2010 NASS Race to Oxford

From 2010 Oxford Race

The NASS Oxford proved once again to me that you never know what you'll get. The race saw light winds out of the north for our start and a finish you'll probably hear me talk about for years.

Most of our fleet headed toward Thomas Point from our R2 start, trying to stay out of a flood current in the beginning of the race. We on LinGin timed the start pretty well and built a growing lead on Windswept, who was right behind us at the gun.

Laughing Gull headed to the Eastern Shore before most and was rewarded as the wind died down to the west. A tug pushing a barge forced us to make a decision a little sooner than we otherwise would have: stay west or cross over to the east?

We chose east and that turned out to be a good choice. Laughing Gull had came back east as the wind died and wound up in a huge hole with much of the other Albergs. Word is they became hot and bothered at one point and all jumped overboard for a swim. Jonathan said it was lucky the wind didn't kick up; it would have been a tough swim to catch her had she taken off.

Windswept and LinGin both got the wind first as it "filled" on the east. I say "filled" because it didn't last very long! In addition to more pressure it also shifted more to the west, giving us further advantage over those that were west of us. (We were all going downwind.)

The most bizarre (and most interesting) part of the race was the finish--and you can see this in the finishing times. As we came up to the finish in very light wind on a port tack reach, I noticed Rick Born on Windborn about 10 lengths from the finish, under spinnaker and heading parallel to the finish line toward Solomons Island.

Now Rick was an avid A30 skipper and racer when I was a kid and he was really hard to beat! For a couple of years it seemed like we were always chasing him. So, when I saw him doing that, I immediately said to my crew, "why would he do that?!" We checked the charts and GPS. No, we were pretty sure this was the right mark. Then it dawned on us: it must be the current.

The current bends around Black Walnut Point there and while many (LinGin included!) thought we were being swept into the Bay, it was actually exactly the opposite. There was a ~1 kt current pushing us into the Choptank!

We quickly gybed and set the chute and to our dismay noted that Windswept had kept a much better line to the finish line, having kept further away from the point. Here we came, ever so slowly under spinnaker on starboard tack heading parallel to the line that was maybe 1/4 mile away, trying to cross Windswept who is on port and heading, what appeared to be straight for the line.

Many times our foredeckman, who was focused on the sail, ask, "are you sure you don't want to tack and cover him?!" It was tough to trust what we knew to be true, but was difficult for our eyes to believe. We were inching toward the line and Windswept was being pushed past it toward the point at ~1 kt. There were plenty of other boats doing the same thing; some on starboard under spinnaker and other on port on a close reach.

In the end we crossed the line sideways. The current pushed us through. Windswept was swept toward the point and while we were moments before a boat length apart, it would take him the better part of an hour to get through the line. During that time, Second-2-Nun came from way back and crossed before Windswept. Lanny had a very tough race that day and we felt quite lucky that we figured out what was going on when we did.

Easily one of the strangest finishes I have ever seen.

Here are the preliminary results:

From 2010 Oxford Race

WNR Series 3 Race 4 Recap: Calliope Rumbles

The 5 boats who showed up for final race of the 2010 WNR season were greeted with a sweet northwesterly breeze at about 12-15 knots. With the course of A2 set, we had a downwind start. On board Calliope we elected to stay away from the favored pin end of the line, instead intending to shoot for something 'middle-ish'. We felt that because we have good downwind speed it would be better to try and stay clean and keep other boats off our breeze by keeping a clear lane to windward and we felt that would be easier to do by starting in the middle. We waited till inside of 30 seconds to the start to go for our hoist because there was a good bit of pre-start jockeying for position and we got taken up by a couple of boats. Once the monkey business was overwith and people started turning down to head for the line, we got our kite up and got things rolling. It looked to me like we might have been a bit late for the start and certainly boats that had started more towards the pin seemed to be ahead of us. However, with our clear lane of breeze to windward, we were able to put our rumble on. After a few lengths, we broke our pole bridle and had to jury rig a foreguy to keep the pole under control. I told the crew that it's not a good day of sailing if you don't break something. Once we got that fixed, we rolled the boats below us and by halfway to the first mark, we were showing the fleet our taillights as it was just us, a J/24, and a Pearson 30 out in front. As we approached the mark, we looked back and saw a beautiful array of spinnakers spread out behind us:

For some reason, it appeared that LinGin, who was our closest competition, was going to the wrong mark for a significant part of the leg as they sailed far to the left of the rhumbline and they certainly gave us pause to double check the SI's to make sure we were sailing the correct course.

