A Fresh Look at the Gate Start

It's been a while since I did any race committee; not being a member of any sailing club at present. I gather one of the issues with RC work during this pandemic and the need for social distancing is the amount of people needed on the main committe boat. It's all for the start.    You need a fair number of people to make sure the start goes well, most of them there to run flags, check time, watch the line. After that probably two people would suffice; the PRO to make decisions and someone to handle communication with the mark boats and rescue boats. I wonder if it's not time to revisit the gate start as a way to get the number of RC people off the main RC boat. The gate start is not a very popular option; I would venture to say, across the board, a very much unused starting option. Except for the 505 crowd, who love it and use it exclusively for their big events.

The very basic concept of a gate start is one of your competitors comes across on port tack, you duck his stern whilst sailing on starboard tack and you are off. I've done this basic start when out practicing with a group of us, but must admit I've never done gate starts in any regatta. Of course a proper gate start is somewhat more complicated than that but over the years the 505 crowd have done a good job of ironing out the wrinkles. I did locate online race instructions for the 505 gate start at the 2015 Buzzard Bay Regatta.

I do think the gate start is a good option for getting the RC crowd down to manageable proportions. As far as the argument that I've never learned how to do gate start, I can't do a gate start, file it under all the other "never done this" arguments that have been rapidly trashed in this pandemic.

Here is a video of the 505 pathfinder leading the way during the Europa Cup:

The B Course

In poking around Tillerman's new blog I came across his post on the RS Aero Florida State Championship where he published the course diagram for the regatta; it is another version of the Harry Anderson course, this one having the tight reaches at the bottom of the course.

The normal Harry Anderson has the tight reaches at the top of the course. (Making it look like a backwards P, some sailors have affectionately referred to it as the Dolly Parton course.) I'm not sure what the advantages of having the tight reaches at the bottom, maybe more fleet separation? It does place the start line toward the bottom of the course for a longer first beat (I'm going to refer to this RS Aero course as the B course - for Big Booty.)

Tillerman also mentioned in a comment to this post that the RS Aero's have used a Z course.

"[The]Z course which has three reaches - first leg beat followed by a starboard reach to a gybe mark with then a port reach to a second gybe mark with another starboard reach to a leeward mark. Enables you to have somewhat tighter reaching angles than a triangle course."

From Propercourse

The Z course definitely bumps up the reaching legs as a percentage of the total course.

Back in 1991 I was a PRO for an Olympic Training Event (Europe's, 470's) at West River SC where we ran a Harry Anderson course on the breezy day. The second reach was a beam reach and that angle did seem ideal for the Europes, not so much for the 470's who had to take down their chutes for the leg.

That version we ran in 1991 has morphed into my version of the Harry Anderson, the D or Dammit course.

The D or "Dammit" Course Revisited

Tillerman just posted about planing RS Aeros and courses designed for planing singlehanders. This brought to my mind the D course I modified* for just that and the unintended but humorous results when I sprang the D Course on the unsuspecting Classic Moth fleet at their 2013 Nationals (hence the moniker "Dammit" course).

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* Tillerman points out that what I've "designed" here is really a Harry Anderson course, a course that has been around for eons -  and he is right - but the D course is a Harry Anderson with modified reaching legs. (See Comments)

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I still think the D course has potential. For hiking, cat rigged singlehanders the fastest planing angles seem to be just below a close reach, or a course slightly lower than 90 degrees to the wind. I remember as a PRO back in the 1980's running a Chesapeake Bay Olympic training event and the Europe dinghies had something similar, though if my memory serves, they ran their close reach into an extra mark about 1/2 way between the windward and leeward marks. When the southerly came up, on that reach, the Europes really scooted.

The D course has a curly-cue rounding at the leeward mark. A starboard rounding might be better but I have found that racers are so attuned to going around marks-to-port that they get confused when you change this up.

I offer up the D course details in the following PDF. I'm always interested in what other racers or RC thinkers may come up with in designing planing courses for hiking singlehanders. I think one of the keys is to come up with the angle to the true wind your singlehander is sailing when it is planing the quickest. Data anyone?

Header Photo: Soling Frostbite from February 2014

I've mentioned this before but it's worth repeating; this blog is all about timeliness. I posted a header photo some time ago with keelboats running downwind under spinnaker but after I moved on to the next header photo I neglected to repost the previous one with a comment (as is my custom - not that anyone has noticed).

This photo is from the race committee I did at SSA for the Soling fleet at the end of February. Luckily it was on the one pleasant weekend of a brutal winter with temperatures in the 60's (Fahrenheit) and a pleasant breeze of about 15 knots. Race committee consisted of two or us but the wind was so steady that we were able to set the course and forget it - just bang off a couple of starts.

Some other photos I was able to snap from the stationary RC boat (since the starting mark was the leeward mark). Click on the photos to view in hi-res.

My good friend Mike Waters had his spinnaker halyard jam while sporting a nice lead. He had to sail a fair distance off the course before his could get the spinnaker down.

Sailing upwind into the winter afternoon sun.

The "D" or "Dammit" Course

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I've put more specific instructions on the "D" or "Dammit" Course in a later post on this blog.

Click here to read more about how I think the "D" course should be set up.

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As mentioned in a previous post, I was the race officer for the Classic Moth Nationals this past September. With such absolute power, I allowed at the skippers meeting that I might run a different course if the conditions permitted. One of my pet peeves about the normal windward/leewards or triangle course is that they don't provide for a truly fast planing reach for singlehanded dinghies (unless the wind is hitting near to upper teens, close to twenty). I remember running Laser races out of SSA in a good southerly sea breeze, firing off windward/leeward courses as normal, and hearing the comment on shore that the only time the Lasers got to blast reach that day was on the sail home.

Given that the Classic Moth National courses are short and station the race committee halfway up the windward leg, I came up with the "D" course; a course I would use if I deemed the wind was strong enough to get the Mothboats planing. This course is not new; I remember using a variant of this for Europe Dinghies (back when they were an Olympic class) out of West River Sailing Club in the 1980's. It is called the "Reverse P" course (originally the Harry Anderson course - refer to the comments) and essentially shoves a triangle in the upper half of the course and a leeward leg in the lower half of the leg. This allows for close to a beam reach on one leg, the ideal planing angle for conventional singlehanders. As an added benefit, for me (yes, sometimes it is about me), this course would have the competitors round the RC boat, allowing the RC crew to watch and dissect some racing up close.

A rough drawing of this course shows the top heavy configuration of the two reaches, a feature that has prompted some jokesters to nickname this course the "Dolly Parton" course. To acknowledge this moniker, for the Classic Moth Nationals I renamed the "Reverse P" course the "D" course (helped by the fact that the "D" flag is not used for any other RC function and is available to designate a course).

Note: I changed the course layout as shown on the drawing. The leeward mark rounding was changed to a starboard rounding instead of a port rounding to avoid the curlicue.

With the competitors fully briefed, I was itching to try it out. The wind had been strengthening during Race 1 and before Race 2 there was the beginnings of just a hint of whitecaps. The "D" course was subsequently signaled and off they went, unfortunately in a breeze that now looked as if it was softening up. On the first reach the wind continued dropping and then just shortly after Joe Bousquet, the leader, rounded the reach mark, the wind around the RC boat completely dropped away and shifted to the south, making for a beat on the second reach. Joe was able to round the RC boat after putting in one tack but the rest of fleet got caught in a very light, frustrating, fluky beat around the RC boat. At one point, George, the brains behind the blog Mid-Atlantic Musings, loudly opined from his Europe Moth, "I don't know about this "D" course, I'd say this is closer to a "Dammit" course!" Other competitors bitched and moaned as they flopped from one tack to another but the fleet eventually drifted around the RC boat. For the third race, the wind returned to the original direction, although lighter, and I reverted back to the more conventional triangle courses for the rest of the day.

I got some good natured ribbing about the "D" course over the beer cups that night. But the "Dammit" Course is now out there and I'm itching to use it again; somewhere, sometime.

The grizzled old PRO, fiendish schemer of the "Dammit" course, on station at the Classic Moth Nationals with his able assistant Elisabeth (picture stolen from Greg Duncan's Facebook page).

How many races can you get in a day?

