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Chariad at the Patton Bowl - Manchester MA - June 2012 |
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The Patton Bowl was a very interesting and challenging race. We were great for much of the race and terrible for short but critical periods. We finished 4th out of 9 boats. The course was from Gail’s Ledge outside Manchester Harbor into Beverly Harbor almost to the Jubilee YC, out to Tinkers outside Marblehead Harbor, then to the far outside of Baker’s Island (Newcomb’s), back to Gail’s, back to Newcomb and back to Gail’s Ledge for the finish. Nineteen mile course.
We started in a very gusty NW wind and beat into Beverly Harbor. Rode the spin out to Tinkers. Close reached to Newcomb’s. The leg back towards shore from Newcomb started as a beat. Halfway up the leg a light sea breeze filled in and we put the spin up and were able to carry it to Gail’s. We beat back to Newcomb and then had another spin run to the finish. (Gen. Patton of WWII fame sailed from Manchester. His son was a general in Vietnam. One of the attached pictures is of Mrs. Patton (Jr.) showing a picture of the Sr. Gen. Patton and his wife sailing from Manchester.) We Were Great The first windward leg from Gail’s into Beverly Harbor was our best leg of the season. We were the first boat to the windward mark. Many of the boats in our class owe CHARIAD time on the handicap so beating all of them to the mark is a big deal. The reason we did well is getting a very good start, getting in clear air and staying there. Mary was very good at managing the main during the many gusts so we kept on our feet. During the two other windward legs, we were very successful tracking the wind shifts and staying on the lifted tacks. We were OK with staying on the headed gybes but not as tuned in as on the windward legs. We were aggressive about changing the sails as the wind changed. The biggest sail adjustment was getting the jib down quickly when the sea breeze came in and getting the spin up. We also got into the pattern of moving crew weight on the boat as we went through the gusts and light spots. We Were Terrible After we rounded the first weather mark in 1st place, we put up the spinnaker and died. All of the fleet passed us and we were quickly in last place – by a lot. Here is my best guess as to what happened. Before the race started on Saturday, we talked about our goals for these early races: learn the mechanics of sailing the boat and build our team work. The races will take care of itself. To be really competitive, the boat handling must become almost automatic. As we move to the next phase of the season, we must move away from focusing on boat handling to a complete focus on making the boat go fast and racing against the other boats. After we rounded the weather mark on Sunday, the spin went up in light wind. We were focused on getting the spin up and getting the jib down. We did a gybe shortly after the set. All of us were involved with handling the sails and not with sailing the boat – including me. In light wind, the boat stops unless we are aggressive about getting on the wind (pole forward and low), getting our speed up and carrying the speed downwind. Instead of being obsessed with speed and what direction we were headed, we were working on cleaning up the foredeck, closing the hatch, putting on the twings, making the pole height a little lower, sorting out the main sheets (these may not be the real distractions – but things like this) The racing gods only score us on boat speed and where we are headed. We are not scored on neatness. Every one of us must constantly be obsessed with making the boat go fast in the right direction. In this case, I needed to be focused on heading the boat in the direction to generate boat speed. The trimmers must be focused on instantly getting approximately the right trim for the wind speed and communicating about the speed relative to the targets. When we have the approximate trim, we can start working on the optimum trim. The guys on the mast and foredeck have to get the spin up and the jib down and get off the foredeck – straighten things up later. Being forward of the mast slows the boat. Only after we have the boat going in the right direction at optimum speed will we have one person quickly move around to close the hatch, move the sails, get the sheets moved, etc. SPEED IS THE PRIORITY. One more learning. The leg from Tinkers to Newcomb was a close reach with the jib. Ares is a C&C 40. They dogged us from close behind for the whole leg. If we had our sails trimmed properly, we were faster than them and moved ahead. If we stopped adjusting and tweaking our sails, they moved on us. In the windward/leeward legs, we do not get to have such long periods where you can clearly see the results of your sail trim. I mention this because the sail trim must constantly be changed as the wind and waves change. Winning boats are always making these adjustments. Losing boats are setting up the sails and then going along for the ride without realizing that each small change in the wind demands that the sails be adjusted. During this leg, my friends who do a lot of small boat one design sailing were focused on maneuvering on Ares when she would get closer to us because she had better boat speed. “Come up on Ares so she will not get an overlap.” Those observations are important, but my concern is that they may distract from what we can do to sail CHARIAD faster. PHRF racing is about sailing against your handicap rating. It is not about beating another boat with a different rating across the finish line. The one design racing against other identical boats were you assume that all boats are about the same speed does not translate well to PHRF handicap racing. |
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