Is This Yours?

This is for all PAST LYC Opti families still on this blog.  We need your help!  

Last Saturday we had 41 Optis on the water -- a testament to our growing program.  It was also the perfect time to inventory what boats remain on the racks.  There seem to be unloved Optis laying dormant here!  Whose are they?

Julia is in the process of organizing Opti storage better, and the first step is identifying which remaining boats belong to whom.   Please look through the photos that follow, shots of each set of racks showing transoms, and shots showing the interior of many hulls.  

We need to know who owns these.  Some have mistakenly been worked into the Green Fleet program -- a fate that may await unidentified boats!  If you know who belongs to any of these, please let Julia know by clicking here to e-mail her.  Each photo below has a number in the top left corner you can use to identify the boat.  Thanks for your help.  

Opti Gold/Silver Practice Debrief Week 2 - Arthur Blodgett

Lets talk about waves. Waves are caused by the surface friction of wind on the water, and lifted by the same sucking force that propels a sailboat. When they become bigger, the gravitational force of the water within them becomes its own impetus for movement: the water at the peaks of waves wants to flow downhill into the trough. There are different surface currents within waves – fast downwind current on the faces, and a slight back eddy on the backs; a pretty good diagram of which can be seen here: http://misclab.umeoce.maine.edu/boss/classes/SMS_491_2003/waves/wind_wave.jpg

     Upwind, we find superior speed by minimizing our time in the greatest negative current, and maximizing our time in the positive current. Thus, we head up the face, and down the back. This is made possible by the apparent wind lift we experience sailing uphill, and the header we get as the rig swings forwards to go downhill. A couple of things go into mastering this technique: steering with weight and body movement, reading the telltales well to keep great speed, keeping the boat in contact with the wave (no pounding) and having the rudder move small, smooth amounts to compliment body movement and head up the face. After watching video and talking about wave phases on Saturday, I saw sailors getting more dialed in with the waves on Sunday. Here's the link to a short video we watched of the 2010 World Champion (good onboard footage of smooth movements through waves), followed by some of our upwind practice video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cAS5SQ724

Downwind in waves, the Opti can be a sweet ride, but as I tell my self in the Snipe (which surfs and has hard chines like the Opti) "I get to the windward mark, and then I start to work hard."  Sailors got to work on their pumping and weight movement and got some pretty extended surfing. The goal is to stay on the downhill face of the wave (where there is the most downwind current) as long as possible. To get there, you need to be close to the speed of the wave – if the boat is too slow the wave will just roll past it. The pumping and movement should be very intuitive, move forwards when the bow lifts to correctly trim the hull and build speed. When the bow dips, pump your sail in and shoulders out and back to initiate surfing. As the wave rolls by, stay on it longer by again moving forward. In the following video, we see Garret (who I call Grant LOL) begin moving fore and aft more than his teammates and gain a couple wavelengths on them. But then, they reel him in before the mark – he stays too far back in the boat too long (stern drags, not enough speed to catch a wave) and gets a little bit of bad air. When your going downwind at close to the windspeed, small pressure differences from even slightly disturbed air can mean the difference between surfing and not – get a lane on the edge of a group, not between boats!

On a unrelated but equally paramount topic: we struggled at times this weekend with our attitudes and maturity, both with classroom time and Saturday's workout. While I respect that the weekends are your fun time and coaches in the past may have tolerated or felt they couldn't change the group behavior, I think its essential to everyone's progression as a sailor that we strive to be more self-motivated, mature learners. Inattention in the classroom leads to a lack of retention on the water - for example I'm still having to remind sailors of obvious things like pre-stting their Daggerboard bungie for the downwind leg before the weather mark. Im seeing too many sailors infected by what Pat Riley calls "the Disease of Me." Ex: my legs hurt, I want to go in, Im sad because Im not winning, I want to swim, etc...  Avoid the temptation to make excuses, and "fill your mind with what matters" - giving your best effort, learning, and treating each challenge as an opportunity. Do this and you will see both your individual learning curve and your team progress much more rapidly. Excellent Sunday workout, and I hope to see continued improvement in the team dynamic through our next practices! 

Green Fleet Practice Debrief Week 1 & 2

Green Fleet Practice Debrief

Week 1 &2

Now that we have completed our second week of the fall season, there are many things we have to be proud of and look forward to improve.

Everyone was assignment club equipment and we held our first opti work morning on August 30^th. The first practice was an evaluation to see what level each sailor is at and we were able to split the teams up in to three groups.

