J24 Blog

Another perfect night and another great season of Tuesday night racing. It’s been a mixed season for Juju. The boat and equipment is now in good shape and we’ve come a long way in our boat handling and understanding of strategy, but we had a hard time getting consistent crew out on Tuesdays and our efforts suffered for that. We do have some good new committed crew now and going into next season we should be in good shape.

We also tried out a new look last night with Brian at the helm and me calling tactics and working the bow. It was good to be able to look around a bit, get my head outside of the boat and think a bit more about strategy. It was especially good at the start to be able to look around and concentrate on things other than driving.

For his part Brian is an excellent driver and also is naturally bossy which makes him an excellent helm! Weston took a turn at trimming and did a fine job, and Bob at the mast is a natural at communicating puffs and checking out other boats, and keeping everyone informed on our relative performance. So the future is bright. I for one can’t wait for next season.

Thanks to Michael Johnson (Hot Pursuit) for the fine picture of Juju taken from the committee boat last night before the first race.

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. 

No racing due to Whidbey Race Week, so we went out for a little training. Nate, Weston and me in 8-12 knots of breeze. We did about 10 gybes and about 20 tacks and then we hove to and broke out the beers and bánh mì (many thanks to Nate). Good friends, good times, and a nice break in the racing.

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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The original idea when we started this blog was to be able to review and post our experiences racing in the Tuesday night club races on Lake Washington. It’s been a while since anyone has posted so it’s time to get back to it.

Much of the early part of the season was missed either struggling to find crew due to heavy work schedules and family responsibilities, or from having the boat in pieces while we upgraded the rig.  Now that we are deep into the second half of the season we seem to finally be putting the pieces together.

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As forecasted, the first night out on the lake was bitter cold, but with 22 boats on the line and a moderate breeze, it was time to go racing. Back on the water for the first time since last fall we tried to shake out the cobwebs. Hoist the spinnaker, a couple of gybes, douse, a couple of tacks up wind and drop the jib, ready for the horn. The race committee took some time setting the marks as the wind swirlred around a bit. Finally it was the 5 minute warning.

So far, so good. We debated our start strategy a bit and decided to start at the pin, which wasn’t much of a strategy, since it had nothing to do with the favored side. We’ve just grown accustomed to a port start at the pin and tack into a hole, so this being the first start of the year, we went with what we knew best.

Of course the pin end was favored, so here comes the fleet. Just before the gun we tacked into a “hole,” but we tacked a bit late and too close to a starbord tacker, probably a foul, but no big deal. But we were now going to be hard pressed to fetch the pin. We drifted a bit too close to the wind, and then across as the jib backwinded. Before we could ease the jib and fall off we began to drift through the unintentional tack, and then pick up speed until we spun into the starboard tacker and bumped them pretty hard. But it didn’t stop there. Now we were really picking up pace as we continued to spin to starboard this time hitting our next victim a bit more square on!  Not only have we now hit two boats, but they happened to be the ones owned by the Vice Commodore and Jr. Staff Commodore of the club! Madness.

We managed to escape and start on port, doing our turns, and coming in last. The damage to the other boats is superficial, but not nothing, so that will cost us. In our third season now it’s the first time we’ve caused an accident, and hopefully it will be a long time before the next. In the next race we found wide open clear air, in the second or third row and got off a clean start.  Much better.

Somehow neither the bitter cold nor the early drama did anything to diminsh the enjoyment and camaraderie of a great evening out on the water. Can’t wait for the next one.

Our Lake Washington series begins today! We have reason to be optimistic:

• We didn’t sell the boat and by a family cruiser as some wanted to do.
• The bottom was totally re-done, two thru-hulls were patched, and we burnished the foam rollered paint to a very smooth finish.
• We have a new, longer, class maximum head stay, although we haven’t shortened the shrouds and back stays yet. Could be an issue if it gets breezy.
• We have new electronics, and as they say, nothing goes to weather faster than money.
• And one more year under the belts.

The weather forecast:

TODAY…SHOWERS LIKELY. HIGHS IN THE MID 40S TO LOWER 50S. SOUTHWEST WIND AROUND 10 MPH.

TONIGHT…MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. LOWS IN THE MID 30S TO LOWER 40S. SOUTH WIND TO 10 MPH.

Good enough!

I am getting psyched up for racing tomorrow night. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been out for one design racing due to vacation schedules, windless nights, and the hiatus for Whidbey Island Race Week. But tomorrow night’s forecast is looking great, and we have some solid fill-in crew for the night.

Unless the mast has been knocked down by the enormous motor-boat tsunami over Seafair weekend, we should be in good shape.

Check back for the Race Report on Wedneday.

8-10 knot winds and only 20% chance of precip? Glorious conditions…

No wind, no racing. Between 6pm and 9pm the wind never rose above 5 kts and the committee boat never even left the dock:

In the final evening of the Interim Series, we narrowed our last place position in the standings to only trailing by 4 points.

Our normal trimmer, Bill, was out on vacation, but Nate was back from a week away for work commitments. So that moved me back from foredeck to trimmer for the night, Nate into his place on foredeck, Chris as mast man, and Luke came out for the second time racing with us and took the pit position.

Peter and I arrived early to do some dockside repairs to the spinnaker (yes… sadly, the NEW ONE…) that occured during racing last week. We’ve upgraded ourselves from black sail repair tape on a green spinnaker that we used last year, to white on white this year. We’re so uptown now.

Light winds alternated with big glassy patches on the lake as we drifted out from the marina at 5:20 or so. Enough breeze filled in to allow some practice tacks and a spinnaker raise and douse. Everything was ready. Then we waited. And waited. 6:05 came and went. The committee skiff seemed to be trolling the lake using marks for bait.

Finally the course was set and the first race got off.

We intended to line up for our standard “opposite side from the clump” starting tactic. We didn’t get far enough away from the crowd in time and ended up getting rolled by a couple of boats and eating dirty air for what seemed like an hour. We bailed out and cut across the back of the fleet on port.

No fiascos ensued through the rest of the first race. We ended up early on the layline on the upwind beat, and seemed to make the wrong choice about which way to split around the restricted start line on the way downwind. However, we managed to catch up to the other boats trailing in at the end, and finished DFL, but only by about 20 seconds after the boat in front of us.

For those of you playing along at home: Please note the shift in units of measure from 20 boatlengths behind to 20 seconds behind. Yes, you read that right.

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