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Faithful Crew and friends of Strategery,

The third Tuesday night race has come and gone. Due to a delay in her parents arrival, Kim had to sit this race out, but we were pleased to have Mr. Scott Moffat back aboard as spinnaker trimmer. It was Scott's first time on Strategery and he came through like a champ.

The forecast was exceedingly bizarre this week. NOAA even went so far as to mention hail (see below):

Well, I'm pleased to report no hail was seen by the dauntless crew. However, the breeze did die down significantly over the course of the night.

For those of you not familiar with the area we race, the breeze is typically from the Southwest, as was forecast. As we rode out to the course, we found that the wind had done a significant shift (change in direction), which was the first sign that our forecast was going to be off. (A quick note on wind direction. Unlike the heading of a boat, which would show which direction you are headed , wind direction refers to where the wind is coming from...hence a SW wind comes from SW.)

The committee boat set the line between 2KR and an upwind mark (see the diagram above). Sailing course prior to the start, we determined (as did everyone else on the water) that a port tack start would put us directly on the layline (direct - ergo shortest - course to a mark given current wind conditions) for the upwind mark. The goal is to be in clear air on the favored tack, so I lobbied our resident tactician, Mr. Z heavily to do a Port start. His concern was that due to the Port/Starboard rule (see his rule write-up) any boat on Port tack would be in a significant amount of trouble as the fleet came down on starboard.

I was able to convince Mr. Zibailo that Port tack was the best course of action for us, since we were more maneuverable and could weave/duck as needed. So we planned on a port start at the pin end. To disguise our intent (so as to sneak across), we set up as if we were going to have a starboard start planning to ease our way down to the pin end with a minute to spare and prep for port tack start.

Of course they say the best laid plans...

As the race was ready to start, it became clear that ALL the boats were going to start on port tack at the pin end. This represented a huge problem for us. As reported in our prior write-ups, we suffer greatly from the windshadows of our much larger competitors, so it was highly unlikely that we would have room and clear air at the port end of the line. Fallback to plan B.

Plan B was to come down the line on starboard, with rights on all the other boats and force them to duck us at the pin, and then tack over with clear air and a straight shot to the mark ( SEE POINT 1 on DRAWING). Theoretically, this would be a great move if we got to the pin right at the gun and could either tack over or keep on sailing to guarantee clean air. Of course, execution against theory is the real battle, and between changing strategy on the fly and the wind/line relationship we did not beat the boats to the mark, and we were below the line unable to cross the start on starboard tack (POINT 2).

So, this is a pretty tricky spot to be in. We were up against a fleet of boats trucking along at hull speed, while we had to tack over and accelerate without any rights once we were on port with the other boats. We did beat about half the fleet before we were forced to tack to make the starting line. I am sorry to report that the boat that bore the brunt of our poorly executed brilliant strategy was Marlen. Ducking us while we tacked over, they pinched us up to a stall then fell down to accelerate through us. This was a well executed move, and it was sailing like that which got them a first in the J105 fleet that evening..

Unfortunately, we were then in the wind shadow of the fleet, getting passed by all until only Blue Wing was near us (SEE POINT 3).

We rounded the mark and set about making up ground (POINT 4).

At this point, the breeze was under 10 knots, which was good for us but bad for our competition. We sailed a bit high, but with great boat speed to pass Blue Wing, Indigo, and Fianna (who decided to fly a chute this year, hence the change in their rating from cruising to racing). We rounded just behind Breakaway, and went into an upwind run with them...sailing lower and a bit slower in their wind shadow.

By this point, the wind had let up significantly...far beyond the levels that were forecast, and the name of the game was momentum - keeping the boat moving from puff to puff.

As we approached the upwind mark rounding, Shawn was the first to notice that Breakaway had not set her spinnaker for the downwind leg. We couldn't figure it out and took it to mean that they were having trouble aboard. As we rounded and set the chute in the light and failing breeze, we noticed that other boats were dousing their chutes. Recognizing this meant a huge wind shift was coming towards us, we made ready to douse the chute. We were just trailing Indigo after having them pass us on the upwind leg. Still behind were Blue Wing and Fianna.

We called the douse perfectly, (SEE POINT 10) and we dumped the chute and set the jib in record time through some great communication and teamwork between Chris, Scott and Shawn. At this point, I began to steer the boat strictly by the lower tell-tales. Tell-tales are what the crew uses to determine wind flow over the sails - they "tell the tale" of the wind in relation to the sail and the boat. We have other tools aboard that let us keep an eye on the breeze, most notably the masthead wind indicator (sort of a weathervane atop the mast), and the Tactic, a computer that indicates windshadows over time.

The phenomenon we experienced has only happened to me a few other times. That is the breeze at the top of the sail was 60 degrees off from the wind at the bottom of the boat. Since the meat of the sails are at the bottom it makes sense to drive the boat based on the lower tell-tales for more power in light or fluky breeze.

While we were prepared for the shift, Indigo, Fianna and Blue Wing were not. By tacking over we were able to sail into the shift and the more consistent breeze. It got more bizarre as upwind and downwind boats, separated by no more than 30-50 feet were passing each other close hauled, both with a fundamentally different wind they were sailing in.

Rounding the final mark, we did not set our chute (as we probably should have), but sailed a close reach to the finish line.

We finished the race 3rd on uncorrected time and 2nd when the handicaps were factored. in.

So we now stand at DNC, 4, 5, 2

Till next week.

Cliff.