TomKeogh
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Oct 21, 2008, 6:11 PM
Post #4 of 4
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Re: [The Publisher] SONAR NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP 2008
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Challenging Times at Seawanhaka
The 2008 Sonar NAs was an unforgiving test of skill and patience - and that's putting it kindly. The wind was light and unpredictable, the current often trumped the breeze and the fleet was full of great teams who never gave up. Scores varied widely from race to race and often from leg to leg. It was not uncommon to gain or lose half the fleet from one mark to the next. Hats off to Peter Galloway and the Fast Forward team for their showcase performance of steady and consistent results that were all but unobtainable for the rest of the fleet. There was little question that the strongest team won. By the numbers, Fast Forward counted all of their races in the top five. Nobody else kept all of their finishes in the top ten. Brian Hayes, racing on 4th place Spitfire with Craig Sinclair, commented that the score sheet looked like a Bingo card.
Several competitors have shared their impressions about what worked well and what didn't work so well. All agreed that the conditions were challenging, confusing and often frustrating but despite the difficulties there is some consensus on what worked best. There were compliments for the Race Committee and their diligence with the trying conditions. Peter remarked at the awards presentation that he still didn't understand how the Race Committee was able to get in the six races that were completed. Bill Lynn reported that after three days of struggling to go fast, he finally succeeded and got a speeding ticket on his way home.
Jud Smith raced with runner up Tyler Doyle and his team from Marblehead. Jud stressed the importance of starting cleanly and keeping options available. "In big fleets I always find it pays in the long run to have a clean start in the middle part of the line, especially in shifty conditions. This way we could at least start in the front row and then decide if we should continue on starboard or tack to the right if we needed get to the right side. Our two worst starts were ones we tried at either end in traffic."
Galloway, on the other hand, struggled at the starting line more often than not. “Our game plan was to be conservative and that caught us all too frequently pulling the trigger a second or two too late putting us in the hole after the start”.
Rick Doerr on Team Paradise said it was not enough to just have a plan—execution was the key. "Its important to not allow too many boats to get between you and your game plan. In the races we didn't fare well, we allowed too many boats to get between us and the favored side." Rick is recently home from the Paralympic Games in China and said that the conditions at Seawanhaka were very similar to sailing in Quingdao. "Pressure was king; finding it and staying in it were the challenge."
Current was a factor in all of the races and by day three many teams thought it was a more important variable than the breeze.
Doyle's team dominated the final two races with a second and a first. According to Jud, "We basically played the current the last two races and that paid off. I always like to determine the current play first and then decide if the wind play overrides the current play." Rick agreed that current was a big factor. "While there was pressure, we sailed toward the current favored side so that once the pressure dropped off, we weren't getting hurt as bad." Jud described the disruptive effect that the current had on the apparent wind, especially on the downwind legs: "It is important to understand what is happening so as not to try to sail hotter angles to build speed when in fact your just sailing faster down current away from the wind and the mark." Peter’s observation was that “it was near impossible to predict the favored corner given the tide versus the wind factor so we elected to stay near the middle until we could discern a trend, then favored that side of the course”.
Many teams experimented with a looser rig setup than has been customary. Galloway and Sinclair were probably the most conspicuous adopters of the new approach but many teams raced with longer headstays and looser shrouds. There seems to be agreement on its effectiveness in the light conditions at the NAs. Most agreed that the jury is still out on its suitability for breezier conditions.
Rick described it this way - "As far as our set up, we tried to power up the rig with more headstay sag. The balance there is the potential pointing loss you get if you soften the rig too much." Jud agreed - "In this regatta we did not race in over eight knots so the backstay became an important and subtle adjustment to monitor as the wind speed changed. With the longer headstay lengths being used, the backstay becomes a key adjustment for supporting the headstay upwind until the wind speed increases to 8 knots and above and the mainsail leech with mainsheet tension then does most of the work supporting the headstay."
When all was said and done, the teams that sailed conservatively and avoided the big risks came out with the best results. Peter said it best. “We knew we had good speed so we did not have to take chances. Instead we worked as a team to keep the boat moving at all times and keep our heads out of the boat.” It is a lesson that Long Island Sound teaches over and over again. There was plenty of talk on shore about how the October conditions are supposed to be different and that next season we'll get the breeze we deserve. As Peter concluded his remarks at the awards presentation he invited all the competitors to return to the World Championship next year at Rye where he promised - "It's going to blow 25 knots every day."
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