Coming into the mark, we owed room to the Pearson 30 on the inside. He sure took his sweet time making the turn, and we had a much more seamanlike rounding (in wide, out tight!) which put us in a higher lane for the first part of the beat back into the harbor. Our takedown was very clean and with the new long jibsheets that fit over the pole we were immediately ready to tack. Unfortunately, even though we were in a higher lane, they were to leeward and ahead and we had to contend with their wind shadow that forced us to hang in some less than ideal breeze. Nevertheless, for strategic reasons, we didn't want to tack out so we stayed on port and worked on keeping the boat rolling. After boats behind had rounded we looked back at LinGin and they seemed to have a higher angle as well as better speed than we had and it looked like they were gaining. We decided that pulling our jib draft forward might help and decided to tighten the backstay and jib halyard (during the tack). Once we started to get in close to the spider, we tacked out, cranked up the jib halyard tension, and headed back across on starboard. We had a tack snafu that slowed us down a bit, but once we sorted that out and got the boat rail-down-and-rumbling again, we had a full knot of increased speed through the water probably due to the increased jib halyard tension and better shape of the jib (draft more forward and powered up). This was satisfying as we could then hold the same speed/angle as LinGin and we felt good about that.

With the RN being a port rounding and well inside the starboard tack layline to the harbor, we decided that there was no real penalty for under-standing and tacked relatively early to head back toward the USNA annex seawall. We went all the way to the wall before tacking out to head for the harbor, leading LinGin by 8-10 lengths at that mark with Laughing Gull in 3rd about 3-4 lengths behind her. Unfortunately, we could not quite lay the can at the mouth of the harbor and so had to throw in 2 extra tacks as we worked our way in, but we still passed the can about 5 lengths ahead of LinGin and it was a close reach to the finish with enough pressure to keep the normal WNR flukeyness from stealing our victory. We crossed the finish line first for the 3rd time this summer and secured a win for the 3rd part of the 2010 WNR. All in all it was a great night of sailing, with excellent breeze, good competition, and a beautiful sunset!

Complete results at: http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/RegattaModules/ViewRegattaResults.aspx?RegID=325&mid=254&tabid=10

I was recently reminded that team Calliope has been a competitor in AYC Wednesday Night Racing for 8 years now. It has been a hugely rewarding experience and taught us many things about sailing and about building a team. In our first season, we competed with no spinnaker, a ratty cruising genoa, battenless main, and having almost no keelboat driving experience, with a motley crew of St. John's students, most of whom had never sailed before. Over the years, we have made many modifications to the boat, to the sails, to the crew, and to our style of racing. We've learned what's important and what's not. We've learned what driving techniques work and what doesn't. We've learned how to work together, and we've learned how to teach people and how to learn from them.

It occurred to me that it might be good to have a list of the top things that I think have made a difference in getting us from the back of the fleet to the front. Not that we'll stay at the front mind you, but I think we've made some really big strides, and I want to share what I think is important. For those of you seasoned racers out there, this is probably not news, but for some of the newer people, I thought it might be helpful, so here goes:

1. A clean bottom is a must. This cannot be over-stressed. It sounds obvious, but one of the big things I changed this year is I bought my own SCUBA gear and try to clean the bottom every week. It is amazing how much growth you can get even in one week. I used to use the Yellow Dick guy and I can't un-recommend him too much. I know of at least one case where an owner had supposedly had his bottom cleaned and then had an emergency haulout only to find the bottom was totally encrusted with growth. That guy is dishonest. Don't use him. My solution is to clean the bottom myself because that way I know it gets done and done right. But there are probably honest divers that can be found. Unfortunately, it sounds like Yellow Dick is not one of them.

2. Building up a good core team of committed people who may not always make every race but enjoy racing with you is so important. Once you have a core group of people who know your boat and know your style, you will really make big strides of improvement. It has helped me a lot.

3. Talking through maneuvers before you go into them is really helpful. We do this all the time on Calliope and it really helps new people, but even with experienced crew, discussing the sequence of events that's going to occur before you get to a mark rounding makes a huge difference and reduces costly mistakes. So talk about what side the kite will come down on, when you're going to set the jib, and when the gybe will occur. This allows everybody on board to think their part through before you get to the mark rounding and there's chaos all around you with other boats.

4. Always try to think one step ahead on the race course. So if you're going downwind, have your rear-view spotter look at the course and pick a side for the next upwind leg. The best time to make strategic decisions is when you have the boat settled down and moving and you can think. Don't waste this time by relaxing. Use the time to plan your next leg. If you're on a beat, discuss whether you want to gybe early or not on the next run before you get to the mark. Pick a strategy, analyze it after the fact.

5. As an owner, I used to helm all my races. This year, because of my school commitments, I had to relinquish this role to someone else because I simply could not be present for a lot of the races. As a consequence, in cases where I was in attendance, I would elect to trim or do some other job and work with the crew. For better or for worse, this has worked really well. I enjoy being able to get my head 'out of the boat' and I also feel like I can focus a lot more on getting the boat set up properly which I think makes a speed difference. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the helmsman that I have currently is at least as good as I am (probably better)... But even without a crack helmsman, if you can get a competent driver and dedicate your resources to focusing on tactics and making the boat go fast, it can help your performance. Also, you will learn something about the other jobs on your boat. As an owner and usual helmsman, it is both liberating and scary at the same time to put your boat in somebody else's hands during a race.

6. I think the importance of sails and furling systems is overstressed. Our main was built in 2002. Our kite was built in 2003. Both are stock off the rack sails. Our jib is 3 years old but was not at all fast in our first year using it. We use roller furling which I am convinced makes absolutely NO difference to Alberg racing except MAYBE in extremely light air (although we have been fast in some light air races this year). Don't worry about your sails. If they were made within the last 20 years they are probably fine. Improving your crew work in tacks and gybes and upwind/downwind driving will make a bigger difference than new sails.

7. I also think there is over-emphasis on bottom coatings, which is silly. I have ablative paint on my bottom. I have always had ablative paint. It works fine. I scrub it every week. It may wear off faster, but in my opinion it is certainly not slower around the racetrack than hard paint. I don't think that, for the speed, hull shape, and average roughness of our boats, there is any difference between ablative and hard bottom paint. So if you worry about your bottom, don't. Get it clean, but don't agonize over what kind of paint you have.

8. One of the biggest things you can do to improve is try to eliminate mistakes. Whenever we have a bad tack or sail change, I try to work through it with the crew. I ask what went wrong. We try to analyze and discuss what could have been done differently. We try to do this every time there is something that doesn't go right, and I think often we make improvements by going through this process. By eliminating mistakes, you elevate your game and you shave boatlengths off your total distance sailed. It allows you to hold lanes and keep your air clear, which pays huge dividends in the end.

9. Another thing we always try to do is debrief after every race. We discuss what decisions were good and what decisions were bad. If we did well, we think about what made the difference. If we did poorly, we look for reasons (excuses?). We replay the race in discussion and talk about where we could have chosen differently and what might have happened if we'd done it another way. By doing this we prepare ourselves for future races when we will be faced with similar decisions.

10. The last thing is we always have fun. On Calliope, we have 2 sailing mottoes: the first is when the skipper starts yammering too much, the crew should say: 'Shut up and drive.' The second is "We win by leaving the dock." If you take the attitude that simply getting out on the water already is winning and everything else after that is gravy then you are guaranteed to achieve your goal. It has worked for us.

We have enjoyed a great season of Wednesday Night Racing. I won't make either Oxford or Queenstown personally, but Calliope will be there without me. I hope y'all have a great time and I do plan on seeing everybody at PSA for the Rankin Regatta!

2010 WNR Series 3, Race 1: Worst to First!

After many weeks of lackluster attendance and no bottom cleaning, I finally was able to get it in gear and with my 3 PM lecture canceled and no commitments until Dermatology clinic at a lackadaisical 9 AM on Thursday, I bailed out of Baltimore at 2:30, picked up an air tank on the way south, and with dive gear in hand, I arrived at the boat around 4 PM with intentions to clean the bottom. It was a dirty job. I am not gonna lie. We had at least a 1/4" coating of uniformly thick sludge over the whole bottom with a particularly encrusted keel. 90 minutes later, the job was done and we were leaving the mooring.

5 boats showed up to race: Calliope, Skybird, LinGin, Asylum, and Second-2-Nun. In a reasonably brisk southerly, we started the race (course B2...finally something other than A0!) on a pin favored line with Asylum unquestionably winning the start at the favored pin end. The course was close hauled to the first mark. We were a bit late and other boats started further up the line towards the boat. Relatively early, Skybird and Second-2-Nun tacked out and started heading toward Back Creek. We felt fast, played the shifts, and managed to get to the mark in 2nd place. Unfortunately for us, we ran afoul of Lazy Ethel who seemed to think that instead of saying 'protest' and raising a flag, the way to do it was to hit us from leeward when they clearly could have avoided contact, and yelling 'contact, contact, contact, contact, contact, contact'. Clearly somebody needs to explain to them RRS 14 as well as that the word 'contact' does not validate a protest, but that only the word 'protest' does. But I digress. We sailed clear of the course, did our 720 degree penalty and since no damage was done, continued our race albeit in last place. But not by a whole lot. Kudos to Jon, Ken, and Dave for steering and trimming through a great 720 degree turn.