I finally got on the water the weekend of June 8,9, not sailing mind you, but as Vice Chair of Severn Sailing Association's Spring Series for Lasers and a Vanguard 15 invitational. Winds were light, very shifty on Saturday (up to 40 degrees which makes it tough for the RC folks, as soon as we shifted the weather mark the wind was somewhere else). Sunday was a light breeze, steady this time out of the North with lots of motorboat chop.

The racing format was intercollegiate short course with races timed around 20 minutes in length and starts ran with the 3 minute sound system. Most of the race committee felt pretty chuffed that we had succeeded in getting 18 races off for the three fleets in about 2 and 1/2 hours. I, who have volunteered over at the Naval Academy dinghy regattas, chimed in to say that getting 60 races a day was no big deal for the collegiate crowd. We had Ramsay Key on board the Sunday, an intercollegiate All-American in 1998, sailing for Tufts University. He mentioned that when he had raced in the Wilson Team Race event at West Kirby SC, over in Merrie Old England they would routinely get 300+ races off in three days. He went on to say that the intercollegiate clubs on the Charles River, Boston (MIT, Harvard, Boston University) decided to do West Kirby SC one better and ran a team race event with 400+ starts in a three day period using 44 collegiate dinghies and lots and lots of eager college volunteers.

Mindswimmingly large numbers!

We did have a professional photographer jump in one of our crash boats for Sunday's racing. Tara Roberts has kindly consented to send me a couple to post on Earwigoagin. More photos can be viewed over at Tara's website.

A Vanguard 15 start:

Two Lasers finishing with the Maryland State House peeking out over the treeline.

A typical packed Laser start. We did have the current helping us keep this unruly fleet below the line. No general recalls for the entire weekend!

And finally a photo of the "Favored End", SSA's main committee boat. Your blogmeister is standing on the cabin top (in a lime shirt) intently monitoring the fickle wind, unhindered by trying to figure out more swirls and vagaries if I had remained with the crowd down on the aft deck.

#16 - Bumpity Bump

As mentioned in the previous post, I did race committee for the J-24 East Coast Champs run by Severn Sailing Association. It was supposedly a race committee by invitation only which meant it was mostly greybeards and it seemed that we all brought our own wind-sticks and handbearing compasses. Many a lively discussion cackled over the radios about what the wind was doing and should we move the marks or not - credit Mike Waters, PRO, with taking all this cacophonous feedback and making command decisions that turned out to be correct.

I was on the pin boat - the leeward end of the starting line was to be the anchored SSA RIB - the idea being we could control the unruly J-24's with another set of stationary eyes at the leeward pin. I've never done this before; usually when I've been tasked to call the leeward end of the line I've done it from a moving motorboat that we are trying to hold on station - never an ideal situation. Friday we had very clean starts but Saturday the class got more aggressive, we had around 4 to 5 general recalls - still not bad by class standards; which worked out as we were trying to bang out 4 good races that day to conclude the regatta in front of approaching Hurricane Sandy.

From the vantage point of the pin boat, I got to watch the antics of good old bow number 16 who was trying the very risky starting tactic (in this caliber fleet and with a keelboat to boot) of coming in on port and tacking to leeward of the fleet with about 30 seconds to go. The first start on Saturday he made a complete hash of it and ended up slightly below and squeezing up mightily to avoid hitting the pin boat - which he ultimately failed to do. Bumpity bump he went along our inflatable bow and then his rudder fetched up on the anchor rode. In a superb feat of athleticism, one of the crew, lickety-split, leaped over the aft stanchion, straddled the rudder with one foot on top and used his extended leg to push the anchor rode down off the rudder. Quite remarkably, this was successfully accomplished in a couple of seconds and #16 was off to the races. Dutifully we radioed the main committee boat that J-24 #16 had hit the pin boat. We expected that he would take a penalty when he finished, as was written into the race instructions.

Number 16 hadn't learned his lesson for he tried the same maneuver on the next two starts. He didn't hit the pin boat this time but he did create a nice cluster of J-24's, clotted together, all downspeed at the start and straining to get around the leeward pin boat.

