Chalk Talk – August 21, 2018

[MattAdministrator]

• Wind: 6-10 kts from SSE.
• 2 Races: W1 and W2.
• 16 boats.

Vixen had her regular crew, John in the middle and Bob on the bow. We were sailing with about 570 lbs crew weight. We had the rig set per the Doyle tuning guide for 10 knots. After the race, we noticed the lowers were slack, possibly a little looser than Jud’s table specifies. We arrived at the race course early enough to sail up the beat and it seemed to us that the wind was strongest in the middle, so we concluded we should avoid the edges of the course. The wind also seemed somewhat shifty to us, maybe 10-15 degrees, over several (maybe 5-7) minutes. I would be interested to get others’ sense of the wind direction.

In the first race, a W1 (finish downwind), we sailed into a position to get trapped by a slow moving boat while maneuvering before the start and we could not tack for the line. We ended up jibing around and were a couple seconds late at the start. As a result, we were buried behind one or two boats at the start but soon found a spot to tack, and after ducking a boat or two, find some relatively clear air. But that lane quickly got plugged, so we tacked back to starboard for clear air. Our weather leg continued like that and had us tacking and ducking transoms more than I liked, just to keep a clear lane. We rounded the weather mark in the middle of the fleet somewhere. On the run, it was a matter of finding a clear lane, and jibing first in the group you are in to keep your air clear. We found some good off-wind speed and kept our wind clear enough to pass 3 or 4 boats that were mixing it up with each other. We finished 4th, behind 310.

Getting ready for the second race, our VHF had turned off for some reason. When I switched it back on, it was on the weather station, so it took me some time to figure out how to get it back to 72. By then, we were well into the starting sequence, so we were late getting back to the line to set up for our start. With the short, pin-end favored line, and with our port tack approach back up to the line, we could not find a hole to tack into, so we ended up taking most all of the fleet’s transoms, and starting on port tack at the R/C boat. We even had to luff up to clear the anchor line, so all-in-all not a great start. But, it is the type of start favored by recent daily winners 1139 and 310!

Once clear of the start boat, we had good speed, a clear lane, and the wind velocity seemed good. We suspected we wanted to close back up with the fleet, but we just never found a good enough reason to tack over to starboard. We ended up just continuing on to the starboard layline, and tacked to starboard with what looked to be a huge lead over the boats on the left side. I think that is possibly the first time I have seen the right side pay off on that course with that wind velocity in the 5 years I have been sailing here. Was it due to less flood tide, more pressure, a shift? I am not sure what to attribute it to and after the race could not find anyone who had an explanation. However, from that position, we just hoped the wind held up and covered the fleet to the finish.

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