On the reach, we pulled our leads forward, powered up the jib and started reeling in. Once we got to the 2nd mark, it was a beat up to the E mark and we were starting off in a bit of a squall. It took us a minute to get everything situated, but once we did, we had some solid wheels. With the pressure up, we had dropped the leads back to flatten the foot of the jib and that seemed to be pretty fast. At least we were making trees on boats inland. For unknown reasons, the fleet tacked away and sailed in towards the harbor. Aboard Calliope, we were confused as to why people made this choice because the pressure seemed to be clearly better in the middle of the bay. So we stayed on starboard, put the bow down and rumbled. This tactic worked because by the top section of the beat we had passed everybody except Skybird. As we came to the mark (both of us overstood), for some reason they kept sailing high and so we just decided to power up, put the bow down, and punch through their wind shadow. I don't know if it was the clean bottom or our guts, but somehow this tactic worked. There was some discussion about proper course and 'taking us down' but clearly the proper course rule states that we are entitled to sail to the mark. It would not have been within the rules for us to take the windward boat above our proper course, but since that never happened, to my knowledge it was a non-issue. Either way, by the time we got to the mark, it was definitely a non issue as there was no longer an overlap anyhow because we were clear ahead.

The spinnaker set was its whole own fiasco (and sadly not the last one), as we had sheets led wrong, spinnaker hooked up wrong, and basically everything was rusty. Fortunately, Pat the HE-bow-man was able to manage a feat of superhuman strength and disconnect/reconnect the guy to a full kite while re-rigging it to be right. Lucky for us, he is both strong and long-armed. And it was not that windy. Bottom line: we managed to stay in front of Skybird during the set, and that is saying something, because aboard our boat it was not a pretty set. But we got-r-dun. And then we just sailed faster to the next mark. Amazing what a clean bottom will do for you.

We rounded R2 2 lengths ahead of the pack, spinnaker douse and jib set were clean and it was a beat to the harbor, except for one small detail. We had put the jib luff in the prefeeder, but not in the headfoil track. DOH! So we had a jib that was held onto the boat by the 3 corner points only. I was trimming and thought the leech looked funny until Jon the helmsman said to me 'Uh we don't have the luff in the track'. So then it was a quick jib douse and re-hoist in the track and with Skybird pressing us from behind I was a bit worried whether we could manage it before they passed us. Turns out, we did although Dave the pit man did pay a bit of a price with some skin sacrificed to the whistling jib halyard on the way down. In the aggregate, we got the jib back up just about the time skybird's bow was at our beam, with acceleration and wind shadow we pulled back ahead. In the light pressure, pulled the lead back forward to power up and put on our rumble caps. If it had taken us 5 more seconds to do the drop and re-set, they would have punched into clear breeze and been able to get ahead. Again, having a slick bottom makes some difference...

Coming into the harbor, we couldn't lay the seawall, had to dive into the field, went to the wall and tacked, forced Skybird to tack as we came out on starboard, and led them into the finish for the horn. LinGin got the 3, Second-2-Nun the 4, and Asylum the 5. Overall it was a highly satisfying race. Well sailed by all involved. I feel lucky that we managed to win it. Only my second bullet in 8 years of WNR so don't give me any crap about being stoked over it. I have to say it did feel mighty good to go from worst to first though! Honestly, I think the difference was going into the bay on starboard when everybody else went to the harbor on port for the beat to mark 'E'. But also for sure having a clean bottom helped a heck of a lot. It was great to see everybody, and I'll be out there next week! Thanks to all my crew for an awesome race and a great dinner at Davis's Pub afterwards. Hope to see y'all out there next week!

A WNR Catch Up

• I am missing J's eloquent missives from the racing front. I cannot do him justice, but .... we need some more racing chit chat on this blog!!! Apologies but this is decidedly from the Laughing Gull Perspective.
  
  Check out the coverage on t2p.tv (http://www.t2p.tv/guide/wns10s2.php) you need to sign up, but the slow connection is free. They also have a good series - "Upside down is slow" which is most amusing.
  
  Starting with the most recent one first as that was most interesting from our perspective...
  
  7/21
  
  We were a little bit off on this race until the very end. We started a little behind the gun. We arrived at the upwind mark kind of with the pack, and then tacked over onto the South side of the course from this point on we were about 200 yards too far south. Heading int the right direction, and feeling good as we were to windward of the fleet and sailing a little large and therefore had maximum boat speed. This was great until we passed in front of Calliope on her way back to the harbor, and J (much to his credit and our appreciation) brought to our attention that we were not headed for the right mark. Aaaaack - well who knows what happened. Its not like we have not been around that mark before! So while the whole fleet headed back to the harbor, we hung a hard turn, and headed wing to wing back to the red nun. Do you get the picture - some stupid Alberg approaching the mark from the wrong side and rounding in front of a couple of J105s and other speedy boats - in our defense, we did approach on starboard.
  
  
  Anyway after that, we figured we were good and done, and we just kind of put our heads down and sailed. At some point we looked up and saw Tim in Asylum. He tacked in front of us by the Academy wall, and that was the last we saw of him. He got lost in the pack on that side of the harbor. The next time we saw an Alberg was by the finish line, and saw Harry not too far in front of us - whaaaa?! We were very surprised. Somehow J and Tim had become tied up in the mess of boats that is the finish on Wednesday night. We had short tacked up the academy side of the harbor, missing all the faster boats by the chart house. That will be the last time J helps us out! They say the harbor is a whole new race, but this is the first time we have actually come out on top in the harbour.
  
