Sunday, August 14, 2011

Day 5 Roared through the Master Standard fleet...



OMG!! Could it get any windier!?!?!?
San Francisco Bay delivered again today with big wind and waves in the second to last day of the Laser Masters Worlds. Today was a day I was hoping to move up in the standing with only four races left. With the big breeze showing who was boss even before we left the beach.. that was a tall task. Maybe just keeping right side up show be my goal for the day after yesterday's RAF score. An RAF is a retire after finish or start but not finish score for a race. The points are the number of entries (55). With two throw outs from your twelve race series, I most definitely will be dropping my RAF. I now have a small margin for error with only one throw out left. A single capsize in this competition usually means a score of twenty or worse. I see several boats each day that capsize even on the way to the race course is a good indicator of how challenging the conditions are for our division. Setting up the race course is being expertly accomplished by StFYC each day. It's been a battle for the race officers with the ever changing San Francisco Bay current. In the Laser Masters Worlds, the upwind legs cannot be more than 25 minutes, with the goal of getting approximately 60 minute races. The races are extremely hard work for the sailors, using their quads and core to hold the boat flat (ish) upwind, and then squatting down inside the boat on tip toe downwind to keep it stable. With an ebb tide and 20+ knots of breeze, the Race Officers can afford to make long upwind legs, thanks to the Laser's ability to surf downwind in sometimes surprisingly short - time wise - legs.

Our division, the Standard Masters had an upwind leg today that started near Alcatraz and went upwind with the ebb current to the Golden Gate Bridge. I looked up and could see underneath the Golden Gate! It was spectacular but there wasn't much time to enjoy it because I was in total survival mode and focusing on keeping my laser dinghy in control. I use the word "control" very loosely. Regatta leader Arnoud Hummel said, “We had the longest beat ever today, and I was hating the race officer, until I finished the downwind leg.” My race was going great.. Good start near the boat end. Height and speed kept me with the lead pack as the wind built to mid-twenties. We're racing more and more into an ebb tide which mean the current is pushing us up the course towards the first mark. This all sounds good to make a quick leg of the most demanding and exhausting part of the race.. but the ebb creates a wicked chop or wave every boatlength or so that is almost impossible (for me) to steer through. Correction.. I can get through it.. i just can't get through it without filling my cockpit full of water. The average amount of water I carry in my self draining cockpit is slow. I was told that 2 inches of water in a laser cockpit weights 35 pounds! I seem to sail upwind with 4 to 6 inches all the time. It's experience and technique that separate the best from the rest.. but I'm gaining both by just being up here. I rounded the first weather in 12th.. I sailed conservative on all the downwind and only lost 1 or 2 boat each downwind. I had enough game upwind to hold my place and scored a hard fought 16th place. The second the wind build to the strongest of the regatta so far (notice a pattern here?... I said that every day I've been up here!). We started the race in the mid-twenties and saw gusts maybe to the low thirties. Everyone was overpowered but some more then others. It really come down to where you sail and how often you see this condition to be good in it. Let's just say in Southern California.. we cancel races before it gets this windy! The race was going really well.. my strapped sail technique downwind seem as fast and functional as any in that condition.. I was sailing right around the top ten boat for the first two laps when one of the several huge San Francisco ferries lined me like a bowling pin. Is he going to move for me? I don't think so.. So I better tack and go the other way. A tack in a laser in 25+ knots on wind is never fun. It's an ticket to flip and you general only when you have too in that kind of breeze. I tacked and was head across the grain of traffic but it didn't seem so bad. One other boat was doing the same thing. So I continued in the direction. Unfortunately it turned out to be a costly move. I went from a solid 14th to 25th at a shorten course finish that finished us up at the second weather mark. Ugh! Oh well.. that racing! Last day tomorrow... Time to pull out all the stops! Peter


No comments: