I wanted to put in a bit of commentary on last week's short but sweet race,
because it was kinda classic conditions and perhaps people (especially not
in Fleet 1!) can learn from it (with the usual caveats). It was sailed on
the Knox course (windward of Angel Island, downwind from Sausalito), which
is pretty much the course we will be using for Nationals the last weekend in
July.
It was a beautiful day with plenty of sun and eventually just enough wind to
sail up and back to the temporary mark at Yellow Bluff (the RC delayed the
start by about 2 hrs, but most of us hung in there until and through the
race). A smallish flood, which was just as well given the wind strength.
But it did show off what I believe are classic Knox strategies.
The line turned out to be pretty leeward end favored, so the only boat who
started at the port end on port got across cleanly - don't try this at
Nationals, though! So Rich Korman in Rubber Biscuit led for much of the
first leg, electing to flip to Starbord and follow most of the fleet out
after crossing us all. I was trying out my new starting mantra: speed on
the line, don't worry so much about where, and it seemed to pay off as we
had good clear air. We kept going for a few minutes toward what looked like
more breeze outside, then flipped to port and headed for shore. Clyde in
Chopped Liver waited a bit longer to go, Rubber Bicky (sorry, that's me
British roots...) tacked as well to cover us from ahead and leeward, and we
all went on the famous long port tack. Somehow we seemed to have better
boatspeed, maybe we had a bit more wind, or maybe my light crew (it was just
me and the boyz, Tino and Valencio) helped. Valencio was napping after
lasting through the long pre-start doldrums, good thing the wind wasn't too
shifty!
When we got within quarter to half a mile of the windward mark, Rich flipped
to starboard, and we just crossed them and another boat that was coming
downwind from the mark. I saw Leah on Kelly Shawn (ex Elaine, for you
out-of-towners) off in the right corner, we were busy hoping their wind
would die but it held pretty well. We kept on until we crossed the eddy
tide line and started getting swept to windward, then tacked when I was sure
we'd make the mark but hadn't overstood too much, and we rounded first by a
dozen boatlengths or so. From there it was just stay between the
competition and the finish. I think Rich went well to starboard downwind
and may have lost some time with greater distance, but his big mistake was
tacking to starboard upwind before reaching the tide line. Chopped Liver
got past him, and so did Kelly Shawn, but he held off Frank and Cathy -
that's how we finished (top 5 out of 9 boats all finished within 2 minutes,
biggest fleet in the race).
So to recap, in Monterey the mantra is go left until you hit the kelp; in
Santa Cruz it's go right until you hit the kelp; on the Knox course in a
flood (and sometimes in an ebb too, that one I'm a tad confused by) it's go
left a bit to get air, then go right until you run out of wind or get a huge
knock or hit the tide line or can lay the mark. Usually it gets nice and
shifty as you approach the Sausalito shore, last week the winds were
blessedly consistent.
If anyone else wants to chime in and correct me on my observations, please
feel free - and I hope to see a whole lot of you out there in July (and many
of you well before then, of course!)
Jan Grygier, "Carlos"
hydrophilos at earthlink.nethttp://home.earthlink.net/~hydrophilos/spigot.html
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