Day 2 of the long weekend and after what seemed like an eternity in the boat park, the whole fleet settled on No2 rigs, except for the visiting Americans, who rigged at another club. I wondder what they were thinking when they joined the fleet on the water to see everybody with their No2 rigs up. Ouch!
We lined up for the start and felt happy with our approach. The gun went, we had clear air and a lane. Sweet! And then we heard 2 more guns and it was a general recall. Ouch!
Lining up for the second start didn't go as well. 3rd row of the grid is never a good place and this start proved to be no exception. So, after a short time of eating dirt and having a very animated Beasho trying to get us to tack into the boat to windward, we finally see a hole and tack for clear air. Beasho tacked Club Marine at the same time and as we go to clear a starboard tacker, he reaches down, clying for water and then hardens up over us at speed. More dirt and an inability to tack. Ouch!
For the second race in succession, there were individual recalls and Team Ullman were the culprits, with The Rag, Akso and Smeg turning back. About a third of the way up the beat, these 3 boats had caught us and I was depressed! How had it happened? Were we really that slow? It seems that they had come up on a big shift which got them back in contention but at the time, I had no idea. I expected to be left for dead by Team Ullman and it was with heavy heart we left Shark Island behind and headed towards the mark. But then it became clear; they weren't pulling away. In fact, we were more than holding our own. Places swapped back and forth and we were seriously getting into the race. We knew we were fast downhill so were really looking forward to the next leg.
A good hoist and we were launched. Smeg, imediately behind, attempted to climb over us but we simply held our course and sailed away a bit. As the majority of the fleet headed right, a few gybed off left and we realised that if we wanted a clear lane, we should do the same. A gybe was called, we bore away and it all went pear shaped. There couldn't have been a worse place to swim and it wasn't the quickest one we have experienced.
Up and running again, with the kite hoisted, and we were gybing like pros! WTF! It is so frustrating to be able to get it right when it no longer really mattered. So we set about the task of seeing how much we could catch up and in about 18 knots, it was very pleasant sailing. All was going well until about 200 metres from the top when our day went from bad to worse. We hadn't noticed anything, either during the race or in pre-race inspections but it made no difference. The mainsheet had shredded, the outer sheath splitting. As the sheath bunched, playing the main became impossible and we had no option but to turm for home.
We could see no point in simply nannying it home so we hoisted and went for a ride. And with 20 knots and wind over tide, what a ride it was. A nice gybe set us on course for the club until we realsied we were lining up straight at the 2 leaders. While there was no issues about keeping out of their way, the issue was doing it without taking their wind. We ran very low and that made things a bit difficult. Down wind, down speed and down the mine are not a great combination and we pitchpoled the boat hard. And they say that no good deed goes unrewarded! If only we had sailed high and hard, but that would have messed up the racing.
Things were a bit messy and we didn't have a sense of urgency. To make matters worse, when we were up and sorted, we had to bare away with limited ability to ease the main. Nice!! It only took 2 attempts and we managed to get downwind with the main eased, only to need to change tack to get home! Did we really want to gybe with the boom full out, side to side? We managed to tack round without pulling in the boom and bore away again, this time on course for the club.
So, another bad day had come to an end. I was pretty devastated. I work so hard to check the boat every week that gear failure equals personal failure! And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced the swim was my fault. 1 in 10 windy gybes ends in a swim and considering how good the other gybes are, it is so frustrating! So, time for some serious sole searching.
After chatting with some of the fleet's top sailors, it becomes clear as to where our problem could be. Almost all our boat handling has come about by learning "The Rag" way, be it watching videos or having Craig (ex Rag) coaching us. However, it seems that when it comes to gybing, Rag do things one way and the whole of the rest of the fleet do it another! And the more I think about it, the more obvious it is! The problem we have now is what to do. It is deep into the season, the JJ is just around the corner and we have to consider starting from scratch with our gybes.
