This weekend's racing was back on Strewth for the Typhoon Series. I was backup trimmer - my couple of races involved cutting sheets, grunt work on kite gybes, and ensuring the cockpit was tidy. Unfortunately this means I have no real concept of what was happening tactically, so not a great deal to share. I did notice a couple of things though, mainly in the quiet periods on the starboard approach to the line!
The fleet is split into IRC divisions that group the fast 40ft-ers with the 52ft-ers, so it's quite a wide range of boats on the startline. With two W/L races, everyone was keen to get perfect starts and hence were grouping at the biased committee boat. Absolute carnage appeared to ensue! We avoided by being a little bit late...
I've always felt that relying on a gap to open up on a crowded start line is a slightly risky strategy, as the likely result is a slow start on the second row. However, good decisions from the back of the boat seemed to result in two starts that were actually reasonable. I think my impression of a bad start is still influenced by being able to accelerate very quickly (i.e. dinghy/small boat sailing) whereas being up to speed before the start in a big boat is very beneficial. We managed to shoot through the committee boat end gap in the first race, and found one mid-line in the second.
However, the most exciting part of the day was the "new" 3DL mainsail on the boat. It had a very large roach, but given its shape it looked like a delight to trim. It always surprises me at how versitile the new sailcloths are - the roach of this sail would twist off in a gust (gust response helps the boat maintain course and speed in large variations of wind strength) but then the sheet tension could be increased to bring the roach back in and create a flatter sail shape. All with the same initial lightweight sail shape! The other remarkable thing was that this sail could be picked up by one person on their own. Amazing stuff.
So all in all, a good day - we finished with two second place finishes and one line honours gun. I also felt a little better about last week's trimming performance when it was discovered that all the batterns in the jib had been put in the wrong way round...
ah so nice & so happy for all Strewth crew, David, when seeing Strewth got 2 red flags in a roll at the prizegiving.
ReplyDeletelovely & sure this is a pure Strewth record for her own hk racing history, good job you all & sure the new 3DL main does count.
although Strewth did seduced other 40 or more boats in various to follow Strewth lead & went upwind to right side of the course both races start, at our class Div C did using the port pin end start especially second race.
& yes, especially we four 35footers were really sticking together at left side of the course(or might be we all raced slower than your Div A in all), but for sure we really raced like match racing, & so nice the weather but so hard for such light wind... all we have is 5 good good crew for 7 men jobs to be done...
& agree, being up to speed at the 0sec & clear wind absolutely the key to win, instead of doing all those covering or up others to lose your boatspeed is the wrong place wrong time is the key to lose too, correct?
if the 72footer racing this coming big weekend, you'll see exactly the same strategy to start, really 2nd row starting big bit delay yet they always find clear space clear wind in full speed to overtaking all smaller boats in a flash second... let's see... cheerscy