15 mai 2010

2000 NOOD

Date: April 28, 29 and 30, 2000

Four short Windward-Leeward races

Crew

Tim Quist, Keith Kile, Paul Hillier, Janet Bloomberg, Jean-Bernard Maucor (Friday only) and Bill Black (Friday only).

Email send to the Team on May 1, 2000

Team:

For those of you who missed part of the action, here is a short recap of this intensive long week end of races.

First of all let me welcome the newest team member, Paul Hillier, who is obviously in a league high above ours but nevertheless has integrated so well with the rest of the team. Yesterday was a challenge for us because we were way too light for the 14-23 knots sustained wind gusting to 28. A large part of the upwind legs I had the backstay cranked up to the limit for a perfectly flat main and we were constantly overpowered. In his second time (the first was with us on Saturday) in a J105, Paul managed to do the main while at the same time assisting every body else in the most gentle, civilized and constructive way. He helped Janet in those critical spinnaker take downs, he helped Tim and Keith when we got an override on the jib sheet or when Tim went almost overboard. He helped me with his calm in critical situations and with a constant flow of extremely valuable comments and above all he kept a good trim on the main, constantly adjusting the traveler and trimming and easing BEFORE the puffs were hitting us.

We had our share of scary moments yesterday, but the scariest was when Tim hurt his ankle and fell into the lifelines where the leeward deck was washed by the waves. Fortunately, he was able to manage to stay lower than the top lifeline and stay with us with Paul's help. He had to lie down for a while to let the state of shock pass but soon thereafter, he was back at his post, despite the obvious pain. As usual, he did a very good job of trimming the jib and more than his share of work up to the end of the day. Tim, we are all proud of you.

Janet has also had quite a day yesterday. She discovered that the force on the sail increases with the wind speed SQUARED and that there is a huge difference between 5 knots (on Saturday) and 23 knots. She nevertheless put all her hart into it and during the jibes we could see her pulling down so hard on that spin sheet that she was lifted off the deck. Janet is our most improved team member. Keep on the right track, Janet, it is coming fast.

Many thanks to Jean-Bernard for agreeing to come back to help us at the last minute and not only doing a very decent and steady job on the foredeck but also giving us constantly very valuable information on approaching wind puffs and shifts and headers affecting boats in the distance. Many thanks to Bill for his enthusiasm and energy on Friday and to Keith for his slow but steady progress and the good routine he has now reached on tacks and mark roundings in coordination with Tim.

Thirty J105 raced the series. On Friday, we finished 27th. It was our very first race of the season and the only practice we had (the J/World clinic) was with a different crew. We had plenty of speed at the start and room on both sides when the boat leeward of us tacked suddenly. I should have yelled at that boat and luffed head to wind and waited for the now port tack boat to hit us, Bill told me, we would have been right and the boat would have been disqualified. Well, I may be able to do that some day but my reflex was to avoid that boat and tack, which instantly turned a dream start into a disaster. The second race was cancelled for lack of wind.

On Saturday, we ended up at four only, but in a sense it was a blessing because the wind was so light. At the start, I approached the line reaching on port but misjudged the point where we needed to tack and beat for the line. I did it too late and as the wind was light we were slow to accelerate. The huge pack of boat coming on starboard took our air and we ended up crossing the line, very late, in third or fourth row! But this disaster start was the prelude to our best recovery in the third and last leg of a shortened course due to the lack of wind. We were on the starboard tack on the left side of the course when the wind almost died and the boat speed mostly stayed below 1.2 kn. We stayed focused on jib trim (Tim) and steering the boat to the telltales and to the luff of the jib while the boats around us basically went to sleep. A big powerboat passed us on Starboard and gave us a boost of air first then we footed 25 degrees to get maximum boost from its wake. We basically made the finish in a single tack because the light air shifted permanently to the right 120 degrees. We had better boat speed than the boats around us and our permanent attention to the wind permitted us to catch and beat half a dozen of them. We finished 18th because we followed the shortest (curved) path from the leeward mark to the windward mark (who became the finish when they shortened the course) with the boats on our left doing the 'great circle' around the mark and having to tack into this large increasing header and boats on our right overstanding by such a large amount that some finished this beating leg under spinnaker. The second race of the day was also cancelled.

