Many thanks to Will Tiller for the first session of the season. Here are Will's notes and observations:
Start Prep: Good to have most of this sorted before the 5 min gun goes - Transit and while doing this check line bias - Laylines, both pin and boat - Favoured side of course - Is it light or breezy? Easy or hard to live to windward of someone off the line? - Have a couple of plans A and B for your desired start During the Start: Have clear crew roles · Bowman (time on distance and calls the line and other boats), · Mainsheet (time, evaluates start plan, calls threats and helps spot nice gaps on line), · Helmsman (clear communication) Can use the pin as a reference for your starting position. Pin start: be underneath pin with 1:30 to go Boat start: be underneath pin with 2:30 to go At the gun: Clear call from bowman if over or not Mainsheet calls if you are in right phase or left phase, breeze-wise, off the line Skipper calls desired mode to be sailed General Notes from Sunday Boat End Starts - Generally an earlier setup than pin end starts, from early set up you have to fight hard to keep spot, with aggressive bow downs when people try to tack beneath you and then sharp bow ups to build separation - Try not to get yourself caught above the lay line to the boat, its asking for trouble - Identify if you’re in a bad spot early and get out of there! Pin End Starts - Generally to win the pin you’re the last boat to tack over onto starboard so a very late set up - Remember only one boat wins the pin so it’s a risky start, can always be a safe start to be down towards the pin but above the main bunch fighting for it OCS - In general you guys were all fairly good at being close to the line at the gun, but we only had one boat OCS all day, so maybe you could push this a little harder Racing Starts - Don't set up too far away from the line, get in there and fight for your position With a crucial 1, 2 in the final flight of the season, Valsheda II (950) has taken the double - winning both National Championships and the Post-Christmas Series from Feng Shui (1348) - a very close second - and Upfront (814).
This has been the most competitively fought and well-attended series in recent history and overall victory came down to the final flight, with only 2 points separating the fleet leaders. Overall, the standard of the fleet has been raised this year and with new entries to the fleet, next year promises to provide some real competition to the usual suspects. There does remain some disparity in the condition of sails and boats and this winter we will propose a refurbishment programme that should allow us to leverage the buying power of the class to complete (in some case, much needed) maintenance and repairs work on our boats. Watch this space for details. Congratulations to Al Gair and crew - and to all who competed this year. Results are here (flight) and here (series) In all-too-typical Auckland conditions that ran through a repertoire of variations from light and shifty to wet and wild, Valsheda II (1295) somehow maintained a close harmony, producing a master-class in yacht-racing to take the National Championships.
However, their dominant performance on paper (with no fewer than 5 bullets) belies the closeness of the fleet racing, in which no single crew seemed to have things their own way. 6 boats achieved podium finishes over the two day regatta, with the order changing at almost every mark. Day one was charaterised by light to moderate winds and some colossal shifts. The trying conditions served to separate the sheep from the goats and the fleet's more agricultural practitioners were mercilessly punished. The race committee worked heroically to keep pace, but after 3 races and a postponement, in which the wind visited all point of the compass, a halt was called. Day two dawned wet and windless, but quickly cleared to near-perfect conditions for four long races. Your correspondent suffered an early end to his campaign with a main halyard breakage before the first start, but witnessed and relished the action from the sidelines. Valsheda II consolidated a commanding lead with three more wins, while Affinity played bridesmaid with three 2nd-places (after a 6th, which they would drop). Bobby's Girl who were in 2nd place overnight, failed to maintain their consistency and Maverick's 1, 2, 3 (and a solid 5) were enough to secure 2nd place from Affinity. Congratulations to all competitors in an awesome regatta and many thanks to the race committee and all of the many volunteers, sponsors and supporters who contributed to the event. Results are here This report is courtesy of Hayden Whitburn (your usual correspondence having been stranded on the beach for Flight 8).
In Race 1 Captain Pete (716) charged out of the blocks from the Committee boat end and had a very solid lead by the top mark in some very shifty conditions, leaving everyone else to play catch up. In winds ranging from 10 - 20 knots, Captain Pete (716) took 1st place, followed by Feng Shui (1348) and Affinity (1059). In Race 2, Johnny Melvile in Bobby's Girl (1058) was unstoppable up the first beat with his crack crew of Stu Malloy and a fellow crew-member from Abu Dhabi filling in. They lead around the top mark, followed by Upfront (814) , Affinity (1059) and Feng Shui (1348). Bobby's Girl (1058) had an issue at the bottom mark and Upfront (814) took the lead, but didn't cover up the beat and got nailed by a shift which Bobby's Girl read beautifully and took the win from Feng Shui (1348) and Affinity (1059). Race 3 was a one lap affair, as the breeze was dying out and getting dark quickly. It was a lovely sight with the harbour bridge lit up green for St Patrick's Day... It was all on at the start with a big log jam at the committee boat end, forcing a few boats to tack off early to clear some air which new comer to the class Hugh Rebbeck on Echelon (1379) mastered superbly and controlled the right, but Feng Shui (1348) managed to get a great shift from the left with Bobby’s Girl (1058) closing the gap it was all on, with all boats finishing very close - showing how great the racing really is. In the end it was Feng Shui (1348) followed by newcomers Echelon (1379) and Bobby’s Girl (1058). Results are here (flight) and here (series). A squally, petulant southerly took both distinguished guests and locals by surprise, precipitating some hasty rig adjustments and not a few gear failures, which saw the initial fleet of 14 whittled down to 11 by the final start.
The RNZYS race committee was forced to set a short, cross-harbour course on the flooding tide, but, in spite of the tricky current and a general recall, the RO managed 3 races before the fleet headed home in the gloaming. The fleet played host to former World Champions, Andy Beadsworth and Simon 'Stir' Fry aboard John Kensington's Unfinished Business (1184) - Pelle Petersson on Vilda Hilda (906) officiating with a hearty, welcoming barge off the first start. The visitors weathered several more idiomatic rule interpretations and esoteric local customs before finding their usual form with a 2nd place in Race 3 and posting a credible 5th overall, behind Affinity (1059). Rob Salthouse - keeping Hayden Whitburn's spot aboard Upfront (814) warm during the latter's European sojourn - established beyond reasonable doubt that last week's winning form was no fluke, taking 1st overall from Feng Shui (1348) and Valsheda (950). With just over a fortnight until the Nationals, now is the time to fix any breakages and to prepare and equip boat and crew. There is a directory of service providers on the website here - and your correspondent is also happy to assist with finding good, competent and experienced crew (albeit, a little despondent at losing them all to other boats...). Just email me if you require assistance: alex@etchells.org.nz. Results are here (flight) and here (series). Sweet Baby Jesus, the racing is getting close out there. The margins are getting slimmer with each successive week and it is a credit to the series leaders that they are hanging on on to podium berths so tenaciously, when the slightest error can be so brutally punished by a close-following fleet.
Conditions were perfect for Flight 6 and ROs Warwick and Theresa Gair set an excellent course across the breadth of the harbour. The committee saw off 3 races, plus the first general recall of the season, for which your correspondent was pathetically grateful, having placed all of his eggs in a boat-end start, that was about to turn to messy, eggy custard. Guest rock-star helm, Rob Salthouse on Upfront (814) fairly hurtled out of the first start and made startling progress to the first mark, which can only be attributable to beginner's luck. Valsheda (950) and Affinity (1059) also took good starts and worked up the left side of the course to round in touch and ultimately take 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Aboard Feng Shui (1348), guest rock-star bow, Simon 'Stirfry' Fry must have had trouble with Matt 'G Unit' Kelway's esoteric knitting as Willzy's crew posted an uncharacteristic 8th, behind Tortuga (779) and her rock-starlette bow, Louisa. However, knots unraveled, Feng Shui (1348) came back strongly to take 1st and 2nd in the next two races, keeping Upfront (814) out in third place. On the day, a bullet and 2 thirds was enough for Rob Salthouse and crew on Upfront (814) to take out first place. But a late, gracious retirement (possibly unprecedented in this fleet) by Auckland Champion, Lincoln Fraser and Maverick (1077), following a tricky windward-mark call, has put Valsheda (950) ahead - and leaves all to play for when Salty returns next week. Results are here (flight) and here (series) Having waited until race six of a six race series to pick the right side of the race course, your correspondent then picked the wrong winner. At last nights prize-giving, hosted by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, the Auckland Champs Trophy - replete with the names of some legendary past winners - has handed over to a grateful, but perplexed Willzy and the crew of Feng Shui (1348) .
