Corrected time was our friend this time!

[Scott T-Bird]

The first real race for Ward and I was exciting to say the least! Too bad only 4 boats were entered. We'd like to see more. Perhaps the weather forecast affected the numbers. The forecast was for 20 knots from the south at the start and building in the afternoon. Another typical Barnegat Bay Saturday afternoon!

After sailing around before the race with full mainsail, we decided about 8 minutes before the actual start to reef. Got that done with about a minute to spare before the 5 minute start sequence. We had our genoa rolled up a little bit as well. Start was at noon sharp and the race was 2 laps around a triangle with the start and finish half way between the upwind and downwind marks. I think the total distance was about 7 miles. We finished in total elapsed time right at 1 hour 30 minutes. Our corrected time was 1 hour 7 minutes & change.

The new Tartan 40 finished in 56 minutes and obviously blew the rest of us away. But it was really tight between the other 3 boats! A Catalina 34 finished just ahead of us by 1:30 and a 1970 Morgan 30 finished behind us by a few minutes. On corrected time, all 3 of us were within less than a minute! Thunderbird scored 2nd overall and the Morgan was 3rd, so the Catalina was completely flipped in the order.

That 50 year-old Morgan looks like it just came off the showroom, BTW, and that is no exaggeration. The gelcoat on the coachroof and deck and the brightwork gleams like it has been under a cover indoors for it's entire life.

We made a few mistakes on the upwind legs that cost us. The Catalina was at least a minute late to the start so they definitely paid for that. The Morgan also had start troubles and if not for that they would have corrected ahead of us, surely.

Ward and I were pretty much on time for the start, matching pretty well with the Tartan. I'm learning that if I keep close to that guy, I can't go wrong. That pretty much made the difference for us! On the reaches, we were fast, matching or ever so slightly bettering the Catalina 34, even with their waterline length. We were ahead of them for the first lap all the way around, but gave it up on the long upwind leg. We recovered distance again on the next lap during the reaches. The Morgan came close to us at the end of the long upwind leg, but they finally had to duck us when we crossed on starboard just before the mark. They were on port and just could not make it ahead of us so they had to duck. We then put a lot of distance between us on the reaches (and gained ever so slightly on the Catalina, we think) and finished more strongly on the last upwind leg than we were doing on the previous upwind legs. Overall, we could tell that the race was very tight just about all the way around so it was a lot of fun. We were very happy at the end, even before we knew the results, because it was so much fun!

Our 6 mile journey home, though, was about the worst boat ride I ever experienced! Let's just say that when winds built to about 30 to 40 knots, it wasn't any fun at all. That's another story!

 

[glaufman]

Very nice! Would you share with us some of the mistakes you said you made so we could maybe learn from them?

 

[jssailem]

Congrats to you Scott and your crew Ward. Sounds like a good learning experience. With each of these adventures you guys are getting better learning your boat. Getting the best from her and your sailing skills.
Go on and sail.

 

[Davidasailor26]

Nice! Sounds like a lot of fun. You're right that a few more boats could be nice, but for your first few starts a small fleet can help keep the commotion down. It's great that even with a smaller fleet the boats are fairly close; that helps the feeling of competition even more than having lots of boats.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Starboard tack was taking us to the left side of the course, which I thought was also a little more favorable with wave action that seemed to affect us less. We really struggled on port side tack. Even though the mark was pretty straight upwind, the waves on port tack just seemed to slam us into submission. We had a nice start and were pretty far in front of the 2 boats, but I was over-anxious and tacked too early to starboard to make the mark. If I had slogged another 100 yards on port side, we could have stood the mark. As it turned out, we had to make 2 additional tacks and in the conditions, we really gave up almost all of our advantage. We still rounded ahead (not counting the Tartan), but we gave up the lead after the 2 reaches and rounding the downwind mark.