It was a grueling day getting four longish races (not only were we the pin boat but we traipsed up and down the course, filling in where needed especially in changing some marks).  I got out of the club around 5 o'clock, went to the beer store to get some storm stock and back to the house to get some food. Somewhere after 6 o'clock, Mike Waters called on my cell phone and wanted me to confirm that #16 had indeed hit the pin boat as the skipper was now claiming that he didn't, only that he had snagged the anchor rode which is not a foul. I confirmed and volunteered to come back to the club but he could tell in my fatigue and I could tell in his fatigue that this was not a battle we wanted to fight. Plus, everyone was hustling to de-rig their J's and leave that night as everyone had places to go and things to do to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. So I didn't drive back to the club and #16 gambled again and got away with a bald-faced lie. I've seen this happen before in sailboat racing, mostly in the protest room, but it doesn't get any easier.

Tip Of the Hat to Number 16 (I have a Filipino friend who maintains that karma always returns the favor) - The Bonzo Dog Band, "I Love to Bumpity Bump".

Race Committee in the Shadow of Sandy

I was a member of the SSA race committee running the East Coast Championships for the J-24 class; the regatta took place on the weekend before that Monday when Sandy slammed into New Jersey, about 160 miles to the east. I had done this regatta last year and the last weekend in October finds the Chesapeake Bay normally empty except for the J-24's and the IRC folks. Not this year. This year a constant stream of boats criss-crossed our course, making their way to safer hurricane holes; most working their way north towards Baltimore. On Friday, the Sandbagger's Bull and Bear sailed north with their tenders following. I was told this was their normal routine as they winter over in a barn up on Gibson Island. My friend Tom was steering one of them; he gave a cheery wave as the wind was just right for these oldster's to have a delightful sail. On Saturday, two trimarans were spotted going north, one larger one loafing along under main only and a Sea Cart 30, fully powered up, coming from West River and smoking north. Larger cruising motor yachts zipped about. In the afternoon two of the large dinner/party yachts that ply the Annapolis Harbor and Severn River with bands and booze were seen steaming purposely north in tandem. Several container ships were going south, towards Sandy; strange to our eyes but the assumption was they knew what they were doing. Saturday's clouds started at a normal height, coming from the northeast with openings here and there to let glorious fall sun play on the water, but, later in the day, the clouds started socking in low with an ominous dark band sitting to the south, always a portent of something brewing from the ocean side.

The class and club had cancelled Sundays racing as the forecast was for a full on gale commencing before the advancing hurricane. Luckily, winds never got much over 12 knots on Saturday so we hustled and got in four races to wrap up the regatta. We got off the water just before dark and on my way home I stopped at my favorite beer store to replenish my storm stock.

Race Committee and a Coaching Tip

This is one of those years where I've served on Race Committee before I've actually got one of my boats out sailing (hopefully before July 4th - I'll let you know).

Not that I'm complaining. It's not all work, work, work for Race Committee. In watching bits and pieces of the races we always hope to derive some amusement from the dinghy racers, those screw-ups, yelling, near-collisions (nobody likes to see real collisions). Well that weekend, the Johnson 18 fleet was up to the task of amusing the Race Committee - almost to a man they refused to take their spinnakers down until they were abreast of the leeward mark, which resulted in much flailing, boats turning upwind with jibs half out, poles not retracted, this all happening usually at a great distance downwind from the leeward mark. One poor fellow who made a complete hash of it, sailed way out of the three boat circle, reentered it going upwind, only to meet a fellow competitor who had been behind but had done a better job of rounding. Fortunately no collisions but the rule implications on having someone exit and then reenter the three boat circle makes the rule experts giddy with analysis.

I was thinking of wandering over to the Johnson 18 area of the dinghy park after the racing and mentioning how to correct this, but then I thought better of it; nobody wants a Mr. Know-it-All interrupting the post race drinks. Wait a minute, I have a blog - I can offer advice from afar (but should I?, spinnaker screw-ups are always a good source of merriment on the Race Committee.)

I'll be a nice guy, a tip for the Johnson 18 Fleet;

Start taking the spinnaker down far enough away from the mark so everything is tidy and shipshape when you enter the three boat circle! Figure out where that needs to be given your experience. Start taking the spinnaker down at say 8-9 boat lengths and as you get better tighten this up (or if you still can't shave around the mark with everything percolating, lengthen this out). 

Race Committee for the Lasers Again; 2011 SOL Regatta

As much as I bash the Lasers, it is a class I enjoy supporting even if I don't enjoy racing them as much as I did long ago. Again this year, I volunteered as Vice Chair for Severn Sailing Association's spring Laser bonanza, the Sunshine Open Laser regatta, or SOL; held this past weekend.

