J24 Blog

Photo Bill Blevins used under a Creative Commons license

I posed the following question to the fleet listserve after the downwind start in the third race last Tuesday:

What is the strategy for a downwind start. For instance, when do you set your spinnaker, when do you raise the pole?

It sparked quite a discussion…

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So Bob, our mast guy, says do you ever do downwind starts. I say I haven’t in the three years I’ve been racing.  And so after a douse where the spinnaker ended up in the lake, and I’m madly re-running the sheets, and we are going to be late to the start, I look up and the entire fleet has spinnaker set, charging to the line. Too funny. Sort of.

We were caught off guard, didn’t get the spinnaker set before we had to reach to the leeward gate under genoa. That is sort of our night. Many highs and lows, wrapped spinnakers, a torn leach cord, a crash gybe that nearly dumped the crew.

On the high side we were dialed into the puffs and made nice work of the beats. It makes it a bit more painful to see the spinnaker in a un-recoverable figure eight when you actually have a fighting chance in a race. But the breeze was up and mistakes get magnified. A character and experience building exercise for sure.

One lesson was learned on the downwind start. When we made it to the windward mark all boats were leaving it to starboard, which we have never done before. Here is the relevant section of the Lake Washington GSIs:

9.3   Start between the starting buoy and the orange flag on the race committee boat. Pass each rounding mark in the order displayed and on the same side as the starting mark. Finish between the finishing buoy and the orange flag on the race committee boat. When a number, such as “2″ or “3″, follows the course letters, it signals a multiple-lap course. Sail the course as many times as is indicated by that number, crossing the finishing line at the completion of each lap.

Since we started downwind with the pin to starboard, all other marks must now be left to starboard. The leeward mark was a gate so this rule didn’t change anything there. Lesson learned.

When we got back to the dock we did some practicing with the spinnaker pole to sort out some of the issues we are having with douses. I wish we had more time for practicing, I know it would make all of the difference. But it’s hard enough to field a crew one night a week as it is. This is really the biggest challenge for us right now.

All in all, it was a great night on the lake, our crew is getting deeper, and everybody lived to sail another day. 

One of the nice things about getting holed and being out for a month (if there is anything nice about it) , is that it gives you that great opportunity to go back to your roots and crew.  This return to the roots was really refreshing for me.  It gave me the chance to be out racing and actually take time to reflect, which is not something you get to do during a race when you’re the driver.

As a result, I’ve deployed a new weapon in our arsenal, one that I’ve wondered  about trying for some years, but somehow never got around to.  The Dinghy Start isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with. While I learned to sail on Lasers and FJs out on San Francisco bay, I never took it to the next level and race them.  By the time I raced, it was as crew on bigger boats, and, you don’t do a Dinghy start in a J-105 or a Cal (at least, not where I’m from). 

But, we always call the J/24 a ‘big dinghy’ and she certainly is sensitive to weight, and yes, a dinghy start is powerful in certain conditions.  This was how our basic pattern went, wait for a start with moderate wind, 6 to 10 knots, let’s say, get your boat up on the line (or maybe just 1/2 boat length or 1 boat length off the line, with ONE MINUTE to go, on a close hauled course.  Then, ease everything, and I mean, ease it all the way.  Let the main all the way out, let the genoa, all the way out.  Then, wait. At about 30 seconds, trim everything in, and go!

We had two really good starts thanks to the dinghy start out on the lake two weeks ago, but there’s a lot to learn . The critical things are 1) there’s no major current on the lake, if there was current, it certainly would add an element of timing and distance that’s completely different. 2) You have to stop your boat and hold her, on a closed hauled course. Use a point on land or use your compass, but don’t get into irons, you need to be able to trim-and-go.  3) Luff those sails.  If you don’t have the main all the way out, you’ll still move forward, which is not the idea.  4) Learn how long it takes to accelerate. I’ve found about 30 seconds in 8 to 10 knots is about right.  But, once we got rolled by boats that came powering up under us.  We should have trimmed way earlier. I think we waited until 10 seconds to go one time, which was wayyyyy tooo late.. argggghh .  

