My First Match Race

I took part in my first match race yesterday and had a great time.  It is so completely different from fleet racing.

We raced in Beneteau First 7.5s with symmetrical spinnakers.  And we had 3 ISAF Umpires - the 4th one scheduled to come was unable to come because apparently he gave priority over us to some commitment he had with some other match race on San Francisco Bay which lasted longer than anticipated.

My main take away from the weekend was how concentrated everything is in match racing. The races were short and every second was filled with concentration. It was like a fleet race that had only a pre start and crowded mark roundings. You concentrate on boat speed of course but strategy/tactics are constantly taking up much of the bandwidth of the skipper and crew.

We were fortunate to have a skipper and main trimmer who were both experienced match racers and we learned a lot from them.  We ended up in 2d place after losing the final that was a real boxing match.  We were Yellow and got off to a good start with a penalty on Blue near the start line. We were virtually even to the top mark where got into a real tussle as the downwind started.  We drew a penalty (I think it was because we were leeward right of way and apparently changed course a bit too quickly) which cancelled Blue's penalty. The Blue skipper then wisely sailed away from us to make it harder for us to draw another penalty and we went after him, focussing on drawing a penalty.  We drew together and were inches ahead of Blue and we were working to keep him from establishing a leeward overlap.  In the twisting and turning we saw the Yellow flag go up and our frustrated skipper was yelling at the umpire - "no overlap, there was no overlap" but in the excitement we had not realised that Blue had gybed quickly onto starboard just before the incident and we were still on port.  So, we now had a penalty and our only chance was to lengthen the race and hope for a cancelling penalty on Blue. We got below him and luffed him upwind away from the leeward mark. We kept going for quite a ways upwind but finally could not get close enough to draw blood and he was able to head back downwind and beat us.

Great fun and some good adrenalin rushes. I am ready to do it again.

Current Trumps

I have written several times about how tide trumps most else in a race and I was reminded of this once again last weekend.

I had a great start and was feeling pretty good - almost keeping up with our Kiwi sailor to the first mark, until he eventually turned on his Laser engine or something and became a distant speck on the horizon as he usually does.

And I was also feeling a bit smug because I was staying ahead of a rival (admittedly he had not been sailing for several weeks - but I wasn't about to let such a detail interfere with my smugness).  Then, he passed me when I did a sloppy upwind mark rounding and it was basically downhill from there.  I did everything I could think of to catch up and did so at one point, crossing just in front on a beat.  But the tide was running with the wind and that proved to be my undoing.

The windward mark was a channel marker which meant that to round it we had to sail quite high and point over to it, while being swept down by the tide.  My friend sailed about 50 meters higher on starboard before tacking to head to the mark and that made a huge difference by keeping him in the shallower water longer.  I tacked sooner, thinking I had enough to compensate for the tide and, in one sense, I did since I fetched the mark (barely). But I was struggling and pinching some of the time, while my friend was chugging away.

Live and learn - or rather re-learn a lesson I thought I had already learned.

Dinghies vs Others

I have started crewing on a Farr 30 which is a great boat, but I come home sometimes reflecting on the experience.  Admittedly, part of my reflections are due to being a novice and trying to learn how to do bowman duties and feeling pretty clumsy about it all. But, even so, I often come back to the same basic question - are keelboats really sailboats?

Of course they are under any definition you care to come up with, but I can't avoid the feeling that dinghy sailing is so much more  - something.  There is a visceral difference between keelboats and dinghies.

In dinghies you are constantly up close and personal with sailing. You are closer to the water and wind and your body is an integral part of controlling the boat.  I would never say you are really in control all the time because that would really be tempting the wind gods who know better, but let's just say that your physical presence is so much more directly integrated into the process.

On a keelboat, you have plenty to learn and think about but there are long stretches where, after a particular maneuver you go sit on the weather rail and have a nice chat with another member of the crew.  When the skipper decides to bear away and pop the kite, there is a bit of concentrated fussing about and with any luck it goes up untwisted with the head and clews in the right places and opens up beautifully. Then all quiet for a while until a gybe comes to befuddle the new bowman.  I managed to  do one thanks to an experienced hand talking the me through every little step and we avoided catastrophe.

I enjoy sailing keelboats and appreciate the social/team aspect very much - and, of course, there is so much to learn about the boat and trim. But I just can't help feeling there is something more basic and authentic about dinghies.

VM Not so good?

I have gone practice sailing several times with a friend who has about the same level of Laser skills as me and we have good sessions - doing windward-leewards around buoys, some reaches out to the channel to be abused by the current and wind holes, etc.

But what I cannot understand is that most of the time during these practice sessions I sail better then him  - pointing higher,  better mark roundings, flatter boat, fewer capsizes, etc.  - but when it comes to race day he does better.  Last weekend, we had 4 short races and I beat him in the first race, the second race I was ahead but touched a mark and he passed me as I was taking my penalty, and then he beat me in the 3rd and 4th race even though I made no big mistakes.  And the prior weekend we split 2 races.

So, what gives? Is he relaxing during practice?  Am I choking in the races? Except for touching the mark last week, I had no dramatic mistakes.  Admittedly in one race I went more right and he went more left on a beat and crossed ahead of me, so I guess that could count as a mistake. But the first and second places in the race also went right, so it seems like boat handling/speed could have been my problem or maybe he caught a nice lift.

I have been concentrating on pointing better in races by anticipating the puffs and staying as close to the wind and flat as possible with hiking and small turns using body weight and small rudder movements where necessary. It has definitely helped and I can see that I am pointing as high as our top sailors, but I wonder if I am pinching a bit and letting overall VMG suffer.  My leeward telltales stream nicely but sometimes my windward ones flop around.

I found a good article on VMG and, even though it involves trigonometry, I will try to read and understand it.