I teamed up with good friend, PRO Mike Waters, as we had teamed up a year ago for the 2010 Atlantic Coasts. Despite the optimistic regatta title, this year the weather was not so cooperative. Races were cancelled on Saturday as a massive storm crept up the East Coast with big breeze coming right up the Severn River and throwing large breaking waves on the Naval Academy seawall. The SOL regatta, being a non-event on Saturday, why shouldn't it become a YouTube video, like so many other mundane going on's that make their way onto YouTube nowadays, (from Jon Deutsch).........

On Sunday, the breeze came up with the sun, the wind was was blowing hard through my dogwood blossoms when I pulled out of my driveway and was definitely howling through the rigging as the Lasers rigged up at SSA. Conditions looked very marginal but once on the water the breeze moderated throughout the day and not too much mayhem was seen on the course. We eventually got four races completed in a shifty Westerly breeze that ended up more to the South by the end of the day. It was an older Laser crowd out for this mid-April regatta... I have no idea where the fit and ready 20 something Laser sailor was, but they weren't in attendance for this regatta. A fair number of older geezers were in the Laser radials and they had a much closer battle going on within this fleet (compared with the Standard fleet), even though the skipper weights probably ranged from 130 lbs to a whopping 200 lbs. Finally the 4.7's were right in the thick of things with the Radials when the breeze was up. Another report and results from the District 11 website can be found over here .

Crash Boat Operation; Crash boat design

I guess RIB's (those V-bottom inflatables) would make the best crash boats but I must honestly say I've never operated one as a crash boat. (I did recently work out of SSA's RIB doing mark boat work, the soft sides do make it nice when you're leaning over, hauling anchors and marks.) The really difficult part about rescues is dragging sailors out of the water and onto the rescue boat, particularly ones who are so exhausted they can not help pull themselves into the boat.

I was looking through Professional Boatbuilder and they had one of those design contests for motorboats using low powered, more fuel efficient 35 hp outobards. One design by Morabito caught my eye. It was a Classic looking runabout but also had a low freeboard back deck platform, ideal for rescuing sailors in the water! Why can't we see someone build something just like this for a crash boat? (This back deck would also be ideal for waterskiers, probably why Morabito added it to her design.)



Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #3; Be Prepared to put a Rescue Swimmer Overboard

Many crash boat operators seem to be content to work from their crash boats. But there are times when you really need to put a competent person overboard to complete a rescue. The key is the safety of the competitors. If the skipper, or crew, or all of them are exhausted or cold or dazed they should be retrieved onto the crash boat. If the person in the water is inexperienced, they need help. I usually take a complete sailing kit on the crash boat. I've changed into a wetsuit and gone into the water several times to right a boat because the crew is borderlne hpyothermic and incapacitated, or the boat is waterlogged and needs a steady hand on the tiller while we tow it. Ideally in the really rough stuff, it would be nice to have three on a crash boat with one designated as a swimmer if need be (I know this rarely happens). And all crash boat operators need to have a good sailing knife readily at hand.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Design

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #2; Go for the Mast

When the crash boat goes in for a rescue it's usually for two things; a breakdown that has rendered the sailboat unsailable or a capsize situation that has rapidly deteriorated (a capsize, then a righting, to another capsize, to another righting, to a capsize, to a very tired crew sitting on the daggerboard). For that second situation, when I'm faced with an exhausted crew or a crew that has had difficulty in righting the boat, I make a beeline for the mast. My goal is to get the mast pulled up and then laid across the crash boat. It may take some work (I'll even work extremely hard to pull up a mast of a boat that may be attempting to go turtle) but it makes much shorter work of a rescue. For a tired crew, the key is to get the sails down. It is extremely difficult to get the boat righted, a crew onboard and the sails down, without capsizing again. If one can get the mast stabilized on the crash boat, it makes it much easier for the crew to work at the halyards from the water. The boat is stable on her side, the sails aren't flapping a mile a minute. The crash boat operators can help lower the sails, or if need be, release the halyard shackles if there is a problem with the halyards being snarled up. Many times it makes the situation more manageable if the crash boat operators just takes the sails from the capsized boat and stuff them onboard the crash boat. Once the sails are off, getting the boat righted and under tow is much easier. I've gone for the mast rescue on dinghies as big as a Lightning and catamarans as big as a Nacra 20.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Crash Boat Operation; Tip #1; Work from upwind

