Wade Edwards - 2/26/2005

I am delighted to share some thoughts on Saturday’s racing at the request of Dave Franzel, who finished the day one half a point ahead of us. He asked that I write this since he has already written three and he thought the sailing community would enjoy a different author for the week! My only experience in J 24’s dates a long way back (early 80’s), so I am hardly in a great position to write about techniques for getting the best boat speed. However, success this past Saturday, as is often the case in Boston Harbor, was not about speed.

The first race was a good indicator that we were in for an interesting day. The pin was favored heavily for the first start. As boats starting lining up and going for it, I noticed that boats that were closer to the boat were beginning to really accelerate on Starboard. We were pinned on port tack below the line and unable to tack onto starboard for the pin end, but I was happy to keep going on port and head toward pressure. We tacked after a minute, and as boats moved up the leg, it was clear that we were moving faster, and digging ourselves out of the poor start. We rounded in third, with pretty good separation over the next group of boats. The reaching leg was typical of many that we were to have that day. As boats moved down the leg and got closer to shore, the breeze faded. This really rewarded the boats that stayed low early. We stayed high early for clean air, and really looked good for the first half of the leg. As we approached the mark, we really slowed down and watched a group of boats sail up to us on the inside. Actually, a few came in very late and squeezed inside of us (good thing it wasn’t windier). We stayed high again on the next leg to gain clear air, also knowing that the breeze would build as we moved away from shore, giving us a chance to sail lower later in the leg without losing much distance. This strategy worked well, and we recovered to third. The rest of the race (day?) was about staying in phase and trying to stay in pressure as best we could.

The second race started with the boat end of the line being favored. Franzel and others got off the line a third of the way down, had the best speed and eventually took the lead. We started close to the boat, in traffic, with a narrow lane. We were able to hang on for the first couple of minutes, but eventually had to tack away before I really wanted. As is usually the case in BSC racing, good speed with a clear lane beat out better position on the line. I believe this is because:

a) The line is relatively short, so the advantage of line favor is minimal

b) we often sail in light air, where dirty air has a big effect on speed

c) flexibility to hook into shifts (on a short beat) is greater.

The third race we saw better pressure to the left and knew that starboard was on a major lift, so we started at the pin figuring that the odds of the wind going back to the left were pretty good. As the leg started, we looked to be in fourth, but the left shift finally came. We crossed the fleet with a 5 boat length lead. As we closed in on the mark, we were about 50 yards downwind on port tack, heading about one boatlength below layline. We were headed about 30 degrees, but I was tempted to gut it out and keep sailing to starboard layline. But I also had a little voice inside of me saying: “STAY IN PHASE - YOU IDIOT”. My mental gyrations were interrupted by my crew, who suggested that we tack. We did, and within a few seconds were further lifted to head directly at the mark on Starboard. We didn’t quite make the mark, resulting in two extra tacks. I looked back, expecting to see someone right on our heels, and realized that we had doubled our lead by staying in phase. We rounded in a slight puff, which I used to steer a very low course, in order to avoid getting nailed later in the leg, as we had before. We still got nailed. About two thirds of the way down the leg, we watched Paul Adams sail up to and by us about two lengths to leeward. As Ken Legler says, “reaching legs are challenging”! We should have taken John Power’s advice from the week before: “KTFBM”.

All in all it was a fun day. It is really enjoyable to see the progress that our relatively “green” crew has made during the past few months, with the help of my co-skipper, Fred Baker. This sport generates teamwork and camaraderie, which makes the money, time and effort seem easy.

Wade Edwards