  
  One key was that we really hussled on the tacks. By the time we got to the end, the team was beginning to gel, and needed a beer!! Ray and Mike did an awesome job on the job. Mike is a motor boat guy, but ... we will convert him yet.
  
  6/30
  
  I was watching this one on a motor boat - first time I have ever done that, and needless to say, the wind was great - why was I not on the boat?! Ray and Sandy from Viceroy joined us. They were in Annapolis harbor as this was the night before the summer cruise.
  
  Anyway First comment. Did Lin Gin run aground trying to get to the race on time?? From our perspective both Ray and I thought it looked like she came to a grinding halt out by the tripod marker. It did not seem to matter, even though they must have got to the line late, by half way back to the harbor, it seemed as if LinGin was in the lead. How does that happen?
  
  Interesting to see the race by spectator boat. We were out by the Bay Bridge when all the big boats turned around. it was a Jibe mark - do you take chute down first? carry it around them mark, and then take it down? T2PTV has some good footage - http://www.t2p.tv/index.php (Free for slow connection, but you need to sign up).
  
  7/14 - Albergs get a good showing on t2p.tv - (when you see two kids n the foredeck, that is Laughing Gull; Julien is busy hooking up the chute)
  
  I thought it was going to be another slow one, but the wind picked up nicely. Downwind start. I was chasing Harry thinking I was going to force him up the line to the committee boat, but he got by. I shouted at him to slow down, but you know how that goes. In the meantime, got nasty looks from some PHRF boat that happened to get between me and Harry and clearly could not understand why the leeward boat on Starboard was expecting him to get out of the way. Anyway we chased Harry all the way to the upwind mark, and rounded that with Lin Gin in the lead, Asylum right behind us, and Calliope and Skybird somewhere in the mix. The only registered boat that was not there was Argo, and TC is still nursing an engine back to health. He refuses to take our advice and take the thing out to make a mooring anchor!
  
  All the boats immediately tacked over onto starboard and headed over towards Back Creek. Seeing as how one can never win following the crowd, we took off for the north shore. This seemed to pay off big time. By the time we needed to do a quick tack to make the nun and the turn into the harbor, we crossed in front of Linn Gin by a boat length or two - technically I think that put us in the lead. However, anytime you tack an Alberg that is 2 + boat lengths that you give up, so Linn Gin rounded the nun and took off into the harbor.
  
  Coming back towards the red nun was excellent as the Farr 40s were making their way back at the same time. They were on starboard, and we cut right between two of them - close behind one, and just hoping we had enough headway to make it past the second. we tacked right on top of the second. We were close enough to talk, and I warned her I was tacking to cover, but all that got me was a good laugh from the folks on their rail.
  
  Once we rounded the nun and were headed into the harbor it was clear that this was going to be a spinnaker finish. Was the wind going to hold? Would we be taking the chute down the moment we had it up? We headed upwind a bit to see where things stood, and to put ourselves at a better angle going into the harbor above all the other boats - there is nothing so pitiful as an old A30 getting stalled by all the big boats stealing all the wind - we were going to be upwind of that mess. Harry had the same idea - he was heading even further upwind than us. A few hundred yards past the turn, the chute goes up, and we are headed for the finish line. AYC had called the right race course for the various classes. They had sent the really fast boats on a long course, and the A30s on the short course. We were finishing with the J105, and presumably a few other really fast ones. We were sailing through the anchorage for a while alongside a J105 that had exactly the same color chute - it would have made an interesting shot to get the old and the new together. We were not alongside each other for long.
  
  Typical downwind finish - EXCEPT we were right behind two big boats (105s) nose to nose for the line, and right behind us were two others fighting it out (I think for third and fourth). The moment the two in front of us crossed the line, they rounded up (so they did not hit the Eastport bridge for those not familiar with how these races end). I was spending all my time trying to get across the line with two big boats dropping chutes and cluttering things up. The moment we were called across the line - hard to port drop chute along side a J105 that had just done the same. Turned my head left, and damn those 105 chutes look big as they are heading for you. You can see this on t2p.tv - it felt closer than it looks there.
  
  Whew good fun - about time too. Finish order was Linn Gin, Laughing Gull, Second 2 Nunn, SkyBird? and Asylum?

2010 Ted Osius Memorial Regatta

I brought Rinn Duin down from the Magothy Friday night, dodging thunderstorms on my way to Lake Ogleton. In the morning I met my crew of coworkers Dustin Whipple and Tin-Guen Yen, A30 Secretary Rachel and her friend and 470 sailer Tori Graw. We set out early for a few hours of practice before checking in at R2 at 1100.