When the wind is strong and the waves are lumpy, this is most often when crash boats are needed for rescue, and this is also the worst possible combination for low speed maneuvers in an outboard motor craft. Many times I've seen crash boats come up from leeward, make several passes and then after gunning the motor, ending up smacking into the capsized sailboat. If I'm operating a crash boat, I make my approach from upwind, place the crash boat abeam of the wind, switch to neutral and then drift down to the capsized vessel.

The advantages;

1. Downwind drift speed is slow and controlled. If I need to make contact with the capsized vessel, I'm approaching at a slow enough speed where it is easy to grab onto the capsized boat or, if need be, fend off.
2. I can assess the situation without worrying about jockeying the boat. I can count heads. I can talk to the crew on the boat or in the water without yelling over a motor in gear.
3. The motor is in neutral. No fear of wrapping lines or injuring someone in the water.
4. If I decide I need to be somewhere else, it is easy to shift into gear and slowly motor sideways away from the capsized boat.
5. It's also easier to throw a line downwind.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

The Lowly Crash Boat Operator
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Race Committee; The Lowly Crash Boat Operator

It's winter in North America; the season of the yacht club seminars. Lets see, there is always a seminar about how to improve your racing results (probably several of those), a seminar about the racing rules and one for proper race committee procedure; but I have never, ever seen a seminar about the best ways to run a crash boat. Even our hallowed NGB, US Sailing, has yet to put together a course on crash boat operation! Odd, because crash boat operation is such an essential part of safety for the sailors in a regatta. "Ah!", you say, "No big deal in running a motor boat to and fro, righting capsized boats and plucking those hapless dinghy sailors from the water." Well, it definitely is a bigger deal than most clubs plan for. Operating crash boats safely and effectively in big winds and big seas takes quite a bit of skill and experience. Unfortunately in most U.S sailing clubs, the crash boat operator is the low man on the race committee totem pole; they are usually the volunteers with the least experience. And to compound the problem, most clubs plan on just two crash boats, no matter the size of the regatta. Things can go south quickly when two crash boats with inexperienced operators are faced with multiple boats down!

I've done a fair bit of crash boat work (though now, I too am mostly consigned to the main RC boat these days). There are things that work and things that don't work as well. There needs to be some national discussion on best crash boat practices, maybe even a crash boat manual drawn up. And these procedures should be taught every winter!

Well at this point, I was going to drop into a well done YouTube video by an English club on crash boat procedures. The video had just popped up in the last week, prompting me to climb onto this soapbox. Unfortunately, after getting all this verbiage out, I found the post had been taken down. (Sigh!!)

Well not to worry. This subject is certainly worthy of a thread of future posts. I would like to hear of other experiences with crash boats, either as an operator or as one being rescued; good and bad.

Links to my other crash boat posts;

Crash Boat Operation, Tip 1
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 2
Crash Boat Operation, Tip 3
Crash Boat Design

Race Committee in the Rain....Again!

Last October I was Vice Chair for the Lightning Frigid Digit Regatta.... at SSA.... in October. We had an unusually cold weekend, temps just barely climbing into the 40's and constant, constant rain, and solid breeze. Conditions were so bad that a regatta that normally attracts 40+ Lightnings only got 18 to actually show up to the club, and a reduced 11 or 12 making it out to the starting line. It was most miserable for the RC folk. I have a mishmash of old foul weather gear and my selection for that weekend was woefully inadequate. My 30 year old Line 7 vinyl top was not up to the task, eventually transmitting enough moisture by a mystery osmosis to keep everything wet underneath.

I, the cheapskate that I am, did reluctantly open my wallet over the offseason for some new Henri Lloyd foul weather gear. Luckily, it seems, as I volunteered for the US Navy Collegiate Women's Regatta this weekend. Saturday, solid rain in the morning (Annapolis was to end up with 2.3 inches), temps slightly higher in the 50's, solid breeze in the morning giving way to erratic and light winds in the afternoon. Sunday, the rain threatened but never delivered and the breeze remained subdued. The Henri Lloyd worked well.... thank you, thank you! modern waterproof fabric technology. But my hands.... I have an old set of Gill neoprene gloves with leather palms.... wet and stayed wet. I guess I'll have to revert back to those old style rubber gloves that all the sailors in-the-know seem to be using now.

