 Neri / Adams The good karma from the harbour porpoise visit is still clinging to Fleet 413. Last Sunday the Bay was flat calm all morning. Then at precisely 12:45 a light southerly filled in and lasted until exactly 3:45 when the fleet was finishing the final race of the afternoon, right off the launching ramp. As we derigged the Bay was mirror smooth again. Moose and Peter Kavanaugh provided the excellent RC work that we are used to. They had the course set BEFORE the breeze filled in and ran 6 quality races. Week 8 Scores......All Scores.......Laser Home Ed Adams had consistently good starts and did not sail a bad leg, winning easily for the second time in as many appearances. Kathleen Tocke might have been the fastest boat on the race course and broke up the pecking order with a 5th for the day. Ed was not able to file a WOW because he is on a ski vacation this week, so at the end of this message we have a special “Classic Winners Words of Wisdom” from a day in similar conditions that Ed won last fall. But first, a couple of equipment maintenance tips from other fleet members: TOILET TOOLS ARE NOT JUST FOR THE BATHROOM Perry Grossman has a great tool for getting the water out of the mast hole at the end of the day. He taped a standard toilet bowl sponge to a spare batten. The toilet bowl sponge is slightly larger than the mast hole. Shove it down the hole, pause for 2 seconds and pull it out and your mast hole is dry. CARBON TILLER UNIVERSAL REPLACEMENT Bill Porter figured out how to replace the universal on a carbon tiller- after his broke: 1 you need a new end piece that is available at the boat locker $20 2 Heat gun is preferred but a hair dryer will probably work. I used a Wagner heat gun and it worked fine. 3 Pull off end cap of tiller and put a broom stick inside tiller and heat up the universal joint and pound the broom stick onto the ground. Do not be gentle if this does not work apply more heat and try again. 4 Sand out the old epoxy from inside the tiller. 5 I used some West System but 5 minute epoxy will work to glue the new end back in. I used a brush and put a good amount on new end and inside tiller. Tape off the end and put the universal side down and let it cure. 5 go sailing Also I sheered off the bolt that holds the pin for the boom on the goose neck. If you have an older boat spend it might be time to replace the bolt. WOW CLASSIC from Fall ’03 week 2. East/SE 3-8knots Some thoughts on Sunday's Racing, by Ed Adams 1) Starts It seemed really hard to get off the line on Sunday, as the line was quite short for 51 boats. I had two good starts, with clear air and the freedom to sail where I wanted. The rest of my starts were mediocre to downright embarrassing. Once I decided to tuck under Kim Ferguson, not expecting much of a fight...WRONG! She kept bow-forward throughout the encounter, and was able to maintain her light sight until the last 15 seconds. At the gun she was directly upwind and I was shot out the back. I was absolutely, positively sure she was over early. But she wasn't. She was able to use her line sight; I could never see around the bow of the boat to leeward. The lesson is clear....a line sight does you no good if you don't get to the line early enough to see where you are. You must confirm the line sight with 30 seconds to go, and then decide if you can stay bow-forward of the pack of sharks approaching from behind. All of my bad starts were late approaches, with no view and only a guess where the line really was. By the way Kim, just think how much faster you would be if Scott lets you use the new boat..... 2) Speed Upwind It always seems that the fastest guy on these light air days is someone with a traveler made of skinny, stretchy line, that won't hold in the cleat. His traveler block is 6" in from the transom and 6" off the deck, yet he is hiking harder and pointing higher than anyone around him. You say to yourself, "Man, just think how fast he would be if he got some good equipment." But the truth is, that guy is fast BECAUSE he has lousy equipment. Those of us with Vectran travelers are slower because we sail with the traveler block on the deck and the boom over the quarter. I had pretty good upwind speed on Sunday, with my (Vectran) traveler set slightly looser than max tight. Most of the time the wind was too light to 2-block the main, so I pulled the boom to set the traveler block about 6" inboard from the leeward rail. As mentioned above, the fastest guy is always the first to hike. "Hiking" can mean hiking off the straps or off the leeward grab rail....but if you can hike before the next guy, you'll be faster. Keeping the vang soft allows you to hike earlier, and most of last Sunday, I had the vang slack upwind. However, in the last 2 races the wind was so light that no one could hike. In these conditions, you have to vang-sheet. Tension the vang to set the boom height, and pull the traveler block well up so the boom does not fall too far outboard. The cunningham is another tricky control. You want to set it soft enough so you show a wrinkle