So I spent the last 3 weeks in Tampa after a long month of October not doing much sailing. I sailed a Finn for the first 4 days, it was great conditions flat water and a nice 10 to 15 knot breeze. I was gearing up for my first Finn event coming up in New Orleans mid December.
Then it was time to get going in the Star we had 2 days of training prior to the start of the North Americans. Unfortuantly when the event started the wind stoped and the first two and half days of the event were plagued with light wind to no wind at all. The conditions where marginal for sailing at all and on day two we had a huge let down when we lost 20 boats in one leg. Brian and I were a little discouraged but we knew that we were sailing well and just needed to keep working to move up the standings. In the last 4 races of the event which were sailed in better breeze we had 3 top ten finishes a 10 a 6 and 3 this was good enough to move us into 9th place a recpectable result coming back from a very disappointing race 2.
Star sailing continues to be my favorite one design sailing. Much of this has to do with the people that populate the class and my crew Brian Sharp. Brian and I have spent a lot of days on the water together - the improvement from day one has been huge. Everytime I go star sailing all I think about when the event is over is the next Star event I can sail.
11.23.2011
8.27.2011
Talisman Verve Cup 2011
About 10 days prior to the verve cup I got a email from Wally Cross asking if I was available to sail the verve cup as tactician for the Talisman B/C 58 designed to the IMS rule. It sounded like a good opportunity to help support a partial Quantum customer (jibs and spins) so I said let's do it.
I really didn't know what to expect from the boat but I did know we had a good crew and Dave Lamere preparing the boat so that was all positive. When we finally lined up for racing on Friday it was clear the boat sailed well upwind and we just had to find a way to hang on to the TP 52 Natalie J and Rogers 46 Bretwelda in order to do well. The common thought from the crew that had sailed the boat before was that unless the other boats had enough wind to plane we would be ok. The wind rarely went above 10 the whole weekend and the races we struggled most were the light wind races 6 knots or less. Talisman is heavy I believe close to 30,000 lbs compared to the 52s or 46 which I'm guessing come in around half that in displacement So when the breeze was light the lighter boats accelerate much better in each little puff they find. It seemed we missed those little pushes unless we get a sustained puff that allowed us to build our momentum. That was the case on Saturday's single light air where the 52 NJ could take every little whisper of wind and turn it into boat lengths we struggled to convert. It became clear after two days of sailing that the top 3 boats each had favorite condition that allowed them to sail at or above their ORR rating number. This was not shocking considering how radically different our design was compared to the newer 52 and 46.
The last day we had the best breeze of the 3 days. Lucky for our boat it still was moderate enough that the Rogers 46 and TP 52 couldn't get on a step downwind and we were able to square our spin pole a bit and sail deep. During race 5 we covered Bretwelda the 46 on the first beat tacking right in front of her near the port lay line. We ended up rounding the top mark overlapped with NJ who had come in on the starboard layline. It was a drag race downwind but a gear failure (a shackle on the new spin sheet opened during the only jibe of the leg) caused us to sail passed the layline with a wrap in the spin in a knot before we could start heading to the mark. It was a little disheartening.
This made race 6 a must win and it changed our focus from Bretwelda to Natalie J who had just raked up 2 race wins in a row and was sitting in first place. Off the line we started to leeward of the pack with NJ, Bretwelda and defiance in a group on our hip. We had a small left shift and a little better pressure. As NJ, Bretwelda and defiance peeled off we picked our spot and tacked to port. We had a nice lane on port and what must of been better pressure because at a 30 degree compass course it was clear to me that the shift was going right. So we pinned our ears back, dropped the traveler and worked hard to get over the top of the boats to leeward and beat them to the right hand side. We were able to do this and had the first cross by several boat lengths on NJ. We tacked on them and Bretwelda as they came across on starboard with the goal of herding them to the starboard layline and leading them to the weather mark from there. This worked out well and we rounded ahead by 500 yards or so. The downwind was all about hanging on to our lead and not doing to many gybes. We did one gybe and we were laying the left gate downwind. NJ was clearly faster downwind and had a better lane on port being to weather the smaller fleets after a gybe set maneuver at the top mark. They gybed on the starboard layline to the left gate and it became apparent that they had a piece of us and owned the inside position at the leeward mark. We reached up to force a decision and minimize the overlap. As NJ gybed we bore off and dropped our spin early. Many of the farr 40 fleet where also converging on the leeward mark so our entire goal was to sail wide and have a tight exit from the mark and not get stuck on the outside. We executed this about perfect and we were able to sail inside of NJ and roll the on port. Then we matched tack with them and continued to inflict as much bad air as we could. As we continued to extend Natalie J did a 270 degree turn from starboard to port I guess to "clear a penalty" from a foul at the leeward mark with a farr 40. In reality this isn't how you clear a penalty, usually a penalty that occurs within 3 boat Lengths of a mark requires a 720 degree turn to exonerate. And with the exception of match races (where a 270 degree turn will clear a penalty) in all instances and classes at least a 360 degree turn is required.