The reason I like this start a lot is that it forces you to get to the line, in the front, with one minute to go, and so, you’re there.  Next, you’re on starboard, so that’s cool.  Any boat approaching to windward, well, they don’t have rights anyway, so who cares. As to the leward boats, they HAVE TO give you opportunity to keep clear. They can’t just come and barrel into you. They have to give you time to trim in and head up.  Also, any boats that were to leward of you before you luffed, are now gone, because they didn’t luff.  

The negatives with this start are that you may feel that there is a lack of control.  But as long as you stop the boat, close hauled, trimming in and going is pretty easy.   Also, you have to watch you equipment, boom and genoa, and make sure you don’t foul anyone.  

Find a spot on the line and give this powerful method a try the next time you’re on the lake!

Following up on the race report from Tuesday night, I emailed Joy Okazaki of Hot Pursuit, the boat we collided with, to get a clearer picture of what happened. I got that and more.

First of all, here was the situation:

Our strategy was to avoid the crowd at the pin. Unfortunately, with Tundra Rose (TR) to leeward of us and the starboard tackers in front of us, we felt boxed in. As we approached the pin layline, TR “helpfully” suggested that we should “make our turn.” We went for it. We tacked under Hot Pursuit and then began the luffing game. As we drifted there the jib backwinded and we tacked.

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According to the JWorld Starting Tactics video, there are 4 boat handling skills critical to starting: slowing down, stopping, holding position, and accelerating:

[kml_flashembed movie="/swf/starting_skills.swf" height="305" width="400" base="/swf" play="false" loop="false"  /]

You can purchase the full video at the JWorld website or at Sailvision.

Chris Snow has a great write up of the final race to win North Americans this year. There are many details about his preparation, strategy, and tactics, including this description of the final approach to the line:

Now it was a waiting game. Main in Genoa out the boat can stop and lose very little distance to leeward. 15…10,9,8, genoa in main out, get the boat rolling, now point slightly below the pin, 4,3, genoa in main on slight luff to clear the pin and we are off, Klatt on our windward quarter, all clear, off to the races we go.

Full article: http://www.northsailsod.com/class/j24/j24_whatsnew.html#55

The night of weird wind conditions, delayed starts, general recalls, and two very odd races.

Between 3pm and 5pm the wind shifted 180 degrees even though it was blowing 15+. Closer to race time it seemed to have settled on a Northerly, but then continued to shift 15 degrees or so to the east or back to the west each time the committee nearly had the course set.

This left time for us to set and douse the spinnaker, realize that we were STILL delayed, set spinnaker again and did about 8 well needed practice jibes down the lake. After feeling a lot better sequenced, we headed back up toward the boat. Still delayed, so it left plenty of time for everyone’s favorite discussion to pop up: our starting strategy. Specifically the age old tradeoff “Is it better to start at the favored end but get buried in the second or third row, or work farther down the line (or all the way to the pin) and start in clear air.”

More about the second race where we don’t finish DFL after the fold… Continue Reading »

Last Tuesday we had some confusion at the start. We miss judged the horn and timed our start about a minute too early. We later realized that when the postponement flag which had been flying was taken down a signal was fired off, and it was this that we took for the 5 minute warning signal. One issue was not knowing the start flag sequence well enough.

The starting flag sequence is given in Lake Washington Racing Program General Sailing Instructions:

10. THE START

Races will be started by using RRS rule 26 except a blue shape will replace flag P. [Note for web version of racebook: This link to RRS rule 26 is to the 2001 rules. Rule 26 is unchanged in the 2005 rules, but US Sailing does not have the 2005 rules available individually.] The race committee may give a hail to the next class whose warning signal is about to be made.

Which refers to the RRS:

26 STARTING RACES

Races shall be started by using the following signals. Times shall be taken from the visual signals; the absence of a sound signal shall be disregarded.

Start Flags

So this is what the sequence should normally look like (with a “blue shape” replacing the P flag):

At 5 minutes:

At 4 minutes:

At 1 minute:

Recognizing these flags will give a more consistent pre-start countdown.