It was another beautiful Sunday afternoon to be sailing yesterday. It was sunny and unseasonably warm, with a variety of wind conditions. We had another fabulous turnout- 39 boats. (only 36 of which were registered- remember EVERYONE MUST REGISTER- no excuses. You must be registered to be scored. If you do not register you will be asked to leave the course)
Thanks to John Quay, Jen Cook and J Bergquist for doing a great job on the committee and mark boat. Ted Morgan won the day. His report and full results below. Raffle prize (a harken tool bag donated by APS) went to Greg Leonard.
***Check out the cool photo website/blog set up by Tip Clifton. He is adding photos and videos every week.
http://web.mac.com/tip_clifton/iWeb/Site/Blog/Blog.html
*** note*** When looking at the results, there was a mishap with the scoring for the 3rd race. All the boats that were mistakenly not scored have been given redress. If you know where you finished please email Luke at luke@farrdesign.com
***also*** Please remember to abide by the Racing Rules of Sailing. If you foul someone- please do the right thing and exonerate yourself by doing a penalty turn (only a 360 degree turn is required for Frostbiting).
Thank you- see you next Sunday!
Dorian
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Let me start off by saying that it has been awesome watching this fleet grow over the past 15 years. Can you believe that there were 39 boats out there this weekend – wow. Past Commodore John Quay, Jen Cook, and J Bergquist did a really nice job running the races, thank you! They did a lot of little things behind the scenes (like shortening the finish line) that made for better racing.
There are three reasons why I have the honor of writing this week's report.
I successfully filled out my registration form. If you don't register you don't get scored. It's that simple.
I successfully completed all six races yesterday. When the breeze looked pretty weak after the 5th race a lot of folks bailed and went in. That took a few contenders out of the picture.
I successfully banged the right corner (looking downwind) on the leeward leg of the last two races. I will explain this pathetic tactic later.
Believe it or not, behind this simplistic explanation there was actually a little bit of thought put into the decisions I made on the race course yesterday. They certainly weren't always the right decisions but for once everything seemed to line up for me.
STARTING: I started at the pin every single race yesterday. This was a good thing in the first two races as I felt the pin was slightly favored. However, as the day progressed the committee boat was clearly the favored end (closest to the windward mark). So why did I continue to start at the pin? I wanted clear air and low stress so I got as far away from the pack as I could. With the I flag up an OCS was going to kill my score for the day. I'm not going to win many races starting at the wrong end of the line, but I had faith in my boat speed being pretty good. I wasn't looking to s core the bullet in every race, I just wanted to get consistent top 10 finishes. I also felt that there was better pressure on the left side of the course. Having said all this, my point is that my formula wasn't the best – there are a number of different ways to succeed
UPWIND: The courses were really short yesterday. The first race took just 9 minutes to complete so there was a premium on getting off the starting line with clear air and limiting your tacks. In almost every race I only tacked twice on the first leg.
DOWNWIND: With so many boats compressed on such a short course I felt that it was really important to get out on a corner downwind immediately after rounding the windward mark. In the first couple of races I tried the left corner (looking downwind) and watched the folks in the middle fade due to the blanket effect 39 boats has on the fleet, and then those on the right/Severn River side smoke past me. I figured there must be better pressure over there, so in races 5 and 6 I switched sides – a crucial decision. In both of those races the breeze had shut down inside the shoal pole, but hung on in the middle of the River. I think I passed 10 boats downwind in both of those races because I had slightly more pressure and I was getting pushed by the powerboat chop more than the others inside of me. In the really light stuff when your sailing with the boom out past 90 degrees, put a little more outhaul on then you might normally think is correct. You want the wind to flow across your sail … you don't want it to look like a spinnaker, so don't let it out an outrageous amount in the light stuff. Also, put a little vang on instead of letting if off completely. Depending on where your vang stop knot is located you may be letting it out entirely too far. Putting a little vang on will encoura ge your leach to snap every time you bounce on a wave, which is very fast. Again, this is only good in the light stuff. Generally you want vang off up but not past the point of being so squirrely that you capsize.