Coach Sharon has been working with her group on water safety, body positioning, tacking, docking and building the groups confidence sailing on their own. 

Our main focus has been on form and body placement in the boat, sailing upwind, and tacking. We also have been working on speed control with drills such as follow the leader.

Some things we learned from tacking and sailing upwind:

-body placement: sit forward next to the thwart (cross section in the boat). Hold the end of the tiller like a microphone (not a frying pan!) with your back hand and front hand holds the mainsheet. Hold your mainsheet and tiller like you are boxing. Knees and feet are always together and head is facing forward watching the front of the sail.

-It’s important to have speed going into the tack without speed you are more likely to get stuck in irons (head to wind).

-When you have speed and are ready to tack, push the tiller away and wait for the sail to cross, then you hop to the new side (feet together). On the landing aim to the forward spot you were on the previous tack. Tiller and mainsheet should stay in your back hand until you are seated on the new side. Once you have crossed to the new side sail with the tiller extension anchored behind your back for 5 seconds and trim the main with the front hand. This will allow the tiller and rudder to be straight and centerline. Then once accelerated, hold the tiller in front of you. 

I recommend sailors to watch this video we viewed before practice on tacking. Look carefully at the tiller movement through the tack and where the tiller is placed when the sailor crosses to the other side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhsd7Zt2TbE

This is another great video that breaks down the tack in slow motion. Notice how far forward the sailor lands out of the tack. Near the end of the video the sailor is hiking out of the tack because there is more breeze. You only hike that hard and move back in the boat when it’s windy.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1aemnBBMPA

Sailing is an ambidextrous sport, meaning you use both hands on each tack. On Starboard your right hand (back hand) steers and left hand (front hand) trims the sail. This is reversed on Port tack. You will find this to be challenging at first, but get used to it eventually!

We introduced tell tales at the end of practice. Tell tales are the yarn streamers that fly on the sail. Usually they are red on the port side and green on the starboard side. The goal for using them up wind is to have them both streaming straight back. Once your sail is trimmed in to the corner then you use the tell tales to fine tune how close you can sail to the wind (to maximize your upwind sailing). When the windward tell tale flutters all over the place, you are sailing too close to the wind, so you need to head down a little. When the leeward tell tale is flying straight up or down, you need to head up closer to the wind. I like the saying “tiller towards tapping tell tale”. Last year, I once asked a sailor l “what are tell tales?” I remember him saying ”Tell tales are like your conscience” I thought this was funny but in a way it is true. Tell tales tell you everything about fine tuning your sailing according to the wind. The sooner sailors get use to reading them; the more comfortable they will be sailing up wind. Again, we barely covered tell tales and we plan to work with them more this week. 

My final comment I have from practice, is that it is important to take seriously. Racing is fun and each sailor should want to compete in each drill. Each drill is designed to build better boat handling skills, and they are important for sailors’ development. Sailing takes a tremendous amount of focus and is a great opportunity for these kids after a long day of school, to use their minds and bodies in a different way. 

This week I will be assigning spots on the rack. After practice, try to move your boat to your assigned spot! Thanks for a great start to the season! 

Julia Melton

Green Fleet Daggerboards Wanted!

LYC Opti Graduates,

Our green fleet is growing! We are very excited for this and are now in need of blades (daggerboards especially). If you have old blades you'd would be willing to donate or sell to the club, we would really appreciate it.

Please contact me at julia.melton@lyc.org

Thank you,

Julia Melton

Green Fleet Snack Sign-Up

Green Fleet Team,

I have posted the healthy snack sign-up sheet on the blog for practices and regattas. It would be great if each sailor would sign up for at least one date. You can find the sheet under the Regattas and Clinics tab or by clicking here.

See you on Thursday!

Julia

Opti Gold/Silver Practice Debrief Saturday 8/30/14

First practice with some of the team (several were otherwise occupied for the holiday weekend) and we had perfect conditions: a steady 10kts with big swells. Overall the sailors showed proficiency in basic upwind technique, and did a great job with the capsize races – each sailor capsized, righted and bailed their boats 4 times. We should feel confident in safe capsizes and be able to push the angle of heel at which we kite in practice. Still, its apparent that even with fast righting and bailing, you will loose about half the fleet from a capsize – staying upright is a skill! Other than the capsize races, we did long upwind tacking on the whistle and grinds, and downwind surfing. As all were relatively close together in speed, the team showed an ability to make drills competitive and push each other. By the end of practice the sailors were fairly exhausted - stick with it a few more weeks and you will build up the endurance to complete such a practice with better energy and focus!

