260603 KYC Tuesday

Creation: 260603 0606 Last Modified: 260603 0606

Crew

Position	Person
Helm	Steve Ellwood
Main	Anik Karimjee
Middle	Luke (normal crew with Brandon)
Bow	Howard Whittaker

Course

Y0Y0 - shortened to once around

Weather

Light. 10-15 degree shifts. Breeze out to the south, no breeze on the north side. The thermal was competing with the gradient.
PredictWind reported around 10-350 (gradient) but it wasn’t it. It was closer to 180 when there was 8-10 knots of pressure when we got out there. So the sea breeze won…until it lost. More later.

Race Result

2nd by a mile. (of 2)

Race Review

Howard, Anik and I arrived 1515 to prepare the boat. This worked pretty well but we ran out of time and didn’t get the boat launched before the 1600 group meeting. The group meeting was the three of us, John, Brandon, Glenn, Sam and Matt. We discussed KYC’s intentions for the program and their hope to grow the program, the involvement in sailing and membership in the club. We discussed process and procedures for launching, rigging and packing away the boats.
Still no ‘contract’ has been presented to explain our obligations in the program. So we continue to treat the boats as our own and we are to be careful. Fair enough - for now. The involvement side of the equation appears to be meeting challenges.

1. Adequate number of qualified skippers
2. Tues/Thurs competition in the form of other boats wanting to be on the race course - so Shark sailors don’t participate in the program they have their own boats.
3. Wed/Weekend events might be successful at attracting new participants if skippers are available The way I see it, we are very lucky to have access to this resource - and to have such a well provisioned program around them. The benefits are large on our side. But getting those benefits out to other people is a fairly narrow lane. The users need the right motivations/availability/knowledge. We enjoy it while we can. 1700 we are back to launching and rigging. Luke came with us as our fourth, Sue was trying to get to KYC from Smithfalls but sometimes you just can’t get there from here. PHRF1 combined start. Getting buried at the line was a big concern because conditions were light, flat water. Pin favoured, strong inclination to go east (left). We messed around with Brandon at the line a little but I was say three boat lengths from the line (middle upper ⅓) with 30 seconds to go and I just couldn’t get there in the confused air and wind blankets of the larger boats. Disaster. Brandon got a 5-6 boat lead at the start until he too got run over. We couldn’t take advantage of it because we were still crushed. Happily we are told that either from this Thursday or next Tuesday we will get our own start, last start behind Sharks, regardless of the number of boats we field. Hurray. The lead for Brandon became 10 boats and it stayed there.
   We go the boat moving pretty well, 4-4.5 knots heading toward the windward mark and we were slowly grinding him down, slowly - once we had clear air. We tacked well inside the layline to approach on port - rather than overstanding. The wind holes were significant. We could see that Brandon was slow slow at the layline. We still had pressure (some). On port we were being lifted - hurray! But not all the way to the mark, which was fine. That lift took Brandon above the layline and he was close reaching down.
   At this stage the thermal wind was starting to think about giving in to the gradient - looking back. Lift, return, lift return, lift, lift, partial return.. Brandon’s used the speed to further extend on us. We got round with a descent hoist and headed out on stbd. Brandon took the stronger breeze on the south side (course left) heading east. We did too. They went a long way, well past the layline (in my stupid mind - not a sym spinnaker Steve) carrying that pressure and they were mostly able to keep their chute full the whole way to the finish. We gybed earlier. If the wind was going to clock we could carry it down. There appeared, for one brief shining moment, pressure we could get to on the port gybe. But time was against us. Less and less pressure. Speed was sideways (the current). Brandon got across the line before the real nightmare of the clock in the wind. We were 15 boats from the line. Chute starts to fill, we start to move. Headed headed headed. Wind dies, jib up. The breeze comes in for the boats up te course, condensing us all into a pack at the finish line. Header header, then a change in direction - wham. North. Wham again East wind. Everyone sails past the pin to the east. Everyone tacks over to stbd - we are stuck with the stbd tackers between us the line. We flip to stbd and we are literally heading back to the windward mark - slowly - to avoid the fleet. It was awful. Well we were ahead of the Olson…

Lessons

We talked at the picnic table with Brandon and his crew.

Lesson 1 - TRIM ALL THE TIME.

He said that they were constantly adjusting the jib, 1 cm in and out, tack line up and down, He is working the middle of the jib - not the bottom tell-tale as we do. He was using #2 on the jib car. The main was trimmed by #3 crew continuously as well. Upper/2nd from top tell-tail breaking - not constantly flowing back 50% of the time it seemed. This trim, trim lesson I learned on the Shark and we observe effective on the Olson. Never set and forget. One crew person for the jib and one for the main should always be engaged with the helm person to talk trim. In out, change, adjust, better /worse, all the time. We can do that.

Lesson 2 - CREW WEIGH STEERS THE BOAT

When we were making gains on Brandon in clear air on the upwind leg

• Helm - Steve - was almost in front of the pedestal. Concentrate crew weight forward. The trailing edge of the hull was just at the waterline and the water was flowing off the transom smoothly.
• Main - Anik - was moving in and out to adjust the heel while Luke and Howard were on the low fwd side. Steering by heel. This was fast. And a gym work out for Anik.