The race committee set up a 4 leg, 1 mile windward/leeward course in a light to moderate southerly and got started promptly on schedule, with the Albergs the 4th of 5 starts.

I had a poor start. We planned to come in from the left and tack to starboard on the best hole we could find, but I overpredicted our boat speed, and we crossed way last. We made pretty good time upwind . We crossed Second-2-Nun and Harry had to duck us, though he got well ahead of by the first mark rounding. We rounding in 5th place, having picked up Laughing Gull and Skybird. Then our lack of experience really started to show as the chute went up with a twist, and we struggled to get moving downwind. Jonathan took advantage of this and Laughing Gull moved up and passed us. Our foresail woes continued at the leeward mark with a halyard wrap that slowed our jib hoist, difficulty dousing the chute and then the topping lift lost up the mast!

By the time we got good close-hauled boat speed, Skybird had taken over 6th place. Mike Nikolich sailed both dowind legs without a chute. The wind had shifted westerly by this time, so had a single reach to the mark. We seemed to gain on Skybird but couldn't get close to catching her. The committee waited for us to cross, then canceled the second race due to predictions of thunderstorms.

The results below show that Tim was well out in front, but that the battle for 2nd was intense, with Windswept, Second-2-Nun and Argo all finishing within 25 seconds of each other.

Thanks to my crew for hanging in there despite our troubles. Dustin had only done foredeck once before, and was able to fix things once we figured out what went wrong. Just getting out there and around the race course is an accomplishment!

We could not make it to the race party on Sunday due to family obligations. I would be glad to hear any reports on the party, other views of the race, or any pictures from either.

Mike


Official Results of the 2010 Ted Osius Memorial Regatta from :
http://www.scc1944.org/CBYRA/osius_sat.htm

Pos Sail Boat Skipper Finish Delta
1 244 LinGin Tim Williams 14:11:23.0 0:00
2 562 Windswept Lanny Helms 14:16:09.0 4:46
3 484 Second-2-Nun Harold Gamber 14:16:23.0 0:14
4 247 Argo T.C. Williams 14:16:34.0 0:11
5 197 Laughing Gull Jonathan Adams 14:22:46.0 6:12
6 550 SKYBIRD Mike Nikolich 14:25:23.0 2:37
7 272 Rinn Duin Michael Meinhold 14:26:27.0 1:04

International Canadian Friendship Regatta

For the second year in a row now, we've held our annual International Canadian Friendship Regatta at Potapskut Sailing Association (PSA) on the north side of the Magothy River. I think I speak for most folks that participated when I say that this is a great venue. No fancy frills, just great people, great boats and great racing.

We've held this event for over forty years now. In the spring a group of Americans head up to Canada to race on Lake Ontario and in the fall a group of Canadians come down to Annapolis to race on the Bay. The regatta is held in a team racing format and the winning team takes home the Bruce Rankin Memmorial Trophy, which was donated to the class by Bob Chambers in memory of his good friend, and my grandfather, Bruce Rankin.

Having done this regatta on LinGin for decades now, I think we've seen a bit of everything. There have been races that we canceled due to no wind, and due to too much wind. There have been 2 kt currents to deal with and days of pouring rain. Mostly, however, we've had good weather and we've always had lots of fun. This year was no exception.

We set records for the lowest high temperatures on record during the regatta. It was in the upper 40s and raining with the wind out of the north. It rained heavily on Saturday and lightly on Sunday.

Saturday had a strong breeze with most boats reefing their mains and quite a few No. 2 jibs up. The beauty of racing on the Magothy in a north wind is that the seas remain quite flat even with a heavy breeze. Fast and fun. To give you an idea, you can check out a video Brian Palmer did from aboard L'Esprit:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=523834404969&ref=mf

The race committee decided against spinnakers on both days--not a surprise with the winds being so gusty and the weather so chilly. Two races were held on Saturday and one on Sunday, all windward-leeward.

Aboard LinGin, we lost our teammate on Friday due to weather related boat delivery issues, so we were paired up with Bill Jensen's Prudence at the last minute. And while we wanted to win this regatta, there was a subplot going on too: we were .003 points apart from Argo in the High Point standings and this was the last regatta of the season.

During each race, our plan, based on very similar conditions last year, was to have a clean start on the boat end and head right toward Gibson Island. We like the right because we found that with the wind out of the north, it bends around the island. If you head over there on port and then tack, you tend to get a nice lift heading up for the mark. This proved to be effective on all three races of the weekend.

For races one and two on Saturday, we had solid starts and quickly made for the right. Our setup, a full No. 1 and a reefed main, turned out to be just right for the conditions. It was strong enough that we considered the No. 2, but as the downwind leg was to be done without spinnaker, we opted for the No. 1 to keep our speed up downwind.