RIG SETUP: I'm going to guess it was blowing 5-10 knots yesterday with very slight chop. Keep in mind that I weigh 172 pounds when comparing rig settings. I had no vang on upwind yesterday. My cuningham was on upwind – just enough to get the worst wrinkles out of the sail – and completely off downwind. I can't accurately describe my outhaul setting. What I can tell you is that for 14 years I tried to guess where the outhaul should be by unscientifically placing my hand between the boom and the foot of the sail. Last year I finally snapped out of it and put measurement markings on my boom - a trick I picked up from Jason Currie . It's so simple to do and it eliminates the guesswork. Stop by and I'll show you what I've done. All you need to do is make sure your outhaul knots are tied in the same spot each time you go sailing.
CLOSING THOUGHTS: Hydrate. Even though it is cold you still need to drink plenty of fluid. Make a conscious decision to fill up the tank a few hours before you go sailing, and always bring a water bottle with you. As it gets colder over the next few weeks, make sure you get the water out of your mast step at the end of the day. If you've got question give me a shout at LaserFleet10@yahoo.com. I'd be happy to elaborate on any of this.
Ted
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SSA/Laser fleet 10
SSA Laser frostbiting
12/10/06
SERIES SUMMARY
Pl Sail # Skipper 1 2 4 5 6 3 Total
1 184550 Ted Morgan 3 4 7 2 2 9 27
2 NGO Gavin O'Hare 11 5 1 10 3 1 31
3 NAV Andrew Vann 6 7 4 4 4 10 35
4 179135 Alex Bertrand 1 6 3 1 37\DNC 4 52
5 170797 Morgan Wilson 5 1 13 18 9 8 54
6 188095 Dave Schoene 14 3 10 11 11 5 54
7 177155 Tip Clifton 13 9 24 9 8 6 69
8 170799 Greg Herbert 4 17 18 6 14 11.8\RDG 70.8
9 173711 Patrick Kana 10 2 17 37\OCS 5 17 88
10 170 Brendan McAndrews 37\DNC 37\DNC 9 3 1 2 89
11 155315 Matt Schoene 9 31 22 7 6 15\RDG 90
12 153006 Kim Couranz 19 22 20 8 15 7 91
13 179506 Brian Hetherington 2 14 12 14 37\DNC 20 99
14 173704 David Bonney 7 11 21 37\OCS 10 13 99
15 711 John Zseleczky 15 20 34 12 7 19 107
16 166892 Ben Fransen 25 16 8 20 18 21 108
17 66133 Bill Ballough 17 15 14 13 37\DNC 12 108
18 168474 Dorian Haldeman 16 13 29 17 19 22 116
19 182860 Luke Shingledecker 12 10 6 37\DNF 37\DNC 16 118
20 132996 Chris Ryan 18 19 27 23 16 24 127
21 179226 Andrew Eyring 22 26 16 5 37\DNC 21.2\RDG 127.2
22 173641 Leo Wilson 23 29 26 16 13 21.4\RDG 128.4
23 168440 Greg Leonard 21 30 15 25 17 25 133
24 168566 Quinn Tobin 24 21 35 19 12 22.2\RDG 133.2
25 175945 Cole Allsopp 37\DNC 12 5 37\DNC 37\DNC 14 142
26 35313 Mike Waters 8 18 11 37\DNF 37\DNC 37\DNF 148
27 182827 Brennen Drysdale 37\OCS 8 19 37\OCS 37\DNC 11 149
28 187787 Colin Robertson 37\DNC 37\DNC 2 37\DNC 37\DNC 3 153
29 169781 Russ Wesdyk 26 28 33 21 23 26.2\RDG 157.2
30 168418 Chip Swatta 37\DNC 23 23 22 37\DNC 18 160
31 180536 Steve Cofer 37\OCS 25 30 24 21 23 160
32 182801 RK Creighton 20 24 28 37\OCS 37\DNC 15 161
33 155272 Lauren Schoene 37\DNC 33 31 15 20 27.2\RDG 163.2
34 162156 Anne White 27 32 37\DNF 27 24 29.4\RDG 176.4
35 4720 Kristoffer Stevens 37\DNC 37\DNC 32 26 22 30.8\RDG 184.8
36 155281 Randy Bruns 37\DNC 27 25 37\DNC 37\DNC 37\OCS 200
10 Dec, '06, 18:20
St. Pete Scorer
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