On Sunday we finished 26th and 24th for a final combined finish over the series of 27th. The first start was good and we had decided to play the right side of the course where the Northerly wind was stronger. We kept pace with the few boats around us but the bulk of the fleet was on the western shore, where the waves were definitely more manageable and possibly the current more favorable (the flow of the tide was against the wind and thus may have been stronger in the shallows along the Western shore where the wind was the weakest!). We misjudged the mark because of the current and had to do quick tacks too late. We stayed on the Western shore this time when in fact we should have gone to the other side. On the next windward leg we started to get trouble from a J/29 named Breakaway who had started 5 mn behind us but followed the right strategy. She was on starboard when we came to cross her mid-leg , ahead of her by about 1/2 boat length and on Starboard. I realized only at the last moment that they were denying us the Starboard right and going to T-bone us. We yelled 'Starboard' and had to luff head to wind to avoid her before they finally tacked. We should have protested then but as the red flag was not ready, we did not do it. We had a second encounter with her at the mark when she tacked inside the 2-boat length circle and gave her room at the mark to avoid a collision.

Then we had another encounter with the same boat mid-way through the 4th leg. We had again gone first to the Western shore (the easiest maneuver) and stayed there too long before jibing. When we did, Breakaway was again on our left, also on port jibe. We decided to pass her by taking her high. We were about half a boat-length in front and six feet apart when Breakaway jibed suddenly and turned into us. I turned to the left to swing our aft away from her bow but could not do it completely and her bow pulpit hit our port stern pulpit. We protested her right away and I flew my red hat on the backstay as the red flag was still not within reach. We notified the Committee boat and at the end of the second race, we filed an official protest.

The Commodore suggested to use the arbitration procedure that Breakaway and I accepted. It consists in both skippers making presentations on the incident and the arbitrator (the AYC Commodore himself) giving its decision after a couple of questions. In my presentation and in retrospect, I was not as forceful as I should have been on the fact that Breakaway was on port jibe and then jibed into starboard. Breakaway lied that they were running deep from the mark on Starboard and that what I mistook for a jibe was their moving the pole to the forestay. The Commodore first decided that Jay Boat should be disqualified if we did not withdraw our protest and then when I mentioned the first incident on the windward leg, decided that our protest was not receivable because we did not fly a regulation red flag within 15 s of the incident.

We have learned quite a lesson from the incidents. We need to have a proper red flag ready to be deployed at the backstay at all times; we need to anticipate all possible reactions from the other boats including crazy ones such as tacking within 6 feet of a leeward boat; we need to have a large safety margin and compensate by accumulating evidence between us (describing aloud what we are doing and why) and by asking other boats nearby to be prepared to be witnesses. With such reckless sailors, the safety margin is wider and onboard cameras and instant replays would not be a luxury to document the near misses and to counter their lies.

Our final start was just behind and to leeward of Plum Crazy, the boat that won Key West and who has won all four races here (I know that I should preferably start close to weaker boats, but there are times when you have no choice). We had more speed than her just before the start but I was not forceful enough in pushing her higher in order to create a gap to leeward to accelerate. Then the boat to leeward of us pushed us and at the gun, Plum Crazy was accelerating in our wind and very soon she was 10 boat lengths ahead of us. We followed her path but the distance kept increasing. We stayed too long in the bad air of other boats and we again stayed too long on the Western shore downwind (the strategy is clearer to me now than it was to us during the race)

The team finished the day bruised and completely nervously and physically exhausted but our team spirit was higher than it has never been. We took a beating but we did survive it and kept fighting together to the end. What a feeling! This is sail racing at its best.

Jaffar

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