We actually talked about how we would roll the genoa out completely for the 2 reaches but we knew, and we talked about how we should roll it back in before reaching the downwind mark, so that it was reefed before starting upwind again. But we completely forgot! We rounded the mark and realized we had too much sail! I wasn't even sure we could roll it in with that much wind. We had to pinch enough to manage it. It slowed us down, the Catalina overtook us and the Morgan gained and almost caught up throughout the long upwind leg. Finally, though, we started to improve our boat speed on port, which was giving me problems. We also stood that layline nicely this time. We had 2 good reaches on the 2nd lap, and the last upwind to the finish, we held our ground pretty much relative to the Catalina this time.

 

[Davidasailor26]

we talked about how we should roll it back in before reaching the downwind mark, so that it was reefed before starting upwind again. But we completely forgot!

Been there. My usual mistake is to ease the outhaul on the reaches, then forgetting to take it back in before the beat. Inevitably I need to luff the main to be able to get the outhaul back in after rounding the leeward mark.

 

[mdidomenico]

Our 6 mile journey home, though, was about the worst boat ride I ever experienced! Let's just say that when winds built to about 30 to 40 knots, it wasn't any fun at all. That's another story!

i'll bet that was unpleasant. i was down there on saturday working on my boat on the hard and was nearly blown off the deck a few times in the gusts. saw a couple of others go out and come right back...

 

[JRT]

Wow, very cool time for you all!

 

[Jackdaw]

Some random thoughts.

Even when a leg is square to the wind, often one tack will have more comfortable wave action. You'll roll in one and slam in the other. On the slammer steer and trim slight wider to give you a bit more power and a nicer angle. Bashing your head into every wave will for sure be slow. One thing for sure; unless there is a big long windshift, you will spend half the time on each side!

Being the 'little guy' does not help either. Am guessing the T40 just powered through that stuff.

On a triangle course (in particular non-spin) the two downwind legs are a drag race with almost zero tactics. Get the boat into top speed, ASAP, and hold it there. dial back on any softness you put on just before the leeward mark. Only gamesmanship, if you manage to be in front of a longer boat at the windward mark, DO NOT let them drive over you on a reach. They will waterline you and want to pass. If you see them edging up, go up too. Look back at him and shake your head. ;^) You might have to mess up your time in one race, but you'll quickly develop a reputation as a driver that can't be driven over, and they'll stop trying. They can pass you to leeward, but that will be slower for them and good for you.

Unless the conditions make tacking REALLY painful, don't worry about nailing the layline from a distance, or worse 'going a bit more' to save a tack. Half of the time you'll get lifted over it. The other half of the time you would have had to tack twice anyway. Double true in non-spin boats that don't have to worry about rigging for a spinset at the windward mark.

 

[Ward H]

As Scott said, the race was a blast. This was my first official race so to come in 2nd was pretty cool, even if there were only four boats.

Here is the best view we had of the Tartan, shortly after the start. After that he was just a spec.


In the foreground is the sweet Morgan 30 with the C34 in the background.


Here comes the C34, slowly gaining on us. Scott at the helm.


We held off the C34 for a while during this leg but they eventually pulled away.


We did almost catch them on the last leg which made the race a lot of fun even before knowing corrected times.

One additional mistake Scott forgot to mention. Be sure to close all your ports before heading out

Thunderbird is a little wet when the wind is blowing 20.
When it built to 30-40 on the bow during the ride home we got absolutely soaked to the skin. Now I know why some guys carry snorkeling gear on their boats. I could barely see with all the salt water in my face.

Once back in the slip it took two bourbons to get the salt out of my mouth but the race was worth it.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Some random thoughts.

On the slammer steer and trim slight wider to give you a bit more power and a nicer angle. Bashing your head into every wave will for sure be slow. One thing for sure; unless there is a big long windshift, you will spend half the time on each side!

On a triangle course (in particular non-spin) the two downwind legs are a drag race with almost zero tactics. Get the boat into top speed, ASAP, and hold it there. dial back on any softness you put on just before the leeward mark. Only gamesmanship, if you manage to be in front of a longer boat at the windward mark, DO NOT let them drive over you on a reach. They will waterline you and want to pass. If you see them edging up, go up too. Look back at him and shake your head. ;^) You might have to mess up your time in one race, but you'll quickly develop a reputation as a driver that can't be driven over, and they'll stop trying. They can pass you to leeward, but that will be slower for them and good for you.