The marks used for racing on the Magothy are small. I mean really small, like not much bigger than a gallon milk jug. Add in ~20 kts of breeze and a generous helping of rain and I can attest that there were a few times when we were really searching for those marks! Thankfully we weren't too far off each time had to find them.

Unfortunately, Argo had a mechanical issue with their gooseneck which slowed them down a bit. Maddeningly, the same thing happened last year, although it was their main sheave that caused the trouble.

Due to the conditions, Prudence, dropped out after the first race and headed in for some warmth. With the forecast similar for Sunday, they decided to sit Sunday out as well. That took us out of contention for the trophy, so we decided to focus on High Point.

Sunday we found myself shorthanded on LinGin. Glen Becker and I doublehanded her for the day which was exhausting! Four tacks up the windward leg and I was completely beat. Thankfully Glen did most of the hard work from that point on.

We followed the same plan on Sunday and although our start wasn't quite what we had hoped, and our tacks were very slow, we did manage to have a hard fought race for fourth place with Windswept and Solstice. At the start of the last windward leg we were in 6th. We took a flyer to the right, trying our old "catch the lift on the island" trick and lo and behold it worked. By mere seconds we beat out the other two and took a hard fought and very satisfying 4th. We loved every minute of it.

Argo took first in that last race and although the official Hight Point standings aren't out yet, I think we came out on top. We'll find out at the annual dinner for sure, but either way it was very close and included a lot of fun-poking throughout the whole season.

That's the view from the race course as I see it. Maybe some of the other guys can add some colorful comments to the post.

--Tim

2009 Race to Queenstown and Back

9 intrepid boats registered for the 2009 edition of the Queenstown Race. We were greeted by a 15-20 knot northerly which had blown up a significant chop and some current as well, so for those of us making the trek up from Annapolis, this made for a bumpy ride. On board Calliope, the crew was out for her first day of sailing and also had some worries about seasickness, so the bumpy ride north was a solid indoctrination and all breakfast was kept where it belonged. I have to say that having a dodger was a key piece of racing equipment for this particular regatta. Unfortunately, we did manage to lose one participant due to propulsion issues getting in the way of a successful Saturday morning transit. So 8 boats started the race, one of which was a bit late... ;-)

The Morris Family getting their A-game ready during the pre-start.

There were 2 prevailing strategies at the start. I think most of us were in the dark as to the exact timing, but most boats decided to loiter in the area to the west of Baltimore light as the lighthouse was definitely the favored end. The start was going to be on port tack though, so a couple of boats decided to opt for the starboard tack approach sailing from the boat to the light house and this also seemed to work well as when the starting signal came, they were in a strong position to tack and be in the right place. Anyway, 7 of the 8 boats had a reasonably good start. Tim, Lanny, and TC punched out to an early lead with Jonathan, Larry, Me, and Mike fighting it out for 4th place. Almost everybody was sailing with the #1 genoa and some people had reefs in. We had elected to forego the reef and Ray Meyer later told me that he thought they had a speed advantage over us without the reef.

What we lacked in speed we made up for in tactics and boat handling. TC, who later explained to me that he had a GPS fail, went really high on the first leg, overstanding the mark by a significant margin. Fortunately for me, I was not using GPS, but only a chart book and a magnetic compass and whether by dumb luck or skill, I determined that we should be pointing about 20 degrees lower than the rest of the fleet. Fortunately for us, the rest of them did not realize that they were overstood until they had sailed a good deal of extra distance. We were not quite fast enough to catch Tim, Lanny, or TC, but we passed everybody else and rounded the mark in 4th, a couple of lengths behind TC.

Since we were racing in the 'white sail' division, we got to watch TC charge ahead after the mark rounding, which was unfortunate and we gave up trying to catch him. However, we did get a great view of some highly interesting spinnaker handling on board 'Laughing Gull':

Note skipper peering up into the rig, wondering how to fix this problem... Conclusion: Take down the colored sail and re-set.

After re-setting their spinnaker they did just manage to eek by us but it was not matter as after the 2nd mark, they promptly sailed into a hole and we passed them again on leg 3 of the race.

Here is the view from the front of the Morris family trying to catch us with their beautiful baby blue and white kite...

As we rounded Can 9, we had maintained our position in 4th and had the Adams family close behind. They went high for a bit and we stayed high to protect. For a minute I thought they were going to roll us but somehow we found just a bit of extra juice and managed to keep them behind us to hold on to position and finish in 4th. I told Jonathan that he should consider going to work for the godaddy.com advertising team as he had a cheering section on board that was chanting out 'go daddy' the whole way to the finish from Can 9, but unfortunately it just wasn't quite enough. Conclusion: you do not need colored sails to do fairly well. Smart white sail handling and a clean bottom can really do wonders for your scorecard.

