260620 PEYC Isis

Creation: 260620 0706 Last Modified: 260620 0706

Crew

Position	Person
Helm	Lynn Ellwood
Main
Middle 1	Steve Ellwood
Middle 2	Andrew Morgan
Mast
Bow	Daina Morgan

Course

About 7nm

• Start
• #1 PEYC to Stbd
• MoA to Stbd
• QP6 to Stbd
• #3 PEYC to Port
• QP6 to Port
• Finish (Start Line)

Weather

Forecast 0800

• 10 knots gusting to 20 280/270/290

Actual - pretty accurate

• Moving between SWS and WSW
• Base ~13 knots
• Gusts to ~22 knots

Race Result

Race Review

The fleet, as you see in the results was tiny. The Ranger and Lorelei where spinnaker, and Lickety was white sail. Andrew and Daina are talented sailors. They have vast experience in Sharks, and they are both highly sought after race officers. They know their stuff. The Olson was a handful for the four us in the breeze with serious gusts and the spinnaker. We had up too much sail. We rigged with the idea of the #1 being the right sail to start and it sort of was, we were at the top of the sail with 4 people on the rail at the start. Steve drove. We had a good start near the boat. We trapped Lickety to leeward so they couldn’t tack. We were higher and just a little faster. We took them out to the layline and tacked on them as they tacked. The first beat was short, maybe 1/2nm. Then disaster. I was surprised they were staying so high at the #1 PEYC mark. I rounded to PORT - WRONG! - It was to be a stbd rounding. So within the circle I gybed around after rounding and rounded to stbd but that allowed Lickety to catch us. Sad, dumb. We got the spinnaker up and we quickly caught and passed them on our way to MoA. But in typical Picton Bay fashion (when will I ever learn) the gusts started coming in. The shifts drove us well low of MoA just to carry the chute. Of course it did. We broached calmly and with no drama, several times. Lickety just ground us down with their 25’ whisker pole, drinking tea and watching movies. They got closer and closer. Well before MoA we were significantly low and had to drop the spinnaker and go with the #1 to get up to the mark. We stayed in front, barely. With our 108 rating and Lickety’s 134 NFS rating, we have to give them 134-108=26 seconds a mile approximately. The Mysteries of PHRF. So we needed to be 1 full minute head by this time - we weren’t. We tried the chute again between MoA and QP6. That was a disaster. We couldn’t carry it high enough to fetch QP6, and it was honking. We took it down, #1 up and got the QP6 again just ahead of Lickety. The #1 was way too much sail for conditions (wind and crew weight). We fought to #3 PEYC mark. Back to QP6, again spinnaker and we pulled away again, a little less broachy but not easy. QP6 rounding and again with the #1 we were off to the finish. Lickety headed west after we went south. That was the answer. We were unable to stretch out on the south side. We finished 2 minutes ahead of them - but on corrected, they finished 2 minutes ahead of us.

Lessons

With only four people, even knowledgeable, talented people, running the spinnaker on the Olson in 13-22 knots of breeze is ALOT, especially with the shifty conditions in the bay. The lesson might be that one should not enter a weekend regatta in Flying Sail class - stay with NFS and stay sane. Lesson learned, again.

We worked the main traveller hard and constantly. I ran the traveller myself, tiller in one hand and traveller in the other. That worked well

We are indifferent to broaches now. I call out that I’m losing it and we are going to broach, we do, we recover quickly, and we sail on. La dee dah… Andrew notices twice that I was able to prevent the broach by giving the tiller several sharp jabs to force the bow down. Laser-like.

Change the damn headsail ;-) Yes the downwind legs were hairy. Yes the sail change would have been slow and precarious. But we should have done it. The #1 was the right sail less than 30% of the time (in the lulls). 260620 PEYC Kracken is going to be writtens shortly. Today, Sunday, is the 15nm 260621 PEYC Mowat.