Thanks for those observations! I definitely found out towards the end that driving just a little lower improved the boat speed and improved our position. Interestingly, Ward took that photo during the first reach after we rounded the windward mark the first time. They weren't gaining any ground. I was thinking that if they were, that I would head up so they couldn't pass. When we rounded the turning mark and were reaching on port side, they switched to the inside of the course to be on windward side again. I was inching to windward to make sure they didn't get by us, but we still were able to make a rhumb line to the leeward mark. We held that distance between us for more than 2 miles from the windward mark to the leeward mark. They closed on us and passed only after we rounded the leeward mark on the 1st lap.

@Ward H nice photos! They will want those for facebook page, I think. I think I should have a larger diameter wheel for racing! We could have slacked off the backstay adjustment, too! You can see in the upwind photo that the vang is completely slacked. I left it off purposely in the wind because I figured that we needed twist to spill wind in the gusts when we eased the main sheet. We were overpowered most of the time upwind.

 

[Davidasailor26]

You can see in the upwind photo that the vang is completely slacked. I left it off purposely in the wind because I figured that we needed twist to spill wind in the gusts when we eased the main sheet. We were overpowered most of the time upwind.

That probably doesn’t make much difference. Upwind the mainsheet pulls the boom down to a large extent. Unless you had the traveler way up high and the sheet eased the vang probably wouldn’t be able to move the sail anyway.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

That probably doesn’t make much difference. Upwind the mainsheet pulls the boom down to a large extent. Unless you had the traveler way up high and the sheet eased the vang probably wouldn’t be able to move the sail anyway.

My traveler lines are low and have a bad angle for sheeting. Ward is suggesting that I install wedges to improve the sheeting angle, and I think that is worth a try.

As a consequence of the bad sheeting angle, though, we typically set the traveler position for each tack and play the mainsheet during gusts for angle of attack. On Saturday, we were overpowered even with a reef, so I tend to set the traveler very high so that the sail is twisted off at the top with the boom pulled to the center. I left the vang off because I'd just as soon let twist increase when playing the main sheet in gusts. If the wind was moderate, I would snug up the vang so that twist would be limited when playing the main sheet. I question if this is logical thinking and action or not. It seems to work, but this is the first time for us using these techniques while measuring our performance against others on the race course!

It is funny now that I am far more sensitive at the helm to the mainsail position. As soon as I feel pressure at the helm during a gust, I want the mainsheet eased so that I can steer the course and it is frustrating when it isn't eased fast enough! During a casual sail, I never felt any such frustration when the mainsheet was fixed!

 

[Stu Jackson]

set the traveler position for each tack and play the mainsheet during gusts for angle of attack.

Except that's not what the mainsheet does. The traveler adjusts the angle of attack, NOT the mainsheet.

I don't know if you know this yet, Scott, but being a long term denizen of this forum, Don Guillette's Sail Trim Guide is priceless.

He also has a great section on racing.

His material is THE best I've ever read.

If you want to support sbo and Don, I suggest you invest in his book.

 

[jssailem]

Scott do you have an adjustable Vang? You might find that a tool to use in order to release pressure in lieu of the Mainsheet.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Except that's not what the mainsheet does. The traveler adjusts the angle of attack, NOT the mainsheet.

I don't know if you know this yet, Scott, but being a long term denizen of this forum, Don Guillette's Sail Trim Guide is priceless.

Well @Stu Jackson , of course I've purchased Don's book and charts and read them as well! If you had read his material, you would know that Don says that the mainsheet is a multi-functional control. The mainsheet affects AOA, twist and draft position according to Don's writings. We all know that the traveler adjusts AOA. In fact, if I only wanted to drop the AOA and control twist, then I do have the option to use the traveler. My other option is to snug the vang and ease the mainsheet. That's called vang sheeting and I'm sure you've heard that term before. In fact, that is my option of choice when the wind is moderate and we're not over-powered in the gusts.

In this circumstance, we wanted faster relief from pressure in the gusts by easing the mainsheet with vang off. That way, the AOA is eased AND twist simultaneously eases pressure … more effectively than dropping the traveler. At least that's my understanding.

