We American's are just finishing up our Thanksgiving feast weekend, Roast, baked, or fried turkey is the centerpiece and carving the turkey into white or dark meat pieces is all part of the tradition (and then add the gravy, stuffing, oyster or regular, mashed sweet or white potatoes, cornbread, vegetable casseroles of all sorts ..... well, you get the idea).
Segue into a sailing theme, in this case Olympic sailors carving their Lasers downwind. (Carving, in this case, a maritime definition borrowed from the surfers and meaning the radical changes in direction to stay on a wave.)
And surprise, surprise, an American in the lead in this one!
The US Intercollegiate Nationals (Womens, Team Racing, Doublehanded) is taking place at Cascade Locks on the Columbia River, Oregon. One can get the feel of the skills, practice and athleticism of the current intercollegiate sailor in the following video featuring roll tack after roll tack after roll tack. Video taken at the Navy 2010 Trux Umsted Regatta.
Tillerman (we seem to be joined at the hip recently) posted last year about a Downwind Laser Race in the Columbia Gorge . The Laser Gorge Blowout; eighteen miles downwind in 'NOO-kyuh-luhr' conditions. Drop me in this race and I might be good for two miles and then I'd be upside down, crying uncle.
A YouTube video surfaced this week of top Northwest Laser Grand Master Mark Halman doing the 2010 Gorge Blowout and a helluva downwind sailing lesson this old fart demonstrated for the cameras. Finished fourth as well.
Any singlehander can tell you that things seem manageable up until you capsize; if you keep capsizing and keep capsizing, strength, concentration, and the will to continue blasting out of control...... all these athletic responses rapidly depart. To keep it together for 18 miles, in these conditions, in a roly-poly Laser, is a remarkable feat.... for anyone, at any age.
Tillerman made the following comment to my post on the Pic of me sailing a Laser;
Hope you don't mind my making a suggestion: your traveler line is way too loose. The boat sails much better upwind with the traveler as tight as you can get it.
Thanks Tillerman! I've heard keeping the traveler block down on the leeward corner is fast even in the light stuff. Back in the days .... you know those days, we would keep a reasonable tight traveler on a Laser but not so tight as to completely saw through the wood tiller (most of us still had pretty deep groves). Not a problem today with the low profile carbon jobs. Why on the Laser do you need to park the boom over the leeward edge of the transom ... even in light air? Europe dinghy, Finn, Classic Moth etc. are keeping the booms more centered in light air.
No sooner did I post about Laser Carving Downwind than another YouTube popped up; this one of a Laser vs. a Finn downwind. As you watch the video you notice the Laser's course change is more radical than the Finn's. This is also one of Erik Bower's pithy observations; the Laser being lighter and more nimble than the Finn, there are more gains offwind for the Laser in the larger angles of up and down. That being said, the Finn class allows unlimited pumping when the wind is greater than 12 knots. Not sure if the wind is 12 knots but I would suspect the Olympic Finn sailors would be "air rowing" all the time in these conditions.
You may catch a glimpse of the dinghy ahead of these two, at one point rocking and rolling close to capsizing. This is a production RS300, longer, high aspect ratio fully battened rig, but the closest production singlehanded design to the narrow waterline Gen 2 Classic Moths. Mothist's who have sailed Mistral designs can sympathize. Sometimes the best way to get these Moths downwind is to eschew the fancy stuff, keep it bolt upright and steer for the mark.
Offwind sailing in Lasers has become very sophisticated compared to the 70's when I was racing. To facilitate surfing on waves, the top sailors have developed a radical carving technique of diving off by the lee and then heading abruptly up.
After TESOD racing, while munching on my dinner, I had the pleasure of talking offwind Laser sailing with a very articulate and knowledgable collegian, Erik Bowers, from the College of Charleston. Erik has aspirations for the Laser Olympic berth down the road but his explanations were so detailed he would make an excellent coach (he is spending the summer with the junior program at Tred Avon YC over at St. Michaels).
Here is what I gleaned from Erik;
Minimize tiller movement. Body movement and sheeting are the two keys. You must be balcanced in the Laser to facilitate rapid body movements.
Work perpindicular to the waves. This may not be the rhumb line course. If you are not sailing the rhumb line, you may have to work one angle harder to get back to the rhumb line.
Course change in Lasers can be up to +/- 40 degrees.
Heading up is mostly massive sheeting in. Erik grabs three handfuls of sheet to begin the head up and also in breeze, you need to throw your weight to windward. In lighter wind, you stay centered to help the Laser head up.
Body Movement fore and aft. If the waves are catching you, keep your weight forward, if you are faster than the waves, keep your weight back to keep the bow light.
This technique is mostly about feel and is hard to describe in words. Erik was bouncing around in his chair trying to demonstrate.
Here is a great YouTube video with Brendan Casey using onboard audio to give his description of how he carves a Laser offwind.
A YouTube featuring the Laser fleet during last Tuesdays weeknight racing at Severn Sailing Assoc, Annapolis MD, USA. Plenty of breeze and lots of action at the leeward mark as most of the fleet were gybing and rounding the mark in one fell swoop. There is also some shots of carving downwind. The level of experience in SSA's Laser fleet is considerable as attested by the small number of capsizes in these gusty conditions.
The fleet was about evenly divided between Radial and Full Rig as the Radial ACC Championships will be at SSA in just over a week.
We seem to be stuck on Laser sailing at the moment.
Over at Tillerman's blog he had a piece about roll tacking a Laser. Tillerman goes to a lot of clinics and I appreciate his passing on the coaching tips free of charge. I do know in watching some collegiate hot shots in the Trux Umsted regatta that they were very active in using a physical outboard lean/ hip bounce to maximize their roll tack in light to moderate air.
Last year, I borrowed a Laser for the weekday Tuesday night series. Typical very light air and in my first tack over to the starting line, I got stuck on the leeward side in attempting a roll tack, and capsized. Once the Laser rolled up, either my stomach muscles, or my quadriceps refused to work and I got stuck. I was glued to the side deck and the Laser came over on me. Needless to say, I was very hesitant to roll tack very hard the rest of the night .... more like a slight rock tack.
Let's go to YouTube.... This guy makes it look easy though it must be emphasized that the more weight you carry, the less movement you need to get a roll going. For the shrimps, you need to attack a roll tack more aggressively.
In the Robert Scheidt video posted earlier, you can see him giving a hip push to finish off his roll tack.
I must admit, this is all easier on a Gen 2 Classic Moth.
I've been on somewhat of a Laser sailing kick with my recent posts. Video on Laser sailing on YouTube pops up on almost a daily basis, Laser videos are proportional to Laser's popularity. One can hear my audible groan when, another one of what must be a thousand onboard cam or headcam videos on Laser sailing, gets posted . Conversely, out of the chaff, there are some video nuggets that are excellent and enlightening Laser videos.
Sailing a Laser upwind, particularly in wind and waves, is a horse of a different color. Because of it's flat hull, large daggerboard and smallish rudder, there is no groove to speak of. The Laser rewards a very physical, attacking style of sailing upwind. It's not just good enough to hike the boat very hard, there is fore and aft torquing of body through waves coupled with a precise and rapid, almost sculling, rudder movement.
Through the unrelenting eye of YouTube one can see how a Laser World and Olympic Champion does it and then an average Master sailor subjecting himself to a coaches video at the Cabarete, Dominican Republic Master Laser clinic.
First, Brazilian Robert Scheidt, 7 time World Laser champion, 2 Olympic Golds, 1 Olympic Silver;
Next, a Master sailor, who despite a good effort looks like a lardy lump compared to Robert.
I had grasped some of the torquing and sculling techniques of Laser sailing when I was in my 20's. Unfortunately in my 50's, my brain may be saying one thing but my upper thighs are screaming, my upper arms are trembling and I too, after a short energetic spurt, revert back to being a less energy intensive lardy lump on a Laser gunwhale (well not too lardy yet).
In a previous post about capsizing to weather , I mentioned I could have speeded things up by riding the daggerboard underwater. Lo and behold, someone has posted a YouTube on just such a technique. What follows is a demonstration courtesy of an Europe dinghy sailor.
Bald but my eyebrows are growing at a prolific rate. Sailed Windmills and Y-Flyers in the 1960's. Founded Miami University (OH) sailing team. Sailed International 14's and Lasers in the 1970's. Sailed International Canoes in the 1980's to mid 1990's. Sailed Classic Moths since 2002. Enjoy boatbuilding though I'm very, very slow at it (the Internet doesn't help matters). Name in real life: Rod Mincher
After choosing this username (Tweezer is the name of my Classic Moth), further research on the Internet turned up that Tweezerman is a corporate name for a line of pedicure products. Let me emphasize that I do not work for, nor endorse these products.
