order of rounding
remained the same except Zoop had pulled ahead of Sanctuaire, PAD got
a lead on Big Mack and Toad passed Kicks.
At the finish Sweetheart was first 27:48, then Aboriginal
29:26, New Wave 33:59, Patricia J 35:21, Perfect 36 35:43, Zoop 36:30,
Sanctuaire 36:33, Watts Moore 37:33, Makani 39:20, Good Timin’ 39:25, Pacific
Spirit 40:31, Pair A Dice 43:01, Big Mac 43:22, Toad 44:01 and Kicks 44:32,
Nidaros 49:05. All times are elapsed and
the course distance was 2.72NM.
With the wind that was consistently clocking from almost all
points of the compass and wild puffs of wind blasting across the bay, it was a
crazy wind evening.
PHRF ADJUSTED RESULTS:
PLACE
BOAT
ADJUSTED SECONDS
HIGH SCORE
1 ABORIGINAL 1676 16
2 SWEETHEART 1684 15
3 PERFECT
36 1751 14
4 NEW WAVE 1769 13
5 ZOOP 1798 12
6 WATTS
MOORE 1845 11
7 PATRICIA
J 1851 10
8 SANCTUAIRE 1882 9
9 MAKANI 1960 8
10 GOOD
TIMIN’ 1981
7
11 PACIFIC
SPIRIT 1990
6
12 BIG
MACK
1998
5
13 PAIR A
DICE
2091
4
14 KICKS 2182
3
15 TOAD 2233
2
16 NIDAROS 2621
1
RACE QS:
The track for this evening can be found at:
REEFING:
My favorite
story about reefing is the time I was sailing up the coast of Baja on the
Alaska Eagle. We were sitting in the
cockpit as the wind was increasing. The
skipper said it was time to put a reef in.
As I left the cockpit, I saw that our boat speed was 8 knots. We put the
reef in and when I returned to the cockpit, our speed had increased to 9 knots. This taught me that reefing at the
appropriate time can increase your speed.
Every boat has
its own conditions that require putting a reef in to decrease sail area.
Heavier and larger boats seem to tolerate more wind without reefing while
lighter boats should reef earlier. The
dynamics involve keeping the boat from heeling too much. Excessive heeling of the boat will cause the boat to side-slip away from
your intended goal (mark). With enough
moveable ballast (people up on the rail), you may be able to put off reefing
for awhile but always keep in mind that reefing earlier will usually improve
your race results. This is
counterintuitive: decrease sail area to increase speed!
REACTING TO
CHANGING CONDITIONS:
It has been some
time since I have sailed in winds like we had this night: big gusts and huge
shifts in direction. This presented a lot of obstacles (distractions) in
getting the sails set appropriately. In
setting up for our start, the wind was blowing from about 310 degrees, which was
a great angle for the line we had set.
By the time of the start, the strong wind had shifted to the normal 240
degrees making it hard to clear the line.
If I had been paying attention, we could have tacked to take advantage
of this new wind rather than hitting the mark. We are all accustomed to calling out headers
and lifts but missing such a huge shift really set us back. This is not an excuse,
but it is an opportunity to learn: do not get so distracted that you miss the “elephant
in the room” wind shift. Looking at the
Race QS track shows how the boats that took advantage of this change in wind
direction really pulled ahead.
Barry Keeler
Sailing Pair
A Dice
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