APRIL 22, 2025 NO FOG WITH LIGHT WIND

 

APRIL 22, 2025

NO FOG WITH LIGHT WIND

 > It was a cold but otherwise pleasant evening.  About 19 boats turned out for the race.  Fog looked like it might move in but fortunately held off.   We called for course W5:  S/F - Schuyler - S/F.  All boats got off to clean starts.  Wind held mostly steady, a little shifty, dropping a little at the end.

As was the case last week, both fleets split on their bets as to where the wind would be. Some went in to the beach, others stayed out hoping the westerly would be stronger and more consistent there. Last week, that latter strategy won out. This week, the boats that went in did better. The patchy breeze on the outside oscillated between 230 and 250 deg magnetic, and between 3 kts and 7.5 kts true, which made for frustrating sailing (at least for some of us) up to the Schuyler mark. The downwind leg delivered a similar but weakening wind down to the finish, with boat speeds in the 2-3 kts range.

_)                                        _)                                  _)                                 _)

Thanks Doug Mahone (Avatar) for the great recap and to Mark McCord for his excellent conducting of the race!

RACE QS:

The track for this evening can be reviewed at:

https://raceqs.com/tv-beta/tv.htm#userId=1017739&divisionId=106192&updatedAt=2025-04-23T02:17:17Z&dt=2025-04-22T17:50:02-07:00..2025-04-22T19:17:15-07:00&boat=Perf36&time=1745369601857&focus=Perf36&rival=Avatar&tab=fleet&view=manual&lat=36.951364&lon=-121.995113&tilt=85&range=37&heading=121

 

PHRF CONVERSION: COURSE DISTANCE  WAS 2.34NM

PLACE           BOAT                          PHRF             ELAPSED TIME       CORRECTED TIME

FLEET A:

1          ABORIGINAL                        33                    38:44                          37:25

2          WIND II                                  213                 49:27                          41:06

3          TRUE LOVE                         72                    44:14                          41:24

4          DOUBLE ESPRESSO        99                    48:50                          44:57

5          GOOD TIMIN’                       141                 53:20                          47:48

6          DUET                                     141                 53:39                          48:07

FLEET B:

1          ZOOP                                     144                 50:24                          44:45

2          SIMPATICO                           165                 53:00                          46:32

3          SAILING  PAIR A DICE       180                 57:32                          50:29

4          PACIFIC SPIRIT                   165                 57:20                          50:52

5          PERFECT 36                        144                 59:32                          53:54

6          AVATAR                                 132                 59:41                          54:30

7          NIDAROS                              118                  59:46                          55:09

 

NEXT TUESDAY IS THE  LAST TUESDAY OF THE MONTH WHICH IS BARBECUE NIGHT AT THE CLUB AFTER THE SAIL.  BRING YOUR BEST FOOD TO GRILL, BARBECUE AND SHARE!

Barry Keeler

Sailing Pair A Dice

           

APRIL 15, 2025 THE WIND DIES ONCE AGAIN

 APRIL15, 2025

THE WIND DIES ONCE AGAIN

On Avatar, we learned an important pre-start lesson. With ten minutes to the B fleet start, we were busy making some last minute sail trim adjustments. At five minutes to our start, I looked up and realized that the A fleet had just started, and we were directly upwind from the start line. There were a lot of fast A fleet boats on (starboard track no less) racing directly at us. Not wanting to interfere, we executed a panic jibe and managed to get back to the pre-start side of the line before being run over, but just barely. Moral: do your pre-start preparations off to the side and well away from the start area.
:As Mark observed, during the upwind leg to Schuyler, different boats tried different strategies to find the best wind. On this Tuesday, the boats who stayed offshore seemed to find a bit more.

For the downwind leg back to S/F, the wind slowed down to 4 kts, but the direction remained fairly steady. About half of the fleet set up whisker poles and sailed close to the rhumb line directly toward the finish.  It was slow going, with most boats moving at around 2 kts. The usual strategy of sailing off the wind to heat up their boat speed didn’t seem to make much of a difference under the light air conditions. A few boats decided to head for a different finish at the club, and turned on their engines.

It was a lively scene at the club, between the bar and the tacos.

Doug.

Douglas Mahone
doug@dmahone.com
(916) 541-6607

Thanks to Doug for the great recap of tonight's race.

