2014 City Island Yacht Club Annual Day Race
|
Yacht Name |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
| 1. |
Thin Man |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
1.0 |
| 2. |
Red Pepper |
2 |
|
|
|
|
|
2.0 |
| 3. |
Courageous |
3 |
|
|
|
|
|
3.0 |
| 4. |
Chaika |
4 |
|
|
|
|
|
4.0 |
| 5. |
Upsetter |
5 |
|
|
|
|
|
5.0 |
| 6. |
Eagle |
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
6.0 |
Thanks for asking, Mike. The wind was really tricky and we did ok in it but not good enough to do well in the race. The other J80 was much faster than us. They had one less person on board and a lighter motor which was stored down below so they had that weight advantage over us. The upwind leg they were going much faster. We caught up with them by the first mark and had passed them by a lot only because we found more wind which we did pretty smartly I think. This was the thing that separated the boats more than anything I’m sure. The wind came down in really strange pockets and it either helped you out a lot if you found it or left you wanting another beer if you missed it. But overall there were lessons that were learned:
– This was a distance race that needed better navigation to really hit the laylines and have the right sails up. We suffered for this I’m afraid. My little nav program on my phone is not properly calibrated with the instruments on the boat and so we were headed using a “magnetic” bearing on the mast while the phone was giving us a “true” bearing to the waypoint. This was a crucial error as we searched out the first mark (which we overstood by a bit) and even more harmful when heading across the sound to Scotch Caps, as we thought we couldn’t carry the spinnaker for I thought our heading was much higher and closer to the wind as the true bearing on my phone was asking us to go 15 degrees higher than necessary. We could have corrected for this much earlier and at least covered one of the boats we wanted to beat – the other J80. When we beat them to the first mark, we should have stayed in between them and the finish. And once they started scooting away with their spinnaker up, we should have confirmed our course by getting our heads out of the boat and then done our best to cover them. The thought though was that they were heading way too low to make the mark at Scotch Caps and I was very wrong about that. Both because the current was sweeping us all towards Boston allowing us to have sailed lower with more sail up and still make the mark and because the mark we were heading to was much lower than we had thought. So, some time calibrating our instruments are in order.
– We also have got to get weight off the boat. Now that all are more comfortable with maneuvering under sail, we should get rid of the heavy propane thing. I’ll stop by Mike’s on Friday to collect the Johnson 2 stroke and bring it in to get it fixed at John’s Marina. Once it is fixed, we’ll set it up to store down below once we are out to the race course. A bit of a pain in the ass and I’m not at all looking forward to the smell of gasoline below so any other suggestions will be well met. My feeling is the Lehr is too heavy and the connections too finicky to try to lift off and bring below and back up again every time we go out. The j80 class has a motor size and weight minimum which we don’t really have to worry about so maybe an electric thing can work, I don’t know.
Thanks again for all who came out (Mike though you were missed).
Let me know about Saturday as soon as you all can and thanks for reading my little report here.
Cheers,
Jason