    In terms of the sailing, there were a lot of little yet important things that need to be corrected. Lets focus on three, leaving roll tacks for Wednesday's practice.

Staying anchored to the boat. Its hugely important that your body movements connect directly to the hull, and by extension the rig and foils. If your not connected, small moments have no effect, while big ones shake the rig. Eddy, Brian, and at times Joey all had issues with this, as I could see their feet flat on the floor of the boat. When fully hiked, the strap connects you to the boat, but in light hiking/not hiking conditions, make sure that your feet are pressed up against the hiking strap, and shins are pressed into the thwart. Knees should be together and angled forward.

Sailing with feel. A couple of things sailors need to identify through feel: is my helm balanced (is the tiller pulling or pushing against me)? Am I going fast or slow? Am I staying connected to the waves? If the helm is unbalanced, we need to slide smoothly in for leeward helm, or hike to correct windward helm. Fast or slow requires a change in modes. If we are fast, we can trim and point higher for a short period, turning speed and flow on our foils into height. If we are slow, we are not at max flow on the foils, and are probably stalled and going sideways. IMMEDIATELY go into foot mode: sail eased at least to the corner, both telltales streaming and facilitate this turn with shoulders out and back before smoothly moving in and forward. Staying connected to the waves is probably the most difficult thing to do in an Opti, but the most important for upwind speed in waves (obligatory Peter Commette Quote: “Waves are an excuse to use kinetics!”) Hips forward and shoulders back at the wave crest helps to drop the boat smoothly into the trough. We'll be practicing and refining this for the next two weekends on the ocean!

Basic Sail Trim/Pumping. Sailors were a little bit off with not only the aforementioned mode changes, but also with base sail trim. Repeatedly hitting the boom-over-the-corner mainsheet trim out of tacks is really important, and doing it while keeping your eyes forward on the telltales and waves makes those first 3 boat-lengths you sail after a tack substantially faster! B, being the newest to Optis, was under-trimmed upwind to start the day, but improved. Downwind, B, Eddy and Joey were slightly over-trimmed through the first drills, and couldn't sail as low as Bella and Brian – just like you change gears upwind, there is a proper mainsheet placement for each wind velocity downwind – out more in lighter air (past 90deg in very light so that gravity keeps the sail out), in more (with more vang on) in breeze.

Pump on every single wave in surfing conditions! Bee an Bella had a speed advantage downwind by sitting slightly further forward, and rolling the shoulders back while pumping each time the bow dipped lowest. Really, the timing of pumping should be very intuitive – pump and move aft when your boat is the most downhill. Gradually come forward while you surf and as the bow rises. Common mistakes included not pumping enough, sitting too far back, and wiggling the rudder too much - causing drag and taking the boat off a wave it could have surfed longer! Here is some downwind video of B and Bella: 

Finally, sailors were missing some necessary stuff for our weekend practices. Below is a re-post of the list I distributed at the parents meeting with gear that multiple sailors were missing underlined! Please be sure to come with this stuff next Saturday. 

Required Equipment:

Personal: Watch, lifejacket with whistle, appropriate layers/spray gear for the conditions, polarized

sunglasses. rigging knife (no sharp tips). Re-fillable water bottle with Carribeaner (clips to boat,

re-fill on coachboat)

Boat: extra sail ties (tied to front airbag webbing; both 25 and 40cm lengths of ~1.2mm line, 40cm lengths of 3mm line), 2 bailors, praddle, masthead fly/wind pennant. Practice blades and sails are acceptable –sailors should practice with their race spars and hulls.

Rigging Toolbox (required): metric tape measure. Lots of extra sail ties, permanent markers, sail tape,

duct tape, electrical tape, notebook/wetnotes, extra bungie, Sponge

      Recommended: 600 and 1000-1200 sand paper and sanding block. Small acetone bottle. McLube

or PTEF polish. Rags. Boat soap or dish detergent.

Drybag for Coachboat: Healthy Lunch - no sweets. Banana, powerbar, and a lean sandwich

recommended. Extra clothing layers. Sunblock.

Post Practice Workout Gear (in a bag): Running shoes, shorts, swimsuit (goggles if you prefer), T-shirt. Towel.

Thanks, and feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Arthur Blodgett


arthur.blodgett@lyc.org

Opti Meeting August 28th!

Opti Fleet,

This is a reminder that we will have an Opti preseason meeting for parents and sailors on Thursday, August 28th at 5:30 in the upstairs classroom.

We hope to see you all there and look forward to a great season!

Julia