In any case, I'm attempting to follow the mantra in puffs and gusts, when the apparent wind moves aft ... ease, steer, trim.

@jssailem , well of course we have an adjustable vang. In fact, I just installed a new one the night before our race. We have 6:1 purchase with a double ended line to a pair of cam cleats, one each for port and starboard! I'd agree with you that we could release pressure if we were vang sheeting. In this instance, we were not. Also, I'd guess that it would be more effective when the traveler is dropped and the mainsheet is out for a reach. In this case, I'm more concerned about the gusts when close-hauled. Releasing the vang wouldn't have any effect as long as the mainsheet is sheeted in and controlling twist.

@Ward H , we could have paid more attention to the vang when we were reaching, I think.

 

[jssailem]

Sounds like your onto all of the controls. Your sailing record will only improve as the two of you compete.
In my dinghy sailing we had a mainsheet and a downhaul. In gusty conditions I sailed with the mainsheet in my hand all of the time and only occasionally adjusted the downhaul. With all of the sail controls you have you can adjust more elements and have much finer control of your sail trim. For speed in gusty conditions I would see if I could maintain my speed by first vang, then traveler then mainsheet. Ideally having a 3rd member on your crew dedicated to the mainsheet might make the control management smoother. Maybe not as much fun... battling up wind against a determined competitor is constant adjustment/analysis/adjustment action. Taking advantage of every puff - lift.

I am excited to hear more of your adventures.

 

[Jackdaw]

Random thoughts #2:

Learning 'racing' often looks and seems like the peeling of an onion. There are layers and layers to it, and you can't see the upcoming ones until you get the current one off. Right now you guys are taking off the skin! But thats awesome, everyone starts there. Having a solid sailing background for sure helps. But in a year or two you'll look back at this thread and say WOW!

Boats really sail in three modes; under-powered, powered-up, and over-powered. For most boats, powered-up is somewhere around 8-14 knots. Above that you are over-powered. Speed will take care of itself if you are sailing well; the job is to deal with the excess pressure. This keeps the boat flat, and minimizes side slipping. Hugely important for shoal boats. In that breeze and at that heel angle you were probably slipping 10+ degrees. 4 would be typical in power-up mode.

Do what feels and works best to keep the boat flat(ter) with the chosen sail-set. AOA with traveler, twist with main, AOA with vangsheet, combinations, feather, etc. Take with a grain of salt any advice from people that have not been on your boat. Often what is best is what works best on your boat. Its as much about the hardware as it is about chosen technique.

Over time (onion layers again) you will re-work the controls on your boat to maximise speed potential. A control has to A) exist B) be handy C) be easy to use under load to be a functional race control. As an example, on BlueJ EVERY (and I mean every) of the 30+ controls has been redone from factory, mostly to make the jobs easier and faster. Many controls are now double-ended for access on either side. Most have 2 or 4 x the original purchase. Many moved so crew can access them in their 'office'.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I appreciate the comments! I completely agree about the need to make the controls easy to use. The traveler is one of the more vexing problems. I think Ward's suggestion may help, at least to release and set the traveler more easily. The position of the track in the cockpit and the orientation of the lines make it difficult for crew to operate in the cockpit, and impossible from outside the cockpit. Oddly enough, the lines are most easily managed from behind the helm.

What I should do, if I want to spend the money, is put a pair of self-tailing winches up forward on the cockpit coamings for crew to trim the head sail with.

This Saturday may be a "powered-up" day. The forecast is for northwest wind, 13 knots, low humidity, sunshine, low heat! Perfect sleeping weather on the boat as well!

 

[Ward H]

I think @Scott T-Bird is used to sailing his boat as I do, mostly from behind the helm. As such our boats are not set up for optimal trimming by crew but knowing Scott, he will work to improve this.
Scott, A set of ST winches where crew can reach them would be a huge improvement so you can concentrate on the helm instead of working both while tacking. They could probably be placed so you can also use them from behind the helm. Pretty sure I have the angle risers for the cam cleats on my boat. We might be able to install them Friday evening.

I also appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Really looking forward to Saturday and putting some of these new ideas to use.