Wind, Warmth, And Wednesday Night
It's so good to actually be sailing...
After a week of abandonments, Wednesday evening set up perfectly for some good racing. A solid SEasterly breeze, no threat of thunderstorms, and mild temps with low humidity. Wednesday delivered, big time, and it was lots of fun, especially sailing the breezy run back up the Severn with boats all around and lots of surfing waves. We topped 10 knots on some of the best ones. It’s such a good way to break up the week.
But if life is too good we get lazy and complacent. Which is my way of pretending, uh saying, that I am sort of okay with pondering and puzzling over the fact that we continue to dwell at the bottom of the ORC2 class. It’s been quite a while since I spent so much time at the tail end of a fleet, or got stuck at the bottom of a learning curve. Part of the challenge and fun of sailing is figuring stuff out and moving up in a fleet. Not figuring stuff out, and not moving up, not so much. Series 1 of WNR is done (cough, results), and it would be nice to put it down as an intro to the peculiar discipline of AYC Wednesday Nights. But right now I am not so confident that I know how we can turn Series 2 around.
I do have thoughts, though. The first is that I have to get better at fleet management. AYC WNRs feature lots and lots of boats. Really, a lot of boats. Everywhere. And it is easy if you are not careful and looking three moves ahead to put yourself in a bad spot. And I did that twice on Wednesday. The first was at the start, when I got us to the line too early, partly because there were so many boats in the starting area (especially the J-105s, who weren’t even starting with us), that putting in one last hitch on port tack to burn some time would have required surviving a marauding horde of boats, all powering toward the line on starboard. The only thing worse than a bad start is a major collision. I chose a dodgy start.
Once we go to the line I had about 30 seconds and precious little room to bear off and stay behind the line because the J35 Abientot was just to leeward. The called for me to come up and at first I couldn’t, as another boat was just to windward and not budging. That boat finally cleared just as we were on the verge of getting over the top of Abientot, and breaking the overlap. But they kept calling “up, up, up.” It wasn’t clear whether they had an overlap or not but I did my best to stay clear of them without being over the line early. We did just manage to start properly, but if Abientot had really wanted to force the issue we might have been in trouble (I was glad to see they won their division, so we didn’t hamper them too much). Bad helmsman, bad helmsman.
While we survived that mistake, the next one cost us. And it came, once again, at what is proving to be our tactical nemesis: the first mark, to be left to port. Our funky start had us in a good lane on starboard off the line but to the left of most of the fleet. So the challenge was to get back across on port, and find a spot on the inevitably crowded layline to that first mark (unlike two weeks ago we would be bearing off for the second mark, so we didn’t want to overstand). When the boat on our hip tacked onto port, we tacked too and almost made it to the layline. I say almost, because boats were coming out of the right on starboard layline and forcing port tack boats onto starboard one after the other. Our problem was that there was a boat on port, just ahead and to leeward, tight enough that when they tacked onto starboard we would have to tack too because we didn’t really have enough room to make a big bear away and duck them. Or at least trying that would have been pretty hairy. As a result, our fate would be entirely tied to whether we were at or past the starboard layline when they forced us to tack.
I held on as long as I could after they flipped onto starboard. And when we finally flipped as close to their lee bow as I dared, I initially thought we would lay the mark, which was perhaps 200 meters away. But we had seen this horror movie before, and the sequel played the same way. Boat after boat stacked up on the layline as we approached the mark, and the pressure dropped and started swirling. Oxygen masks dropped from the overhead, and three boatlengths out I could see we simply weren’t going to get there. I should have gybed away and circled back around. Instead I compounded the error by trying to throw in a quick tack at the mark, into a too small but tempting gap (we’ve all been there, haven’t we?).
Unfortunately, a 36.7 is not a Laser, and I didn’t make it. Not even close. I had no speed to tack back onto starboard before two other boats came barreling in. “Starboard,” they called, and I lamely warned them that I had absolutely no steerage. They went around us, shaking their heads at the idiot helmsman. When we finally got around the mark I was shaking my head at the idiot helmsman, too.
Playing it back in my head later, I understood that the key to avoiding the whole sequence was seeing that on the port tack across the course we had to escape the position of being forced onto starboard by the boat ahead and to leeward. By staying in that position we left ourselves at the mercy of the starboard tackers and had no ability to make our own judgement about the layline. It required seeing a few steps ahead, but I should have put the bow down and found a line where the boat next to us could tack and cross us. We would have given up some ground, but that would have allowed us the room we needed to duck or cross other starboard tack boats until we felt confident we would lay the mark. Once again, a failure of foresight and bad traffic management cost us big-time at the first mark. We’ve tried all the wrong ways. It’s probably time to start getting that rounding right.
The second thought I have is that going upwind in stronger breeze has been a weakness. I still haven’t figured out the best sail configurations and crossovers when reefing is required. On Wednesday we sailed upwind with the genoa partially rolled, which didn’t give us enough power to punch through the short, steep waves that were rolling up the Bay. I am sure the better setup would have been a single reef in the main, and a full genoa. But before the start we looked at the reef setup on the old (like vintage 2007) North 3di we are using and the single reef was weirdly high on the sail. Pulling the main down to that reef point seemed like it would reduce the sail area by a lot more than we really needed. So our only choice was to sail with some rolls in the genoa (which also meant meant not pointing as well). The obvious solution to that problem is to go back to the newer main, which has two reefs, and offers great flexibility regarding sail area. This I plan to do. I had generally been reserving that main for weekend doublehanded races. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Other than those two thoughts, I am out of solutions. The foredeck and crew work in general has been great. So better boat setup, and better helming and course management, remain the keys. Another series starts next Wednesday, so we get another chance to hoist ourselves out of the cellar. It’s cold and damp down there. Some fresh air and sunlight toward at least the middle of the fleet would feel pretty good.
In the meantime, it’s important to remember how beautiful it can be out there. That’s pretty easy to do when you are sailing into sunsets with the spinnaker up and boats all around.
One thing is for sure. We’ll keep having fun. That is something which we are very good at.
Other Racing: The Annapolis-Newport Race starts today. The forecast is for light southerlies for the Chesapeake Bay segment, and then fantastic running conditions all the way to Newport. I had considered doing this race doublehanded, but opted for the (since cancelled) Marion-Bermuda Race instead. As it turns out, this would have been a perfect year to do A2N. Track the race here.
The Bermuda 1-2 race is also starting today. Tracker here.
Annals Of Sailing Inanity: Very bad navigation? Filling the water tanks? A sailboat going upstream to spawn dinghies?
(Source)
If you liked this post from Sailing Into The Anthropocene, why not subscribe here, and/or hit that share button below? You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter.