J24 Blog

Well, there was the good, the bad, and the ugly (and a little bit of the bizarre). Let me explain:

Race 1: The wind was big before the start and maybe because of this we tore the spinnaker during pre-start warm up. Chris took the lead and set about with the rest of the crew repairing a 2 foot tear on the starboard edge of the chute. About this time the warning horn went off, unbeknownst to us. So happily we sailed towards the start with repaired spinnaker stowed, and lo and behold the race had started. Amazingly we were able to start with good speed and not far back. GOOD: boat speed! In side by side sailing with many boats throughout the night, including luminaries such as Mouse Trap, we were able to keep pace. Perhaps the rig was better tuned for the conditions this time. The pointing was not quite as good in some cases, but this may have been due to variable wind conditions, and certainly due somewhat to driver error (that’s me). But we made up for our improved boats speed with other issues. For instance, we kept missing laylines (throughout the night) and having to do tacks and turns to make up for it, so… BAD: Judging the laylines, or laying the mark. I believe these are two separate issues, which I’ll detail below in our “Areas that need attention” section. Honestly most of the race is a blur, except for one point that needs special attention. UGLY: during the second beat, the race committee removed the windward mark, before we rounded it! We’ve been blackballed. More on this later.

Race 2: Excellent start, almost. First off, we failed to get the course. Secondly we missed the warning signal. We finally punched the clock at 1 minute, and were able to realize that it was one minute to go. This turned out to be ok as we had been loitering around the pin end of the line. GOOD: We came in on port, into the teeth of the fleet, and we tacked over just as the horn sounded. UGLY: And we ran into (actually slid sideways into) the pin! Ouch! Then we did our penalty turn and tacked over to cross the line, realized we weren’t going to lay the line, and had to dip the line again! This time we went off on port. Amazingly we started better than many boats! This was tantalizingly close to a perfect start. Next week! Race 2 was notable for the race committee having set an offset mark that required a reach before the run. All was going OK, even though once again we missed the layline at the windward mark, and due to another boat being close enough that I couldn’t pull the trigger on a tack and duck, we ended up doing a turn at the mark. We actually caught up to the end of the fleet on the run and meet up with our old friends Djinn and California girl. We thought the next leg was to the finish so we sailed towards the line, as we neared the line we realized the rest of the fleet was on the second beat. By this time we were in a different wind system and they were gone. But we were not done. BIZARRE: The wind shifted over 90 degrees to the right and everyone hoisted spinnakers (on the “beat”). We happened to be on a beam reach all the way to the mark and were closing fast. But then the wind died. Anyway, we did finish that race (last), but not according to the posted results. I’m not sure why we didn’t get the credit. Blackballed!

Areas that need attention:

Pre-start routine: We need to sail past the committee boat on starboard to let them know we are racing. Then maybe they wont pull the course out from under us. And we need to write down the course. There are many other elements of the pre-start that we need to incorporate into our routine, but there should no be no excuse for omitting these two.

Laylines: There are two issues. The first is the obvious judging of the laylines. This is difficult when at a great distance due to wind shifts, and of course, the great distance. We should stay away from laylines until we are close enough to judge them correctly, and so that we don’t get knocked of the line by a wind shift. The second issue is leeway. When we tack close to marks we need to nail the tacks so that the sails fill and we go forward instead of sideways. We also can’t pinch. This is why we bumped into the pin on our almost perfect start (but bad tack). This leads into:

Pinching: This is bad on me. I would venture that we don’t pinch much normally when sailing upwind. It is when we are trying to make a mark, or we are in denial that our true course is so low (relative to where we want to go). A perfect example is when we were going to cross a starboard tacker near the layline but then lost momentum and had to crash tack. I now believe we couldn’t cross because I was pinching in an effort to get above starboard tacker I believe that if I had sailed a proper course we would have crossed no problem (but close). This is my big point of focus in the races to come.

Tacking: The jib is not coming over fast enough. This is often due to the ropes getting hung on someone or tangled in other ropes. It is also due to the timing between the helm and the trimmer. Both of these should improve with time on the water.

Rope management: This is a major hangup (no pun intended). And I’m confident it will also improve with time on the water. I also think a new spinnaker pole (without bridles) is warranted. But…

Gear: We might need to think about a new spinnaker.