DYC Wednesday Night Racing

[brianpickton]

The 5th of 7 races in the spring series last night was actually better than it looked from shore. We dragged the Committee boat mooring further out to seaward to help square the line (something that we should have done long ago) and dropped a pin to square it further, so of course just before the start the wind veered from SW to WSW, making the pin useless so we reverted to mark 11 for the other end of the start line, which helped. Moving the mooring also made the start line considerably longer, which seemed to disconcert many. One sailor commented that they hadn't seen a line like it since the Volvo Cup! We set this longer line to give the boats more room and thus more options at the start so naturally everyone is clustered right around the Committee boat seconds before the gun.

We all know that most sailors hate light air, but any lubber can get a boat moving in a breeze, it takes a real sailor keep it moving in light air. Last night the real sailors were out in force.

We had good pressure at the start, 8 to 12 knots, but because we had a forecast for it going light and South (Ha!) later we decided to set short courses for the C and D fleets, Start-C-11-C- Finish. With the threat of light air and possible rain I didn't want to send these 2 fleets across the basin or even far from the start, so last night was a windward leeward night for all fleets. A and B got sent across the basin with A sailing S-14-11-14-F and B fleet sailing the slightly shorter S-14-11-C-F.

C fleet was able to finish first in these circumstances followed by D, B and A. Just as the C fleet was finishing the wind indicator shifted to indicate that it was now blowing straight down, so these guys just managed to finish with decent pressure. The D fleet lost the good breeze but there was still enough light air to prevent it from turning into a total drifter. No less than 5 of the C boats were in contention for the lead on the final leg so it made for some good close racing to the line in that fleet. The D boats in the meantime had gotten a little more stretched out with some close on the heels of the C fleet while others finished among the B fleet.

In the meantime the fast A and B boats crossed the basin, returned to mark 11 on a spinnaker run and were headed back to their final windward marks in light air less than an hour after their start before it lightened up on them even further. The B fleet having the shorter course finished ahead of the A fleet where we saw the slower A boats catch some breeze on the Halifax side and catch up to the front of the fleet just before the finish, so the A boats all finished within just a couple of minutes of each other in what was now becoming a drifter at the finish with skippers following wind lines on the water doing better than those that sailed into the holes on either side.

IN A fleet there was an excellent finishing duel between Valour and Climax with Valour in the lead to leeward taking Climax up away from the line. Valour caught a little puff and ghosted ahead with chute full only to have Climax duck under their stern, get their own puff and ghost ahead to pass and ultimately to finish first boat to boat. Great entertainment for us on the RC boat and I am sure a big disappointment for the Valour crew.

Overall only one B boat retired before the finish, wanting to spare the RC from having to stay on the water longer waiting for them to cross the line after the rest of the boats were in. Considering we finished the night with light air, overall not a bad evening of sailing.

Brian Pickton

Brian Pickton

[CoolBreeze]

Gotta love duelling it out close to the finish line!! Great evening of sailing!! ;D

[glenn]

Gee. I never actually saw a sailboat demasted in front of me before... Not a pretty sight. I hope that's the last one. Of course I didn't have my camera tonight :-(.

[CoolBreeze]

who was it?

[runninwild]

It was Luna Rosa... There was nothing he could of did to avoid it. It was luckily there wasn't more collisions last night off our start. There was some pretty stupid moves by some boats on the start line. i don't like mentioning any boat names but Rebound almost caused a major collision between us and J- Rouette. Us coming across the line on Starboard about 10 seconds left to our starting sequence Rebound who is below us on starboard as well decides to tack on to port RIGHT on top of us. Luckily we were able to turn off avoiding a collision. We had to then tack on top of J- Rouette. Which then caused a domino affect. If people are going to be doing this on the start line they should not be racing but as for Luna Rosa he had no choice in the matter and it's to bad that Second Lady hadn't seen her

[CoolBreeze]

OUCH, sounds like I messed an interesting Wed night!!

[runninwild]

Hey Brian;

I do not understand your results from last night. It was made clear by you that the last leg to 14 was called off leaving the course, 14,8,14,8 Finish. Ourselves and Second Lady are the only two boats who completed the course, leaving the rest of them with DNF. Why in the results last night and posted on the DYC website do you have results made up for them. As well our time the same time as Second Lady's. Our elapsed time should be around 5 minutes ahead of Second Lady and the rest DNF giving them all an 8th place. If you could clarify this that would be great. We had already rounded 8 for the first time so it was too late to call off that whole second and last leg so I can't quite figure it out. If you could fill me in that would be great...

Thanks

[brianpickton]

Hi
The result is easy to explain: We ( the Race Committee) screwed up.

We screwed up because we were involved in trying to resolve some other issues surrounding the sailing program and did not have our heads into the race to the extent that we should have. It was our intent to shorten the course with the fleet sailing one leg, not two. We had lost track of Runnin' Wild and Second Lady and did not realize that you and the other vessel had already rounded for the second time. (Rounded 11 not 8. If you had rounded 8 you would not have sailed the course, but we know you mean 11 in your post). It was decided only after we realized that you had already rounded twice to award 1st and 2nd to you and Second Lady because we didi not have a time for you both, and post a result for the remainder of the fleet. Based on our understanding at the time we did it we thought it proper to score the race based on 1 leg, not 2. If it had been scored on 2 legs we would have let the rest of th efleet continue until the time limit had elapsed, rather than nullify the result for everybody else, rightly or wrongly. With respect to recording the same time for both boats, that decision was taken because we did not have a time for those two boats at the end of the first leg.

I apologize for the error and any problems it might have caused for you.