Three sailors from our Gold/Silver team made the trek to Atlanta Yacht Club, sailing a practice on Friday afternoon, 5 races Saturday and 2 on Sunday at the Southeast Champs. The conditions were better than expected, with puffs to 12kts Saturday morning tapering to 5-8kts by the end of the day. The mean breeze direction stayed pretty consistent all day Saturday, oscillating back and forth in a predictable patten only ~10-15 degrees. The easterly breeze was coming from the longest part of the lake and the least mountainous windward shore, which explained the relative consistency (its always important to check out the features of the land to windward). The LYC sailors got better at sailing the shifts throughout the day Saturday - Garret had great speed throughout, and Eddy finally stopped tacking 50% more than he needed to and actually digging into the puffs, finishing the day with a 6th. Joey, with average speed and good strategy was placing well before two bad starts to end the day put him in 36th. Garret ended the day in 3rd overall.
Sunday brought fog and calm to the beautiful Georga lake in the morning, but after a postponement, a steady 10kts from the West. In the picture below you can see Joey and Eddy tuning up before the first race. The sails off Eddy's bow are the Green Fleet in a cove.
Expecting the normal oscillations we had seen through 30 minutes of warming up, Joey and Garret started Boat and tacked to stay in phase, as they were in a slight left shift. Alas, the wind continued to go left for the entire beat and never came returned, backing until it was straight out of the Green fleet cove! Both sailors spent their throwout on this race. Eddy, who was second start and got to observe this new trend had a great race (8th)! In the regattas final race, Joey, needing a top 5, went for a high risk start at the favored pin and didn't get off cleanly. While he did a good job playing the puffs on the left, not being able to make the initial cross on the fleet kept him out of the top 15. Garret sailed his best race of the regatta, staying in phase throughout the beat and pulling away on the run to a 10 boat-length lead! Hitting a lull and missing the last 2 shifts dropped him to 3rd right before the finish, but he had an outstanding event, placing 6th overall.
Tuning/Speed
Enough with the narratives, lets talk about speed! Garret and Joey were raked at 282cm, while Eddy (heavier) was at 284. You want to rake back a little more in flat water than in chop. We spent a lot of time adjusting luff ties to get the sails looking really good. All three boats had different makes of sails, so ill keep this general: for the slight chop and heavier wind Saturday we had looser middle ties and and tight corner ties - this keeps the luff of the sail straighter as your mast is bent with mainsheet and vang. For the lighter expected air and flat water Sunday we eased the upper mast tie and tapered an increasing distance between the sail and the mast towards the top. This has the added light air benefit of opening the leach of the sail (more twist). On the water, the LYC team did a much improved job from what I'v seen in practice with adjusting the Sprit and Cunningham tension. Both are critical controls!!! 2013 Opti champion Luke Engals writes: "one of my little tricks is to have my luff tension a bit looser than what most consider normal." This is done by adding twists to the Cunningham. I had the sailors do this until the onset of "speed wrinkles" on the luff - its especially important in flat water as a loose luff moves the "draft" (deepest point of the sail) back, helping sailors point higher! The sprit is also really important. Too much, and the draft gets pulled forward, too little and you have a big, slow wrinkle in your sail. In light air, you want just the hint of this wrinkle, as a looser sprit opens the leach. Here's a picture of Garret's sail set up perfectly on Sunday:
Note the speed wrinkles, tight outhaul (again, pointing in flat water) and barely a hint of a wrinkle coming down from the top of the mast. The entry is fine, the draft is back, the top telltale flowing at this particular moment (should be 50%) indicating the twist is correct.
The next picture is a minute later:
None of the controls are changed, he just sailed into a puff! You can see the wrinkles from the mast down are more pronounced, and the leech is more open. More mainsheet would kelp close the leach, but in general, we're happy being tuned to the lulls, and just sheeting and working harder in the puffs. Garret does an excellent job hiking the boat flat - in puffy conditions you are not %100 percent hiking the whole beat, so you need maximum effort when you do get a puff!
Downwind, the sailors did a good job adjusting their sprit halyards. You need to "burp" the sprit halyard (let a little bit off) soon after rounding the windward mark, to remove sprit-to-tack wrinkles, and add shape and twist to the sail. Don't forget to pull it back on ~10 boat-lengths BEFORE the leeward mark! We did a transitions drill on Friday which we'll continue in the next practice to get sailors looking at their masthead fly (wind indicator) and luff telltales and sail with flow downwind. With excellent (and obvious) tactics downwind Saturday, all our sailors were having plus runs. The biggest issue downwind was effort and focus. Garret frequently missed opportunities to gain when he was sitting in the back of the boat, not kiting (heeling to windward) hard enough, and performing un-hygenic actions with his mainsheet hand! Even if he gained 5 lengths through tactics, another 5 from boatspeed per run would have put him in a much better position going into the next beat and possibly a top 3 for the regatta.
When I sail Snipes - another surf-able boat that rewards downwind technique - I like to remind myself that the race really starts once you round the windward mark. Exerting maximum effort in going as fast as possible for every single leg of the race, regardless of your position or what happened on the previous leg, is crucial for doing well at big events. That boatlength you loose through inattention can turn into 10 when it allows a boat you could have been beating to cover you on the next leg. Downwind, get into a good open lane, then just work on going faster! (linked interview is Brian Lake, who won 3 college nationals).
Shifts/Tactics/Strategy
Here's where we saw sailing these type of events be much more valuable than a practice ever could be. The sailors learned a lot about fleet and shift management, and how to be patient. The basic rule I gave them was don't consolidate a loss. For those of you new to the terminology, consolidate means come together on a race course. Leverage means you have separation on a race course. In oscillating shifts, if your sailing towards a group of boats and its clear that you are loosing, TACK. Keep your leverage until you are headed, then tack and consolidate when you have a gain. This was the basic strategy that helped me win the Boston Dinghy Cup, and it applied perfectly to this event (except race 6). To do this, you need to be patient, and are usually (especially when in the top of the fleet) on the same tack as the boats around you. Early in the regatta Eddy had trouble stretching his mind to the size of the course, and would tack for no reason (its been 2 minutes maybe I should tack!). This got him out of phase with the shifts. Tack only when you are headed, see pressure over your shoulder, or can consolidate a gain! Of course getting a good enough start that allows you to get on the first lifted tack (called getting in phase) is a prerequisite.
Psychology
Given that Garret and Joey were in positions with a lot of inherent pressure at the end of the day Saturday, I though they did an exceptional job preparing mentally for racing Sunday. We played touch football during the wind delay to get warmed up, they prepared well on the water, and were driven and focused in a positive way. They simply got on the wrong side of a wind-shift that differed from the pattern. Its an old championship sailors quote (Michael Blackburn stole from Stewart Walker and now im stealing from them) that "the desire to sail well results in winning, the desire to win rarely results in sailing well," and I think its always important to stay focused on the processes of going fast, picking a good strategy, and executing it. Some more Blackburn/Walker quotes to bear in mind: "fill your mind with what matters" "if your speed is good and your strategy is correct, your tactics will be logical and obvious" "the race is always from here on out"
Thanks to all 3 sailors for putting in a good effort, for listening to me and being coachable, and to Bob for some all-star chaperoning. Looking forward to the next couple practices, we'll solidify speed through technique and tuning, and introduce some team racing.
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