CMRC Debrief June 2009

Overall a great job by everybody, sailing as a new team and our first time together in a true match race event I felt really good about the team work and the attitude of everyone onboard. This made the sailing really fun and everyone remained great friends while working towards the goal of improving and performing up to our potential.

I am going to go through the different aspects of the races piece by piece to identify areas where I feel improvements can be made:

Starting

Time and distance – I need to do a better job with time back to the line, we will be able to dictate the tempo of the race and control our position better if our timing is better. I would like to work on controlling our speed and sailing full speed toward the line and timing it very carefully so I start getting in my head if we are early or late or right on time.

Pushing – We need to do a better job pushing our competitor while remaining under control and in a strong position. Too often on Sunday we were too aggressive trying to get the hook and draw a penalty the outcome was we received penalties or we put ourselves in weak positions. We can push to get into a nice safe controlling spot to weather and then let our trimming, timing and driving work for us. Must remember the goal is to start even and in a position too execute our upwind strategy.

Dial up – When we enter on Starboard and dial up I think we can do a better job holding our position to weather of the port enrty boat. I think Don’s team did a very good job of this. In our training I would like to get into more downspeed maneuvers and dial ups. When we entered on port I thought we did a very good job escaping and getting back into a control of the start, good job by Nate and Dave in those situations.

Build angle and acceleration to gain distance in the prestart – Sometime I felt that we were not driving trimming or hiking as well as we could have been to get the separation. When we were chasing I thought we did a better job closing distance and staying right in the lead boats quarter wake.

Overall starting was strength but as we sail against better teams we have to do a better job being under control and conservative in our choices in the pre-start.




Upwind

We had good upwind speed all weekend. There was not a team out there that was able to hold a lane on our hip off the line. We also did a very good job executing our strategy sailing the other boat to the longer layline and then pressing on them the whole way to the weather mark.

Positioning of tacks – We can improve our tacks by making sure that we find a nice flat spot to make the turn. We can also do a better job of identifying which direction the wind is shifting if it is left we can extend longer on port before setting up the loose cover and vs versus. I saw bill do a nice job of this in the last race.

Technique - In breeze where keeping the boat flat is most important to acceleration out of the tack centering the traveler and having the vang set to control the leech in the flatten I think is that way to go. Tacking and dropping the traveler doesn’t depower the boat enough to flatten in anything above 14 knots. The jib needs to come in no luffing, no back wind in above 14 knots. The only way to improve our tacks is to do more in a variety of conditions and understand the different adjustments for the condition. In breeze if I already have the main sheet in my hand I can go straight to hike instead of leaning back into the boat to get the mainsheet out of the tack. I am sure this was factor in our tacking issues on Sunday. If we find a flat spot to tack the turn up to head to wind can be paced slower with the rudder. The boat will hold its pace through a very slow turn if we can find flat water.

Lay lines I felt between Nate and I we did a real good job on identifying where the laylines were and using them to our advantage.

Mark Roundings

I think our crew work got pretty tidy as the weekend progressed we made good adjustments with the changes in velocity. At the leeward mark the boat that can get cleaned up first and have the whole team hiking has a strong advantage. If we are leading in the downwind this means an early drop whenever possible and getting as much sorted before the turn to head upwind. I think our team handled the chute better then anyone else in the regatta. Including Don’s team who had a complete cock up at the leeward mark in race one with a big knot in the halyard.

Keeping the boat flat around the leeward mark in breeze was fast. We have to make sure that jib is luffing 30% to 50 % as the bow swings up into the breeze this goes for circles in the prestart as well. Speaking of circles I think we can back wind the jib harder during this maneuver to help push the bow down.


Downwind

95% of the time our downwind communication was good and we protected our position well. There were a few tough spots where the trailing boat was able to bring pressure from behind but over all we did a good job staying between our competitor and the finish.

One area we can improve on is understanding where the lay lines are downwind in relation to where we are on the course. This way we can protect our lead safely without engaging the trailing boat, which can be risky.

In tight spots we have to continue our communication loop so that decisions can be made using the best possible information.

Any errors that we made during this event can be traced back to making aggressive decisions without having complete information. Patients, patients, patients!!!

Conclusion

We accomplished our goals for this regatta. We earned good points for a 2nd place finish and dominated for 95% of the event. At the same time we have a lot of room to get better and continue to keep our rate of progress at a higher level then our competitors.