Finish order for race to Queenstown:

1. Lingin #244 Williams (Tim)
2. Argo #247 Williams (TC)
3. Windswept #562 (Helms)
4. Calliope #287 (Bergquist) * White Sail
5. Laughing Gull #197 (Adams)
6. Rinn Duin #272 (Meinhold) * White Sail
7. Solstice #501 (Morris)
8. Tatus II #262 (Maliszewski) * White Sail

Official results are at:

http://www.cbyra.org/RaceResults/2009/211/211.htm

As you can see from the boat numbers, we were by far the strongest fleet present at this event.

After arriving in the harbor, you knew somebody had to run aground and I guess it was just not the Adams family's day as they were the ones who showed us where NOT to go:
Fortunately for them, they got off before we had a chance to get too many close-up pictures...but if you zoom in on this one, you can see skipper holding up his hands in exasperation...never a good sign...also note crew (erm...daughter) hanging from mainsheet over the water in an attempt to heel the boat off...

After a long and beautiful day of racing it was time for some cocktails:
We had a raft of 8 Albergs which is not something you see everyday anymore:
And a beautiful sunset after a great party on the workboat raft...
The Adams and Morris children made good use of their bow hammock for sleeping: Next morning dawned bright and beautiful and as the raft broke up we caught a good picture of the commodore's boat with his official burgee flying proudly:
On Sunday, everybody realized what a light air day it was going to be and so we had no 'white sail' participants. This was probably the right call for all involved as in the end only 3 boats managed to hang on and finish the race. My crew who had just learned how to trim the jib on Saturday was somewhat apprehensive about learning a whole new sail on Sunday, but in the end it worked out well and she turned out to be an excellent spinnaker trimmer. It was not without incident though as we mis-timed the start, barely laid the boat end of the line and looked down the barrel of the rest of the fleet having about a 5 minute head start on us on a very light air day.

This is the classic 'Calliope' view from the back watching the fleet sail away from us...

Fortunately, due to my bottom cleaning skills, we managed to make up ground quickly on the rest of the fleet. Also, the kite was the right starting sail choice and helped us to pass 272 and 197 on the first leg.

But we still were not making much distance on Lanny, Larry, TC, and Tim in the lead...

At some point, after the breeze kept shifting right, we had to change sails because we could no longer lay the first mark with the kite up. This was unfortunate but came off pretty well considering we had only two people. There were some catcalls from #272 something about wishing they had a camera. However, I explained to them that they would not be laughing when I was the leeward boat and as it turned out they were not able to lay the mark with the kite either and had to make a sail change of their own. The irony of the camera remarks was not lost on me as we had our camera at the ready:
Fortunately, they managed to keep their captain aboard during this sail change although I am told that was not the case for all of their sail changes.

After rounding the first mark, we went high while Helms, Adams, Meinhold, and Morris went low. High was the right call as breeze filled in from the south and we caught it first and held on to pass them all as well as gaining significant distance on the leaders. Solstice eventually decided that they wanted to get some of what we were in and headed up to join us which helped him to stay connected to us and the leaders. However, he eventually decided to continue sailing high all the way to Kent Island which wound up not being in the direction of the mark and eventually they got so far away that we could barely see them take their sail down when they decided to hang it up.

Ah how the view changes when you are in front! This is Rinn Duin and Laughing Gull duking it out with the Tritons for clear air.

And Solstice going high!

We were gaining on the leaders!

Jonathan shot this picture after they had decided to bail and head home. Not a lot of breeze at this point...
But we were at least having a good time. Note dodger deployed. That is a key piece of equipment for a race like this!

Breeze really starting to shut off on the boats behind...

Personally, I think I had the best looking spinnaker trimmer in the fleet! She also happened to be quite good as we managed to pass 4 boats from a 5 minute behind start (skipper's fault for starting late)!

We rounded R2 a few hundred yards behind TC who had rounded a few hundred yards behind Tim. After rounding, there was some breeze that was starting to fill in from the south. However, it was extremely light and flukey. There were large shifts in speed and direction and navigating the sail back across the bay was tough to say the least! TC opted to play a tactical game which paid off as he was tacking back and forth on shifts and managed to work his way somewhat further south and got into the freshening breeze coming out of the south. This proved to be a master stroke as he managed to pass Tim and in hindsight I cannot believe we did not think of this strategy as it was pretty clear that the wind was filling in from the south. In the end, it was a grudge match trying to get back across the bay in the super light breeze, but eventually they made it and took the gun. LinGin got 2nd place and we ended up finishing in 3rd without crossing the finish line as the RC gave us a Finish In Place (FIP) at 1600 when we were about a quarter mile from the finish. Full results are at:

http://www.cbyra.org/RaceResults/2009/212/212.htm

All in all, it was a wonderful event with excellent weather, competitive racing, great social, and a good time had by all!

The Bruce Rankin memorial regatta is coming up on 10/17-18 at PSA and I hope to see everybody there!