Tuesday, January 29, 2008

and the Frostbiting resumes!

 
 
Hello Laser Sailors,
 
There was no Frostbiting on Jan. 20 due to low air temperature (20 degrees) and high winds (>25 kts).  Someone mentioned that when the wind speed exceeds the air temperature it is probably not a good idea to go sailing.... which I think is a good rule of thumb.
 
The IC's hosted their mid-winters on Jan. 27
 
So after two weeks of no sailing..... the Laser Frostbite series resumes this Sunday Feb. 3
 
Registration (for those not yet registered) 11:30 am
First Race at 1 pm
 
below is Bryan Fishback's winners report from Jan. 13
 
Hope to see you on Sunday!
 
-Dorian 
 
It started out with some big shifts and changes in velocity, but as the day wore on, it became all about geography. There were a lot of general recalls early when the shifts seemed to favor the boat end, but after that, it was more important to be positioned to go left.

The first race I started near the boat and did well, but the boats on the left always seemed to be gaining. After that, I started at the pin and played the left side of the coarse every race. There weren‚t many people down there because the line was mostly even, so it was easy to get a good start (at least not bad one) and as it turns out, there was usually a good lefty on the left corner. You had to go almost to the layline, but there was breeze dropping down off of the buildings at David Taylor. The further left you where, the better it was. If you tacked to port before you got to the breeze, then the boats who worked the breeze on the right, would get across first. As long as I got off of the line in a good position and could go left, then I rounded in the top three or four.

Downwind it was just the opposite. In general, the further left (looking downwind) of rhumb line I was, the better I did. Several times, I gave up the inside position for the mark thinking I was already well overstood, but the boats further left would have a little more velocity and a more headed breeze and they would carry it almost all the way to the mark. All I can think is that as the breeze came around Greenbury Point and turned into the river, that it was further accelerated and bent to the right as it hit Horn Point.

Looking at some photos that Brian Hetherington took, I think my outhaul was too eased and the boat was not flat enough, so it wasn‚t really about boat speed. I did use a wind indicator this weekend for the first time and that did seem to help. Downwind I tried to keep by boom near 90 degrees to the boat and the indicator perpendicular to my boom.


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