Miami OCR

1/24/09

The past three days I have been in Miami getting ready for the Miami Olympic Class Regatta. I have sailed three events in Miami this winter. Each event is a good learning experience. Miami OCR with be my 7th star event and I hope to place in the top 10 there are 31 boats sailing. I earmarked this and Bacardi Cup as two events where I wanted to have my best performance. We had the practice race today and I made several silly mistakes. Our boat speed was good and we started the boat well. I am racing with Federico Engelhard for the first time so today was a good experience for our new team. Racing starts on monday and I feel we have a good oppurtunity to do well.

Getting Started

Starting used to be my least favorite part of sailboat racing. Becoming a good starter requires practice and I spent the better part of last winter working on starting. Usually I was by myself using a mark or two marks and a two minute sequence. Staying inside the boat and pin laylines we would work are way slowly to the line and then accelerate to full speed and try to hit the line at zero. Sounds simple enough but if you do this drill enough you start picking up the skills needed to be a good starter. The first time I worked on this drill I was amazed at how bad at it I was, slowly I started to get a better feel for the time and distance. When I got this part down, we started mixing in defensive moves to protect our lane in the prestart, going bow down at an imaginary port tacker or executing a double tack to set up higher on the line.

In order to make use of this practice in a race you have to know where the line is, remain focused on your boat and the time and distance to the line, set up on starboard early with about 1 min to 1:30 left to the start. Then defend your position while remaining focused on your position in relation to the start line.

The video above shows good execution, that is a result of about 30 days of starting practice and plenty of trial and error. We are the star USA 8077 in the middle of the screen. When the video starts we are on starboard checking our angle to the line on starboard. This will give you an idea where the layline is and it serves as a final indication as to what phase the wind is in left shift or right shift. At the time we felt the right shift was on so shortly after the video starts we tack to port to head to the boat end of the line. I have a few things on my mind at this point. 1) don't sail past the boat layline 2) tack to leeward of large group of approaching starboard tackers and 3) get as close to the boat layline as possible while still accomplishing the first two objectives. We tack to starboard on the boat layline. I know we are in a good spot but there are a lot of boats in the area at the time. At this point I'm focused on controlling my speed and distance to the line. There are a lot of boats around but most are still reaching around at high speed and not on there final approach to the line so I am not too worried about them just my boat and the line.

At about 30 seconds to the start I get more leery of boats getting close to my lee bow or coming in from behind looking to establish a late overlap. So I keep an eye over my shoulder if someones coming a big bow down usually keeps them from getting the hook and the poacher will go further down the line. In this video you can see Eric Doyle make a late approach to the line and fill a gap one boat to leeward of us. There is one boat closer then I would of liked to our lee bow he hooked underneath us earlier in the sequence. I probably could of done a better job with him earlier in the sequence. He makes the mistake of getting to close to the line to early and leaves himself little room to build speed and momentum. We stay slow and use the last five seconds to build speed and roll the boat to leeward with our momentum. It takes practice to coordinate trimming the sails and turning the bow down enough to build speed quickly. Remember a boat on a close reach builds speed much faster then a boat closehauled or pinching. Also really hike hard to keep the boat flat and prevent any leeway.

Starting is mostly about having a routine that works for you and then repeating it every time. Setting up early on starboard helps you claim your spot on the line, measure the correct speed to the line, observe the last wind shift, then defend your position and finally accelerate to be at full speed or better for the start.

Racing Tips

As a GL 70 skipper, I think you have a bully pulpit to share your racing experiences with many racing sailors who are aware of and have seen the GL 70 Fleet at various racing venues. I think this blog can really grow and become a great relationship building vehicle for you by sharing things you have learned about yacht racing.

When you think about it, you have experiences none of the rest of us have had. At the age of 22, you signed on for a transatlantic crossing with people from other countries, 3 Pineapple Cups, match racing at Bayview, Ft Lauderdale to Key West aboard Decision, recruiting a GL 70 crew, running practice sessions, delivering a boat between races on land and water, son of a highly successful racer, who, I'm sure has taught you many of the important nuances of the sport.

My suggestion is to take a simple topic like "main sail trim" and offer the things you've learned about mainsail trim. Maybe you could post one topic per week and invite fellow bloggers to contribute to the discussion about mainsail trim.