There was a strange meterological phenomenom that I can't recollect seeing. It happened on Saturday afternoon. Wind was predicted from North to North East, typical of a low pressure system off the coast. And that is what we had for most of Saturday until a low cloud bank appeared to the South and pushed it's way North against the prevailing wind. When it pushed through, the wind switched about 150 degrees to the South for about 20 minutes. When the cloud bank ended up north of us, the wind reverted back to the original direction. I need to talk to one of my meterological friends about that micro-weather puzzle?

I did have my small digital camera out with me and, where I felt I could sneak it in, I did some filming. Small digital cameras and their so-so lenses make grey days even greyer... but I'll give you some of the random clips from the Race Committee perspective.

PRO for the regatta was Lieutenant Ben who did an excellent job.

US Naval Academy's Womens Fall Regatta

Last weekend saw me volunteering for the USNA Womens Regatta. I was on the start boat and boy, do you fire off a lot of starts; 36 just on Saturday. Collegiate RC is barebones; use the Ollie for time and signals, fly an orange start flag from the start boat, fly the Individual Recall flag when needed, use a loud hailer often. Because you are under a time constraint to get races off, you may wait for one or two races to confirm the median wind has shifted before moving marks. It is fast paced for an RC.

Just how good and how practiced these collegiate sailors are was driven home to me on Saturday afternoon when the wind dropped to about 10-14. With probably hundreds of starts already under their belts this season, these sailors know exactly where the line is. With under ten seconds to go the entire fleet was luffing on the line, at five seconds to go, bow down to get some speed, at 1.5 seconds punch up to the line. In the 10-14 knot wind range, the punch up is very synchronized, the entire fleet ends up about 1 foot over the line at the gun; this happens so fast and is so even that, of course, we let these starts go. Starts in more wind were not as synchronized; control becomes an issue, ditto with light air where the acceleration is not there. The awareness of where the line is and control of these dinghies is Very Impressive!

Chris of Sailgroove was there, filming .

I had two daughters that participated in collegiate athletics; I've witnessed how tough women can be in sport but this toughness continually amazes me. On Sunday, I noticed one of the Laser Radial sailors sailing around pre-start with one foot, wrapped in a tight lace up bandage, elevated on deck. I asked my compatriot, Midshipman Taylor, if she had injured it on Saturday and he said no, she injured it before the regatta even started!

Lets go to the videotape. Sailgroove interview of Caroline Wright.

Oops! the embed function went away on this video. Video can be viewed here

Let's dominate the 20 breeze! Tip of the hat to Caroline.

Staying Alive; How much should the RC do?

A post over at Tillerman's blog highlighted a man overboard incident at the recent Star North Americans.

The incident in a nutshell;

• Elderly Star skipper, way at the back of the fleet, falls out of the Star in a broach.
• His crew cannot sail the Star back to him and the skipper in the water has an inoperable inflatable life jacket.
• The skipper in the water is close to going under when the skipper of a nearby dismasted Star swims over towing a spare life jacket and keeps the man afloat until the Canadian Olympic support RIB shows up.

Tillerman's post has the link to the original post and the subsequent discussion. Most of the discussion centers around the

• skippers culpability; he's too old to be out there, he's wearing a life preserver that was clearly inadequate.
• the response when the crew's VHF distress call was picked up at the club (but not picked up by the RC).

Well folks, when you are organizing the race committee, let's just shitcan the personal responsibility argument. Yes, in a perfect world, all or us are wearing life preservers that work and our boats are immaculately prepared to handle 25 knots of wind and we are all in superb sailing shape but the reality is that all of us at one time or the other have got into trouble on the water; sometimes it is a fine line between getting out of it on our own or needing assistance .... many times sailors out on the race course are inexperienced, over confident, over their heads. Bottom line, if as RC you had to rely on an outside boater to perform a rescue, then you have had a failure as an RC, a bigger failure than not setting the starting line properly or flying the wrong flags.

My questions to Cedar Point YC;

You had two Stars in distress in the same area; one flailing around with one sailor and another dismasted and, as the story's been told, a Cedar Point YC crash boat never made it to the site. A fellow competitor and a coach boat had to perform the rescure.

• Did Cedar Point YC have crash boats for the Star North Americans?
• If they did, were they tied up with other rescues? Meaning was there inadequate rescue resources for the number of boats racing?
• Were there any Cedar Point RC personnel watching the race course and keeping track of the distressed Stars?
• Why did the Cedar Point RC need to be alerted by VHF radio from the home club about the incident?

These are the most important questions the RC need to address.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. crash boats are usually an afterthought in RC planning and are usually manned by the most inexperienced volunteers.

Phone Call on Sunday Morning (Sept 13)

Sunday morning and I was just about to put my head around which project of many I wanted to tackle when my good friend George called. Turns out that my old club, West River Sailing Club, was running the Laser Districts. This had sucked up all of the RC folks, leaving a scheduled Sunday Fall Series for Flying Scots without anyone to run their races. I owe, I owe (Big George for previous work on a shed) so it wasn't hard to say yes, particularly since, according to George, I was the last one on the list. Sunday Series start at 1 pm. so this left some time to do some wet sanding on the Classic Moth, Tweezer, before moseying on down to Galesville.

It was a gorgeous day, the sky peppered with low lying cumulus, lazily making their way to the south. The engine for the one remaining whaler at the club started right up, never a sure thing for club boats this late in the season. I gathered up two hippity hops with anchor rodes, a spare Ollie was found and a start flag attached to a PVC pipe. There wasn't much gas so I made a detour upriver for Hartges Yacht Yard where I found they had closed the gas dock (argh! things change when you haven't been on the river for the summer). I backtracked to Pirates Cove gas dock, filled the tank, putt-putted another 1/4 mile (6 mph restriction) and then opened it up for another 1/4 mile to get to the race course. I had ten minutes to spare for the 1 pm start time.

The Race Course for the WRSC Sunday Series is little over 1/2 mile from the club, tucked into a little bay butting up against the Smithsonian Rhode River Research Site on the North Shore with the entrance to Rhode River marking the Eastern limit to the course area.

A light, shifty Northerly was going to give some trying conditions. I got the weather hippity hop down in what looked like a good upwind spot (though in tracking the shifts over the afternoon, maybe 50 feet to the left would have centered the mark more). I was able to plonk the start line outside the direct line freeway into Galesville (never guaranteed in this area; many times the wind forces the course to include dodgem of high speed stinkpotters and clueless sail cruisers).

I got three races off (WL, WL, finish downwind), lounged around on the bow of the whaler for the afternoon (when RC duties didn't call) and soaked the day in.

After the racing, on the way back in, I spotted what looked like a Dragon sailing back into the harbor. Had to take a detour to look at such a Classic but as I drew closer I saw it was a Luders 16, another very pretty Classic. Had a conversation with the skipper; built in 1954 and restored recently in Virginia and from what I could see it was a great job that was done on her. A wave goodby and putt-putt back to the club to put the Whaler and all the race committee accoutrements away.

Back on shore and some socializing. Flying Scot sailor, Gabor, told me he had bought a beater 505 for singlehanding and he was enjoying it immensely (the jib is roller furling). I didn't ask if he was singlehandedly trapezing as he is an older gent.

I also ran into another good friend; WRSC member Bob B. who had just gotten back in from the last race of the Laser Districts. He is over 70 and sailed in the Radial division with all the kids. Needless to say he got crushed and his back was also complaining quite loudly. Both of us have shared a campsite at the Mid Atlantic Small Craft Festival the past two years but I'm not sure I will be able do it this year.

Amazing what a unexpected phone call on Sunday morning will bring.

From the View of the Race Committee; Finn Europeans

Scroll down and read my diatribe about those who push the start line and, lo and behold, what pops up today but a YouTube on a Race Committee dealing with a rambunctious Finn fleet. Race 3 start of the Finn Europeans courtesy of the TheFinnChannel . This video captures the difficulty of identifying those over the line ..... from the video soundtrack ... Right now the boat that is the problem .... I can't tell! Looks like they got them away on the second start.