From that point on the race was in hand and we covered till the finish. We finished 50 sec clear ahead of NJ. A nice way to end the event and take the regatta after a tough start to the day.
Thanks to Bruce Aikens and the crew of Talisman for having me onboard and to Wally Cross for setting it up. The Talisman had some real nice Quantum sails our 1.5 spin was very versatile and the code 1 and code 2 jibs covered the us well between the 5 to 12 knots we sailed in over the weekend.
Im currently standing by for breeze at the star district 4 champs in Gull Lake Michigan. So hopefully we get sailing here soon.
-Jack
8.05.2011
Transpac daily updates from Patches
Here are the emails that came from the Patches to friends and family as we made our way accross the Pacific:
July 10th 2011
Patches is off and running! The first 48 hours are always a bit of a shocker getting back into the offshore mode. This year was very pleasant with between 15-18 kts off the bow and clocking to due North.
Seas have been calm, in the 4ft range.
We started on Friday and held the #2 all the way out and around Catalina. Yesterday we put up the Jib top at 7:30 am with the genoa staysail. We held that setup for a while, finally pealing to the masthead A3 at 4:30am today and to the A2 at 11:30am.
Life on the boat has been… wet! We found ‘some’ leaks we didn’t know we had. And we made some leaks that weren’t supposed to be there! Regardless, we are all in good spirits and are heavily into crossing the ridge.
We have set ourselves up a little South to cross the ridge. There is a bit of a ‘hernia’ in the isobars along the ridge just north of us. The ‘hernia’ is most wide about 150 miles north of rhumb line. As we get lifted out of the ridge, it looks like we skirt it pretty close. We’ve been setting up to try and enter the ridge a little further south so our exit is a little further south than the routing software puts us. We are just a little worried that pocket of light air might grow and push south, especially with the big High so far North West. The only direction it has to go is back south and east! Hopefully our push south of the fleet keeps us in good breeze and gives us better angle on the gybe in a few days.
Of course the southerly route causes us to sail a little extra distance, but will be offset by the better breeze and gybe angle.
All of this has set us up in the standings well. We are currently sitting in 2nd in Class and 10th overall. With the lighter breeze down the course, we are hoping to chomp up the 70’s in the final ½ of the race. We are currently sitting further South than our fleet, so we are hoping as we spin around the lighter air to the North, we begin to extend forward and cut miles off of our distance to the mark.
Regardless, it is what it is and it be what it be! We are making the best of the situation and pushing hard. We are keeping all our maneuvers safe and slow.
July 13, 2011
Well, the last 36 hours have been interesting. After yesterday’s report, we know we are entering the last 3rd of the race in good position.
We have decided to play the west side of the fleet to leverage the easterly shift as we get closer to the Hawaii. The wind has lightened and we set a strategy to stay pointed towards the west side of the course. If the wind allows us we have been stepping down to the south to remove some of the leverage from the sleds that began gybing south yesterday night.
Over the last 24 hours the wind lightened even further and we have struggled against the front running sled, GI. We are now about 6 hours behind them on corrected.
Fortunately, we did well on the three other sleds that worked south, taking approx. two hours out of each of their leads.