However sharper minds and keener (younger) eyes soon spotted the missing 'drop' and it is therefore with great pleasure that I can announce that class debutante Lincoln Fraser and the crew of Maverick (1077) are Auckland Champions for 2015. After a nail-bitingly close regatta over two nights, only 2.5 points separate the top four finishers and on average the fleet was separated by just over a minute. Day One delivered lively conditions, congested mark-roundings and a few legislative posers. Bobby's Girl (1058) took two bullets, but posted an 8th place in race 2 (which was won by Valsheda (950)) to finish the day first overall from Maverick (1077) and Valsheda (950). Maverick (1077) continued a consistent regatta on Day Two until the final, single-lap race, when competing breezes inevitably wrought a massive hole, into which the majority of the fleet haplessly drifted. Valsheda (950) and Feng Shui (1348) both found pressure on the left hand side of the work and at the top mark Valsheda (950) rounded first. Feng Shui (1348) launched their chute before the offset mark and rolled Tortuga (779) to take 2nd place. With Maverick (1077) finishing a distant 8th, the top three boats were then only separated by 1.5 points and with a discard Maverick's rock-steady performance won out. Many congratulations, then, to Lincoln Fraser Simon Baker, Georgi Yankov and Sam Melville and thanks to all who competed in a hugely enjoyable regatta. Many thanks also to Megan Kensington and the RNZYS race committee and to Melanie Best and the race management team. Provisional results are here. Flight 4 welcomed Hugh Rebbeck as the new owner of Echelon (1083). Hugh and his crew, Jono Howson have served their most recent Etchells apprenticeships aboard Tortuga (779) and their results eloquently attest to their faithful attendance to the tutelage of your correspondent. Fleet veteran, Gavin Gerrard was on hand last night to correct the worst of the damage that I have inflicted and we wish Gavin all the very best for the future.
With the line set excitingly close to the Westhaven breakwater, a fleet of 11 enjoyed three quick and grippingly close races with Valsheda (950) taking a clean sweep. Bobby's Girl (1058) (minus Johhny Melville) took second and Maverick (1077) just eased out Upfront (814) for third place. After racing, Jenny Cooper of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club gave a brief, impromptu presentation at Swashbucklers to invite all Etchells sailors to the 2015 Worlds, to be held in Hong Kong in November. Information regarding this event can be found on the RHKYC website, or by emailing Jenny (etchells.hongkong@gmail.com). The Worlds in Hong Kong is a truly mouth-watering prospect and all New Zealand sailors are encouraged to participate. Further information regarding the Worlds will be posted on the website over the next few months. Next week, the Auckland Champs, hosted by the RNZYS, will be held on successive evenings (Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th). A dozen Etchells are expected to compete and all are invited to attend the prize-giving at RNZYS on Tuesday after racing. Results are here (flight) and here (series). Republished from Speed and Smarts During the past twenty-five years, Dave Curtis may have won more major one-design championships than any other sailor. He has captured world titles in Etchells, Solings and J/24s, plus national and/or North American championships in those classes and Lightnings, 110s, 210s and Interclub Dinghies.