from the clew to the mast joint when you trim the mainsheet in the puffs. Easing the cunningham usually tightens your leech. However, if you have the cunningham too loose, the wrinkle becomes extreme. The sail folds on the wrinkle, and the leech actually falls off to leeward. So a soft cunningham helps you point, but a really soft cunningham hurts your pointing. It takes a bit of experimenting to get it right. Finally, many people sail with the outhaul too loose in light air. As you ease the mainsheet, the mast straightens and the sail gets deeper. If the outhaul is set too loose, the sail gets too deep when you ease the sheet. The standard way to measure the outhaul is by using your hand with the fingers splayed...you measure from the leeward side of the boom to the vertical foot seam just in front of the outhaul cleat. In light air and flat water, like Sunday, the distance should be about that from the tip of your thumb to the tip of your pointer finger. Maximum loose for an outhaul is from your thumb to the tip of your baby finger, and this is only in 8-10 knot of wind and slop (nearly two-blocked, hiking, and powering through rough water). 3) Upwind strategy The forecast was for the wind to shift from the East to the SE during the afternoon. From where they set the race course, there was a good fetch to the east, and a good fetch to the south, but there was land close upwind to the SE. So the wind naturally wanted to be either east or south, but not SE. There were only a few beats where the wind was actually SE with small oscillations....and on these few beats you could go up the middle and tack on small shifts. Most of the beats had an east wind fighting a south wind, with much less wind in the middle. It was pretty easy to see this, but much harder to do the right thing. The right thing was to commit to a side hard, and then try to "win" it. If you picked the wrong side, you would still be far ahead of the poor shmuck who tried to tack up the middle. But committing to a side means you have to take transoms to get there, and this isn't so easy when some guy is crossing you in a nice lift, on the edge of the pressure. One race I had a great start, and that was the problem. I was winning after the first tack, but when the group from the right side was crossing me, I tacked underneath them (in the no wind zone)....it's hard to take transoms when you were winning just a minute earlier. I sailed across to the left group, who was now crossing in left pressure. Didn't want to take their transoms, so I tacked underneath again, not quite in their pressure. This continued up the whole beat, tacking shy of the pressure, but never taking a transom, until I had sailed myself back to 20th at the weather mark. Every time I tacked, I knew I was doing the wrong thing, but I couldn't stop myself! 4) Downwind strategy and speed Luckily, I managed to gain on most of the runs...otherwise, I would have had a pretty dismal day. Some of the things that seemed important: a) Avoid the temptation for an early jibe. Especially on the first rounding, you'll just be sailing into a no-wind zone under the crowd on the starboard layline. Try to go straight on starboard, and then jibe when the opportunity presents itself. Tony Rey has been especially disciplined about this the last two Sundays. b)Keep the boat moving. This is why Scott Milnes is so good downwind. You and your boat are roughly 400lbs all-up, and when you get slow, it takes a long time to get going again. Scott sails harder angles, but always keeps the boat moving. c)Don't go by the lee unless you have pressure. If you have to let the sail out past perpendicular to stay pressurized, you should jibe and heat it to a broad reach. I was reaching about 2/3rds of the time on Sunday, probably more than most people. This helps you keep the boat moving, like Scott. d)Heel the boat slightly to leeward if you are reaching. Some people try to heel to weather when broad reaching, and this is slow because the boat is unbalanced. e)The daggerboard is set higher when broad reaching than it is when by the lee. This is counter-intuitive, but it works because there the trunk is further out of the water when you are sailing by the lee and heeling to weather. f)The vang is set tighter when reaching, because the flow across the is from luff to leech. A soft vang creates a knuckle in the sail behind the mast. g)Strategy.....I think the biggest mistake people make is over-estimating the effect of wind shadows downwind. Upwind, a shadow really hurts because it deflects the wind, and so the boat in dirty air can't point. Downwind, this deflection is not so important in a Laser, and the actual area of reduced pressure (wind flowing over the top of the rig behind you) is far smaller than you would think. So unless there is a wall of boats right on your tail, don't be afraid to follow a puff where it takes you....even if it takes you down in front of boats behind. If if a group of boats behind start moving, get in front of them and join the ride. Lars Guck is especially adept at this. |