I have conducted over 3,000 in person training seminars for Realtors throughout Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. I've learned that people always love and appreciate someone who teaches them something they can use. You have that opportunity with this blog.

By the way, what took you so long to get this blog up. What was it 2 hours?

Tom

Pied Piper GL 70 finishes 2007 season in good form

Pied Piper has won the last seven races of the 2007 Great Lakes 70 season, in the process winning the both 2007 Verve Cup and 2007 Bay Harbor GL 70 regatta. The Verve cup featured a combination of windward leeward courses 8 miles in length per race and a mid-distance race of roughly 28 miles with multiply legs of upwind reaching and running. Friday’s racing was picture perfect with a NW breeze in the 10 to 18 knot wind range. Part of our normal routine is to have at least one practice day prior to the three day regatta. Usually this day consistence of checking and adjusting our rig tune and making sure we work out all the kinks in our boat handling. We have become very efficient in working through this practice day and it helps get our team up to speed so we can start the regatta in good form. I think a good next step would be to involve another GL 70 as a tuning partner so we could do more testing and add a little more competition to the practice day. Another good habit we have developed is being the first boat out to the starting area. On Friday this was invaluable, we were able to sail upwind and downwind the length of the course and get a good idea of what wind shifts we could anticipate up the course.

Many of the small changes that we have made to the boat through the winter and this summer have begun to add up to great boat speed compared to our competitors. We led at every mark rounding during Fridays racing and our smallest wining delta was 38 seconds.

Our team is exceptional at coming up with new ideas to help improve performance, this is a credit to the various backgrounds of sailing experience and education on the team. The talk onboard and Friday evening didn’t have much to do with our performance that day but how we could improve and other small variables we could adjust to go faster.

Throughout the summer one of my pet projects has been revising our cross over chart. In many cases our work on the cross over chart allowed us to select a better head sail then our competitors in race 2 on Friday our entire class choose to sail with #3 jibs, we utilized our #2 genoa. We were able to match speed and sail constantly higher then the fleet. This chart was also very effective in the mid-distance race were there were many reaching legs. Throughout the summer we have continued to experiment with our code 1.5 asymmetric spin and found that the effective range for this sail is higher then we originally thought. Early in the summer we only utilized the sail into the 12 knot wind range. We have found that this sail is the best reaching sail in our inventory up to about 18 to 20 knots of true wind speed at a 125 to 115 true wind angle. In the wave chop on Saturday this sail was very effective as it was more stable then its symmetrical counter parts.

Next year I would like to work on developing a true light air VMG asymmetric spinnaker. The code A1.5 has found a very useful niche on our cross over chart as a powerful mid range reaching sail. This proved very effective in the mid-distance race where the last leg was reach into the finish I am certain that this sail allowed us to put more time on the rest of the fleet in this race.

The crew came together very well. Throughout the summer we have been able to sub in very talented sailors with our core group and continue to have great results. This is really a credit to the team atmosphere onboard. This weekend we added Gijs “Guinness” Gunneman and Tim Johnson to the mix and both contributed well. Tim and Ben Biddick worked on the navigation of the mid-distance race and Guinness was invaluable working with Dave Shriner on the rig tuning and calling out puffs and wind shifts on the downwind legs. Unfortunately the verve cup was the last event in the GL 70 2007 season championship it seemed that we were just getting the boat on track and the season was over. After some of the adversity we had during the Chicago Mac Race I am very pleased that the team has been able to pull together and win 7 consecutive races and the last two regattas of the GL 70 Season.

The GL 70 is already in the Pied Piper Racing Shed in Muskegon. This winter we have outlined several additional modifications to the boat to help our performance and hopefully keep us ahead of the class going into the 2008 summer season. Our goal will be to win the GL 70 Season Championship in 2008.
Thank you to the entire Team for a great 2007 – Ron Sherry, Mike Hoey, Dave Jochum, Ben Biddick, J.B. Shumaker, Brian Brophy, Bob Weisen, Andy McCormack, Mike Rehe, Dave Lamere, Stu Thompson, Dave Shriner, Kevin Savitt, Brian Smith, Adam Hollerbach, Perry Lewis, Tom Ervin, Eric Jochum, Eric Vigrass, Tim Johnson, Gijs Gunneman