How do you judge if it’s better to sail higher and a little slower or lower and a little faster? The answer to that depends somewhat on your sailing style. I have sailed a lot against Judd Smith in Etchells during the past ten years or so. We are both very fast in the class, but we definitely sail our boats very differently. Judd is always higher and slower while I’m faster and lower. But our overall speed comes out amazingly similar. The higher you try to sail, the harder it is to maintain your speed. So if you are unsure about what angle to pick, a high angle is more dangerous because it’s more critical and less forgiving. It’s usually better to pick a slightly lower course where you will be assured of better speed all the time. Remember that when you want to point better, the first thing you need is speed. So make sure your boat is going fast first. Once you have good speed, then you can start playing a balancing game between speed and height. This is difficult in heavier boats like Etchells because they decelerate at such a slow rate. By the time you realize you’re going slow, it will take you 30 or 40 seconds to get back up to speed because they accelerate slowly as well. It’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security because you can point high and look good for a little while! How should the telltales on the front of the jib be moving? How about the telltales on the main? In light air, almost every boat wants to have the jib telltales streaming straight back on both sides. The lighter the wind, the more important it is just to get the boat going fast, and you almost don’t even think about pointing. This might hold true up to 5 or 6 knots. If the wind increases just another three knots, however, most boats will go from a non-pointing condition to a high-pointing condition. When the wind is blowing 8 or 9, now your boat is at (or nearly at) hull speed, and you can start using your speed to make the boat point high. The jib telltales, which were flowing straight back almost all the time at 5 knots, should now be lifting up (parallel to the luff) almost all the time, especially in flat water. The leech telltale on the top batten of the main is similar. In light air (up to about four knots), you want that top telltale flowing straight back almost all the time. To realize this, you must ease your mainsheet to get a lot of twist in the sail, and you may actually have to make the sail flatter (e.g. with more pre-bend). If it’s too full, the sail will stall sooner, and the telltale is a good guide for this. When you have 10 knots of wind and flat water, you can trim the main the hardest and be in maximum pointing mode. On most boats I trim the main until the top telltale is stalled (curled around the back of the leech) for all but a few seconds out of each minute. It’s important, however, that the telltale flows straight back at least once in a while; otherwise, the sail may be overtrimmed. If in doubt, try easing the sheet a tiny bit since this will make it easier to keep the boat going fast and in the groove. In general, as the water gets choppier, you want to have the upper telltale stalled less of the time. And, of course, your mainsail trim depends to a certain extent on the type of boat you’re sailing. An Etchells and a J/24, for example, like a mainsail that is trimmed harder (i.e. with the telltale stalled more of the time) than other boats. When you are setting up the trim of your jib, what do you look for? The first thing I do is set up the jib leads so the telltales break as evenly as possible up and down the luff. It’s important to mark the holes in your jib track (and all other sail controls) so you can reproduce the fast settings from race to race. Another guide I find helpful is a telltale on the top batten of the jib. My rule of thumb is that I don’t ever want to see this leech telltale do anything but flow smoothly straight back. Once your jib trim is in the ballpark, then you just have to sail against someone else before the start and see how you’re going. What’s the most common reason why people go slow upwind, and what can they do to fix this? I think the most common reason why boats don’t perform well upwind is that their sails are not trimmed hard enough, especially the main. I’m guessing that people see the telltale on the main’s upper leech and think it should be flowing all the time. But we know if the top telltale is flowing in anything but the lightest air, the main is too far out. So you can’t be afraid to make the top telltale stall. If you don’t trim the main, you won’t point. On the other hand, trimming too tight is probably the worst thing you can do for boatspeed. As the saying goes, “If in doubt, let it out.” Don’t get carried away, though. The most common complaint I hear from sailors is that they are not pointing as high as other boats. The best way to point higher is usually to trim your mainsail a little harder. However, you must be going fast first. The trick is finding a middle ground where you are trimmed tight enough for good pointing, but not so tight that your sails stall and make you go slow. No matter how well you know any boat, there will be times when you get completely mixed up on the sail trim. You’re out of sync and slow. This is why I’m a firm believer in using lots of reference marks. I mark my jib halyard, jib leads, outhaul, mainsheet and backstay. I figure if we can get all these in the ballpark, we should be OK. When we’re going slow, we let everything out an inch or two so we’re in an undertrimmed, bow down, fast mode. The goal is simply to get our speed up so we are sailing faster, although lower, than the boats around us. Then we’ll just start slowly trimming back in again and work on height. How much do you “change gears” when you are racing upwind and how do you do this? Once you've got your boat set up so you are pretty fast in general, the ability to change gears is incredibly important – you won’t be competitive without it. When conditions are variable, the ability to change gears will make more of a difference than not having your boat set up right in the first place. The hardest thing for most people is changing gears when the wind pressure decreases. If you’re sailing along and you get a puff, that’s pretty obvious. People have to scramble up to the rail, the sails tend to wrinkle up, you get more helm and so on. But it’s harder to recognize when the wind dies because you don’t see all the visual signs that occurred with the puff. For example, the sails still look the same without any new wrinkles. The ability to change gears in a lull is probably more critical than changing gears in a puff. That’s because when you get a puff the boat will accelerate even if you do nothing. Though your sails will be undertrimmed, this is almost always better than being over-trimmed. If you don’t respond in a lull, however, everything will be too tight and that will hurt a lot more. One of the first clues you’ll get about a lull is having to move crew off the rail. When this happens, you should also start making other adjustments, like easing your main or jib sheet. If the wind changes in small increments (i.e. a knot or two), the first thing I do is adjust mainsheet trim, and that may be all that’s necessary. Sometimes I also adjust the jib trim slightly, and if the wind increases a little more, I might pull a tad on the backstay to match the mainsheet. I like to keep things as simple as possible, so we don’t make a bunch of adjustments every time the wind changes. I generally don’t touch the cunningham, outhaul or jib lead position. Instead, I focus on the mainsheet, jib sheet, backstay and jib luff, in that order. This keeps us going fast, but still lets us focus mainly on where we’re going. Why does it often seem fast to race with “speed wrinkles” along the luff of the jib and main? A lot of people like to trim their sails so they are smooth and wrinkle-free. But that does not necessarily give you the fastest shape. Because sails get fuller and more draft-aft as they age, new sails must initially be flatter and more draft-forward than what is ideal, so they will last longer. This means that if your sails are relatively new, you must use your controls to make them fuller and more draft-aft. One way to do this is to keep the luff of the sail pretty loose so you have wrinkles along the headstay or mast. This introduces a little more vertical camber in the sail and moves the draft aft. In essence, you are trying to create the ideal shape that will eventually stetch into the sail. As the sail ages, you can reduce the size of wrinkles in the sail. Other speed-related wrinkles are the longer diagonal wrinkles that appear in your mainsail when you bend the mast a certain amount. We often like to see a hint of these wrinkles to know we have the correct amount of mast bend. If you don’t see these wrinkles, you may not be bending the mast enough to match the mainsail’s shape. The sail is not designed to have these wrinkles, but when you just start to see them, you know you are in the right ballpark. Where do you put your weight in the fore-and-aft direction? An Etchells is one boat where you want your weight forward. Since an Etchells is long and skinny, its widest part extends fore and aft quite a bit, so you don’t really gain much by keeping weight in the middle. I put my heaviest crew well forward to keep the bow in the water. This works on an Etchells but not a Soling because the Etchells bow is much more bouyant. That makes it painful to hit waves, so you want to keep the bow immersed. How much heel do you want for going fast in different conditions? I don’t like to heel any boat just for the purpose of getting more weather helm. I prefer to sail the boat fairly upright unless it’s really, really light. Then I think extra heel is good to steady the sails (due to gravity) as well as for generating some additional windward helm. I think the general practice in most boats recently has been to sail more upright. While this may be faster, it is also a much less comfortable way to sail the boat. The boat usually feels better when you have more heel because it seems like you have a little more wind and the boat is easier to steer. When you have less heel, the helm is more neutral, but most good sailors seem to be able to get the boat to go faster. It’s definitely something that takes practice to make it work. When you have more wind, the optimal amount of heel depends a lot on your boat’s characteristics. An Etchells, for example, will sail fast even with its rail in the water. You don’t usually need to depower the boat just to reduce heel because it is narrow and has a large, forgiving keel shape. Craig Greenwood and crew of Affinity (1059) re-joined the fleet after an extended Christmas break with a strong performance to take out Flight 3 from Feng Shui (1348) and Valsheda (950).
On another balmy Auckland evening, with the wind forecast to increase from an initial 12 knots, the crucial call was if and when to peel to a oilskin trouser and, as it transpired, your correspondent and the crew of Tortuga (779) went early: the breeze dropping to produce uncomfortably humid conditions on the downwind legs. This change was also evident on downwind sail selection and in race 3, Valsheda (950) showed an unmatched turn of speed under a reacher, while others soaked ponderously to the finish, to take a convincing win. The RNZYS race committee had set a shorter course than last week, producing some furious short tacking in a near-slack tide. The racing was thrillingly close, particularly in race 2, which might have belonged to anyone in a neck-and-neck sprint to the post. With the Auckland Champs only two weeks away, crews should be hitting their straps in next week's flight. We look forward to seeing a full complement out on the water. Results are here (flight) and here (series) |
AuthorAlex Webster is Auckland Fleet Captain and runs this website, so blame him. Archives
February 2019
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