We are now 20 minutes out of 2nd place overall. This has left us in a strong position entering the last 1/3rd of the race.
There are about 9 boats who are all reasonably close up here in the front pack on corrected time. We have a solid game plan and are going to stick to it as we get closer to the finish. The wind will be increasing to the 12-14kt range tomorrow and 15-16 on Friday. We are trying to set ourselves up to take advantage of the building breeze but not lose control of our class competitors. The sleds are a bonus if we can pick a few more of them off, but we don’t want to lose any leverage on our fleet.
That’s about all for now. We will keep updated tomorrow.
July 14, 2011
Well, we have played our cards and it’s time to put the pedal down. No matter how hard it was to stick to the strategy as we slogged along at 8 kts and watched the sleds peel off to the south, we stuck it out.
The goal was to cross a day long finger of light air to extend out into the west side of the course. Getting to the west side of the course would allow us to take advantage of the shifting wind and leverage against anyone who took the short term gain with more wind south.
At this point, we aren’t sure how it will completely turn out. The move cost us about 1.5 hours on the entire sled fleet, but we are now going 15kts in 16kts of wind with a wind angle of 70 degrees.
By comparison, we were sailing all yesterday in wind angles in the 40’s and 50’s and doing 8-9 kts of boatspeed in 10kts of wind. Painful and frustrating, especially when the fleet tracking showed the sleds doing 10.5-11kts of boatspeed after their dive south.
By extending out to the west, we have been able to gybe into more wind and point closer to the finish line than the boats that were south of us. (At least that’s how it appears from here, we will see if that’s actually true!)
Now we are pretty well set for the run to the finish. We have 720 miles to go. The winds are oscillating between 65-70 and we are forecast to have winds shifting further east to 75 degrees which will further head us at the finish line.
After a tough day yesterday, Jack finally had enough. Starting on our first evening watch, as the breeze (finally) began to increase, he grabbed the mainsheet and has been constantly pumped the main with the kite. If there are 4 on deck, one person drives, one trims the kite sheet, one grinds the kite winch and the 4th person pumps the main sheet by hand.
If there are 5 on deck, the same driver, trimmer, grinder setup, but the main sheet is pumped with a pedestal grinder. Much faster!
That’s it for now; wish us well as we row this thing to the finish line.
We need to take about 2 hours out of the sled fleet and 6 hours out of the overall leader. We currently sit 1st in class and 5th overall as Holua (SC70) gained a place on us. We have continued to gain on our fleet, with the exception of Vincetori, who leveraged South with the sleds.
Until tomorrow
July 15, 2011
The drag race has begun.
The plan was to get out to the West of the fleet and leverage the
easterly shift. We have succeeded in getting to the West of the fleet
and have gotten a good header this morning with more coming tomorrow
morning.
The next three places in our fleet have spread out on the course.
Katana, in 4th, is directly behind us at 177 miles. Vincetore , in 3rd,
is in front of our port beam, about 82 miles to the south east of us.
Criminal Mischief, in 2nd, is between the two extremes and dead upwind
of us and 140 miles away.
We are comfortable with our position on our fleet as we are protecting
the right side of the course from Vincetore's leverage to the south
east. Criminal is dead upwind, and will need to sail further distance
(and longer time) to cover the 140 miles. We will be keeping an eye on
them and possibly step down to the west one more time to take full
advantage of the heading breeze as we get a little closer to the mark.
The Sleds have done a great job in this race. The front running 4 sleds
all took a dip south for more breeze a few days ago, and have been able
to maintain (and slightly increase) their lead as they have compressed
back to our line. It was a gamble for both of us as to which strategy
would prevail, and while the outcome is still yet unknown, I am tending
to think the southerly route back on Wednesday may have been a tick
faster.
We will find out for sure when the full header solidifies for us
tomorrow and we can accurately gauge.
July 10th 2011
Patches is off and running! The first 48 hours are always a bit of a shocker getting back into the offshore mode. This year was very pleasant with between 15-18 kts off the bow and clocking to due North.
Seas have been calm, in the 4ft range.
We started on Friday and held the #2 all the way out and around Catalina. Yesterday we put up the Jib top at 7:30 am with the genoa staysail. We held that setup for a while, finally pealing to the masthead A3 at 4:30am today and to the A2 at 11:30am.
Life on the boat has been… wet! We found ‘some’ leaks we didn’t know we had. And we made some leaks that weren’t supposed to be there! Regardless, we are all in good spirits and are heavily into crossing the ridge.
We have set ourselves up a little South to cross the ridge. There is a bit of a ‘hernia’ in the isobars along the ridge just north of us. The ‘hernia’ is most wide about 150 miles north of rhumb line. As we get lifted out of the ridge, it looks like we skirt it pretty close. We’ve been setting up to try and enter the ridge a little further south so our exit is a little further south than the routing software puts us. We are just a little worried that pocket of light air might grow and push south, especially with the big High so far North West. The only direction it has to go is back south and east! Hopefully our push south of the fleet keeps us in good breeze and gives us better angle on the gybe in a few days.
Of course the southerly route causes us to sail a little extra distance, but will be offset by the better breeze and gybe angle.
All of this has set us up in the standings well. We are currently sitting in 2nd in Class and 10th overall. With the lighter breeze down the course, we are hoping to chomp up the 70’s in the final ½ of the race. We are currently sitting further South than our fleet, so we are hoping as we spin around the lighter air to the North, we begin to extend forward and cut miles off of our distance to the mark.
Regardless, it is what it is and it be what it be! We are making the best of the situation and pushing hard. We are keeping all our maneuvers safe and slow.
July 13, 2011
Well, the last 36 hours have been interesting. After yesterday’s report, we know we are entering the last 3rd of the race in good position.
We have decided to play the west side of the fleet to leverage the easterly shift as we get closer to the Hawaii. The wind has lightened and we set a strategy to stay pointed towards the west side of the course. If the wind allows us we have been stepping down to the south to remove some of the leverage from the sleds that began gybing south yesterday night.
Over the last 24 hours the wind lightened even further and we have struggled against the front running sled, GI. We are now about 6 hours behind them on corrected.
Fortunately, we did well on the three other sleds that worked south, taking approx. two hours out of each of their leads.
We are now 20 minutes out of 2nd place overall. This has left us in a strong position entering the last 1/3rd of the race.
There are about 9 boats who are all reasonably close up here in the front pack on corrected time. We have a solid game plan and are going to stick to it as we get closer to the finish. The wind will be increasing to the 12-14kt range tomorrow and 15-16 on Friday. We are trying to set ourselves up to take advantage of the building breeze but not lose control of our class competitors. The sleds are a bonus if we can pick a few more of them off, but we don’t want to lose any leverage on our fleet.
That’s about all for now. We will keep updated tomorrow.
July 14, 2011
Well, we have played our cards and it’s time to put the pedal down. No matter how hard it was to stick to the strategy as we slogged along at 8 kts and watched the sleds peel off to the south, we stuck it out.
The goal was to cross a day long finger of light air to extend out into the west side of the course. Getting to the west side of the course would allow us to take advantage of the shifting wind and leverage against anyone who took the short term gain with more wind south.
At this point, we aren’t sure how it will completely turn out. The move cost us about 1.5 hours on the entire sled fleet, but we are now going 15kts in 16kts of wind with a wind angle of 70 degrees.
By comparison, we were sailing all yesterday in wind angles in the 40’s and 50’s and doing 8-9 kts of boatspeed in 10kts of wind. Painful and frustrating, especially when the fleet tracking showed the sleds doing 10.5-11kts of boatspeed after their dive south.
By extending out to the west, we have been able to gybe into more wind and point closer to the finish line than the boats that were south of us. (At least that’s how it appears from here, we will see if that’s actually true!)
Now we are pretty well set for the run to the finish. We have 720 miles to go. The winds are oscillating between 65-70 and we are forecast to have winds shifting further east to 75 degrees which will further head us at the finish line.
After a tough day yesterday, Jack finally had enough. Starting on our first evening watch, as the breeze (finally) began to increase, he grabbed the mainsheet and has been constantly pumped the main with the kite. If there are 4 on deck, one person drives, one trims the kite sheet, one grinds the kite winch and the 4th person pumps the main sheet by hand.
If there are 5 on deck, the same driver, trimmer, grinder setup, but the main sheet is pumped with a pedestal grinder. Much faster!
That’s it for now; wish us well as we row this thing to the finish line.
We need to take about 2 hours out of the sled fleet and 6 hours out of the overall leader. We currently sit 1st in class and 5th overall as Holua (SC70) gained a place on us. We have continued to gain on our fleet, with the exception of Vincetori, who leveraged South with the sleds.
Until tomorrow
July 15, 2011
The drag race has begun.
The plan was to get out to the West of the fleet and leverage the
easterly shift. We have succeeded in getting to the West of the fleet
and have gotten a good header this morning with more coming tomorrow
morning.
The next three places in our fleet have spread out on the course.
Katana, in 4th, is directly behind us at 177 miles. Vincetore , in 3rd,
is in front of our port beam, about 82 miles to the south east of us.
Criminal Mischief, in 2nd, is between the two extremes and dead upwind
of us and 140 miles away.
We are comfortable with our position on our fleet as we are protecting
the right side of the course from Vincetore's leverage to the south
east. Criminal is dead upwind, and will need to sail further distance
(and longer time) to cover the 140 miles. We will be keeping an eye on
them and possibly step down to the west one more time to take full
advantage of the heading breeze as we get a little closer to the mark.
The Sleds have done a great job in this race. The front running 4 sleds
all took a dip south for more breeze a few days ago, and have been able
to maintain (and slightly increase) their lead as they have compressed
back to our line. It was a gamble for both of us as to which strategy
would prevail, and while the outcome is still yet unknown, I am tending
to think the southerly route back on Wednesday may have been a tick
faster.
We will find out for sure when the full header solidifies for us
tomorrow and we can accurately gauge.
7.22.2011
4.17.2011
Daredevil wraps up Charleston race week in 11th
It was a successful week for the team on Daredevil. This was my first time helming a Melges 24 in over 2 years and it took a couple races to shake off the cobwebs but by Race three I was feeling pretty good. The team came together well and stayed focused on improving every race. USA 659 had good speed despite using a 2nd hand Quantum main that was over a year old. I was happy to see the Quantum Sail last so long and still delivery good performance and shape. We did have a new Jib and running Asail. The mast and sails fit together well and we were well sorted after one day of tunning. This was key because on the short courses you needed to have your head out of the boat or you were going to miss something. We are not heading to the worlds which would of been fun and I think we could keep improving on our results there. Instead the boat will head back to the midwest and sail in 4 events in and around the great lakes. We will wrap up with the US National Championships in Lake Geneva. The goal of this event was to set a good starting piont for reaching the end goal of winning the US National Championship. We have a lot of work to do to sail in the top 5 but I think it is possible. Thanks to the crew of Arthur Anosov and Dave Jochum for the hard work and effort. Most of all thanks to owner Tim Anto for making the whole event possible.
4.15.2011
12th after 4 races in Charleston
It was a perfect day in Charleston for the Melges 24 Class. We had everthing Charleston is known for strong currents, a challenging race course and good breeze. The courses were short and each race was only about an hour long. This kept the fleet close together. Boat handling was key and by the 3rd race we were starting to get it right. We have a lot of room for improvement. At the moment the forcast for saturday is looking a little ugly with strong winds and thunderstorms. For now we are happy with a solid start in this 47 boat fleet.
4.14.2011
Charleston Race Week
I have been in Charleston since Monday evening getting ready for Charleston Race Week. I am sailing for Tim Anto on his Melges 24 "Daredevil". We have a new team with two days of practice under our belts. There will be 47 Melges 24's racing this weekend and many teams ramping up for the Melges 24 worlds. The competition will be very good. I am not sure how it will all pan out but so far we have used our time here well. We have Star sailor Arthur Anosov calling tactics, Dave Jochum on the Bow and Tim on downwind trim. Looking forward to the next three days and 10 great races in Charleston.
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