So, on Sunday, we will hit the water a little early to see how hard the new method actually is. The concern is that we might not have enough high wind days to have grooved our gybes before the JJ. Only time will tell how this will end, but there is still a lot of work to do.
We lined up for the start and felt happy with our approach. The gun went, we had clear air and a lane. Sweet! And then we heard 2 more guns and it was a general recall. Ouch!
Lining up for the second start didn't go as well. 3rd row of the grid is never a good place and this start proved to be no exception. So, after a short time of eating dirt and having a very animated Beasho trying to get us to tack into the boat to windward, we finally see a hole and tack for clear air. Beasho tacked Club Marine at the same time and as we go to clear a starboard tacker, he reaches down, clying for water and then hardens up over us at speed. More dirt and an inability to tack. Ouch!
For the second race in succession, there were individual recalls and Team Ullman were the culprits, with The Rag, Akso and Smeg turning back. About a third of the way up the beat, these 3 boats had caught us and I was depressed! How had it happened? Were we really that slow? It seems that they had come up on a big shift which got them back in contention but at the time, I had no idea. I expected to be left for dead by Team Ullman and it was with heavy heart we left Shark Island behind and headed towards the mark. But then it became clear; they weren't pulling away. In fact, we were more than holding our own. Places swapped back and forth and we were seriously getting into the race. We knew we were fast downhill so were really looking forward to the next leg.
A good hoist and we were launched. Smeg, imediately behind, attempted to climb over us but we simply held our course and sailed away a bit. As the majority of the fleet headed right, a few gybed off left and we realised that if we wanted a clear lane, we should do the same. A gybe was called, we bore away and it all went pear shaped. There couldn't have been a worse place to swim and it wasn't the quickest one we have experienced.
Up and running again, with the kite hoisted, and we were gybing like pros! WTF! It is so frustrating to be able to get it right when it no longer really mattered. So we set about the task of seeing how much we could catch up and in about 18 knots, it was very pleasant sailing. All was going well until about 200 metres from the top when our day went from bad to worse. We hadn't noticed anything, either during the race or in pre-race inspections but it made no difference. The mainsheet had shredded, the outer sheath splitting. As the sheath bunched, playing the main became impossible and we had no option but to turm for home.
We could see no point in simply nannying it home so we hoisted and went for a ride. And with 20 knots and wind over tide, what a ride it was. A nice gybe set us on course for the club until we realsied we were lining up straight at the 2 leaders. While there was no issues about keeping out of their way, the issue was doing it without taking their wind. We ran very low and that made things a bit difficult. Down wind, down speed and down the mine are not a great combination and we pitchpoled the boat hard. And they say that no good deed goes unrewarded! If only we had sailed high and hard, but that would have messed up the racing.
Things were a bit messy and we didn't have a sense of urgency. To make matters worse, when we were up and sorted, we had to bare away with limited ability to ease the main. Nice!! It only took 2 attempts and we managed to get downwind with the main eased, only to need to change tack to get home! Did we really want to gybe with the boom full out, side to side? We managed to tack round without pulling in the boom and bore away again, this time on course for the club.
So, another bad day had come to an end. I was pretty devastated. I work so hard to check the boat every week that gear failure equals personal failure! And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced the swim was my fault. 1 in 10 windy gybes ends in a swim and considering how good the other gybes are, it is so frustrating! So, time for some serious sole searching.
After chatting with some of the fleet's top sailors, it becomes clear as to where our problem could be. Almost all our boat handling has come about by learning "The Rag" way, be it watching videos or having Craig (ex Rag) coaching us. However, it seems that when it comes to gybing, Rag do things one way and the whole of the rest of the fleet do it another! And the more I think about it, the more obvious it is! The problem we have now is what to do. It is deep into the season, the JJ is just around the corner and we have to consider starting from scratch with our gybes.
So, on Sunday, we will hit the water a little early to see how hard the new method actually is. The concern is that we might not have enough high wind days to have grooved our gybes before the JJ. Only time will tell how this will end, but there is still a lot of work to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment