Racing Maine Style..

[Maine Sail]

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this very short video. There was soooo little wind that the race was actually called on time because no one in the class finished by 8:30... I think, at one point, we were actually going backwards due to current...

Maine Racing (Video)

 

[Tim R.]

MS, your video is listed as private.

I saw you called today. We had an awesome sail back from Snow I. I set the sails on stbd tack right at Snow I at 10am and didn't need to tack all the way to Hussey sound(arrived at 1pm). We sailed down from Falmouth but did not see you out. What a day. 7.4 was our high.

 

[Maine Sail]

MS, your video is listed as private.

I saw you called today. We had an awesome sail back from Snow I. I set the sails on stbd tack right at Snow I at 10am and didn't need to tack all the way to Hussey sound(arrived at 1pm). We sailed down from Falmouth but did not see you out. What a day. 7.4 was our high.

Fixed the video..

I was out today but did not get to the boat until about 11:00. Sailed up to Birch Island then tacked and sailed out to Halfway Rock then back by Portland Head light and back to Falmouth.. It was a great solo sail.

P.S. You could tell it was 4th of July channel 16 was crazy today. I counted three boats aground, one with a fouled prop and a fair number dead in the water... Sea Tow was very, very busy..

 

[Alan]

Maine, it didn't look like you had any heel on the boat at all. I would have had all the crew sitting on the leeward rail as well as myself. Inducing a little sail shape is just what is needed in ultra lite conditions.

 

[Tim R.]

Maine, it didn't look like you had any heel on the boat at all. I would have had all the crew sitting on the leeward rail as well as myself. Inducing a little sail shape is just what is needed in ultra lite conditions.

Alan, at that point there was no way we were going to make the finish line so we had pretty much given up on racing. We usually do have some heel from crew weight on the rail and as you can see the head sail was literally hanging from lack of wind. What little wind we did have at that point was behind us along with the current which effectively gave zero apparent wind.

 

[Alan]

Of course, not being there is hard to try "see" the entire circumstance but I would look for all possible chances to make way. Heading up, even sailing at a beam reach to gain speed and start to move the apparent wind forward would be my first choice. This is also a time where that ultra light reaching genoa comes in very handy.
I've been in more than a few races where we've managed to 'ghost' past other boats who are standing still. They look at us like we have our engine running.

 

[Tim R.]

Agreed Alan. We actually had a horrible start. The wind died(where we were) and were a minute late. We are the scratch boat and all of our competition was sailing away from us in a seperate puff. We finally managed to get her moving and ghosted past every single boat and rounded the first mark while everyone else was dead in the water. And believe me we were all looking for ways to make her go shortly before that video was shot. We also had 2 boats collide that were at the mercy of momentum and current and had no steerage. If the race had finished we would have placed 2nd which I think is pretty good for crossing the start line a minute late.

 

[BobM]

You should have launched the boats and taken her under tow ;-)

 

[Nereussailor]

Hey Main Sail,
I've raced in those same conditions before, and it's frustrating. We were within 50 yards of the finish line for more than 30 minutes and couldn't even get enough wind to lift the sails. We ended up having an extra beer leg in that race.

Dave