PHRF CORRECTED TIME COURSE DISTANCE WAS 1.17NM

PLACE           BOAT                          PHRF             ELAPSED     CORRECTED

FLEET A

1          ABORIGINAL                        33                  43:45              43:06

2          INTERLUDE                         141                 49:16              46:31

3          TRUE LOVE                         72                    48:10              46:45

4          ROSIE                                    162                 57:52              54:42

5          WIND II                                  213                 59:46              55:36

FLEET B

1          AVATAR                                 132                 53:02              50:26

2          SAILING PAIR A DICE        180                 57:46              54:14

3            PACIFIC SPIRIT                   165                1:03:45            60:32 

4          MAKANI                                 147                1:04:52           62:00

APRIL 8 2025 GREAT WIND UNTIL IT DIES

 

APRIL 8, 2025

GREAT WIND UNTIL IT DIES

This week started with ideal sailing conditions: warm and sunny, nice westerly blowing, relatively calm sea. We counted seventeen boats out, although some seemed not to be racing. There were more Moore 24 and SC 27’s than usual, probably due to the upcoming races this weekend.

Barry was out of town, so Doug Mahone is filling in to write this report.  Mark McCord, Fred Molnar and friends took out Pair-a-Dice and ran the race. They called for course W1 (Start, Schuyler, Mile, Blacks, Finish), with the usual 7:55p A Fleet and 6:00p B fleet starts.

 

 

The club marks were newly in the water after their winter of R&R (thank you!). The Start/Finish mark is in a new location about 500 yards west of its former position, and the Blacks mark has been moved farther south. The new locations basically puts Start/Finish on the line from Blacks to Schuyler, about halfway between them, which opens opportunities for better race courses. The coordinates of these two new mark locations are: BLACKS 225 N36.57.1132  W121.59.04.

S/F 25 N36.57.1087  W121.59.8297
The races started on time, with no problems that I am aware of. Because of the good breeze, there was some nice, competitive racing among both fleets. Fleet A was led by Aboriginal, the double Espresso, Avatar and Interlude.  Fleet B was led by Perfect 36 the PAD, Nidaros and Kicks. The second and third legs, to Mile and Blacks, were lovely broad reaches, with no whisker poles, and few adjustments in position. The biggest challenges arose because the wind was dying as the fleet approached Blacks. This started at the front of the fleet, compressing it as boats farther back quickly caught up. After the first boats rounded Blacks, the wind speed dropped below a knot. Some thought this was a transition to an easterly, and drifted toward the beach. Others thought there was still some westerly breeze farther offshore and headed out. The back end of the fleet were stuck in a big hole by Blacks, just bobbing around. Flags onshore briefly showed a southeasterly breeze, but it never arrived.

And that was pretty much the end of the racing.  Some boats turned on their “iron jennies” and headed for home. An ignominious end to a lively evening on the water. A few boats managed to finish: ** list **.  Congratulations to them and their stalwart crews (and the luck of getting to the finish before the wind died completely).

Let’s hope for better luck next week.
—————-

Those of you with a different perspective on the race, let me know if there’s anything else to report.

Doug.

Douglas Mahone
doug@dmahone.com
(916) 541-6607

Since the wind died and many boats did not finish, after reviewing the RACE QS track of the valiant boats that drifted in the dead wind, I believe it is best to retrospectively finish the race at Blacks where most boats finished.  Apologies to those that finished at S/F that had no finish time for Blacks  (no Race QS track).  The course distance finishing at blacks was 3.33 NM.

Thanks to Doug Mahone  and Mark McCord for your  work!

CORRECTIONS:I do my best to include all boats that participate in the results.  I knew Aboriginal was out on this night but with the unusual shortening of course after the fact, Aboriginal was excluded from the results. The closest boat to Aboriginal was True Love which did present times for both Black and Start/ Finish.  I used the difference in the S/F finish times between Aboriginal and True Love and applied this difference in time for the rounding of Blacks to come up with a Blacks finish time  for  Aboriginal.  I also had made an error in True Love's corrected time in the blog. 

1                            ABORIGINAL                               33            28:01

2                            TRUE LOVE                                72             36:05

 3                            AVATAR                                      132           37:04                                        

4                            DOUBLE ESPRESSO                  99            38:51

5                             INTERLUDE                               141          40:30

FLEET B:

1                           PERFECT 36                                    144       40:24

2                             PAIR  A DICE                                 180       43:24

3                             NIDAROS                                       118       48:43

4                             KICKS                                             180       51:27