Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Well if you missed sailing on Saturday or Sunday, you missed the whole bag. We had everything going. Light winds, big gusts, big holes, 180degree shifts, sailing from patch to patch and sailing right through some of the glassy spots.
We had four races on Saturday and six races on Sunday. Now the big news is I was counting the sixth race on Sunday—Listed on the Official Score sheet as the "FUN RACE"– Well Patrick Daniel got a second in that race and that had he and Charlie Jensen tied for third place for the day. Both had one second, two thirds, two fifths, and one sixth. We beak the ties then on the last race. Patrick had his second and Charlie had a 6. That wasn’t the end of it. The RC claims it was an extra FUN RACE and so labeled it. When Sam went out of his way to cross the finish line with out going to the leeward mark ( which was now the weather mark because of the wind shift) Charlie followed him. Gosh, because Sam is old and stupid is no excuse for Charlie.. THE RESULT is because I don’t want to cook and clean at home, the sixth race is dropped. Charlie Jensen is replaced in third place – remember he is the LASER CLASS FOUNDING MEMBER at the LESC.– AND ALL of you know that while Patrick is 4th, he did get a SECOND.
Alejandro Illera mopped up on the weekend with four or five firsts on Sunday depending on how you count, but Rob Krentel got him by one point on Saturday. Rob had two bullets and Alej only had one.
Pearce Pomerleau was our first and only youth racing regularly with us. I want you to know that he was the first around the weather mark on Saturdays third race, but let Sam and Alejandro go hard by the lee and get into a wind streak down the right side of the course (looking up wind) and Pearce ended up with a third – but a good race and if you feel bad about that, wait till I tell you about Sam’s capsize on Sunday.

The Frenchman is surely charging. All the internationals know that the Dutch started the yachting thing but the French are the leading sailors of the world and on Sunday Marc Solal got a second in the fourth race and tied with Craig Yates for 6th place (Last). That second broke the tie in Marc’s favor and he was fifth, not last place. Not our favorite sailor anymore. Just one of the Frenchmen climbing the ladder to superiority.
Marc and Craig were just one point behind Patrick. Nice close racing in the middle of the fleet.
Craig Yates had a full weekend of sailing and racing. Saturday morning he sailed in the 420 with Conner Kechriotis to second place and in the afternoon coached the high school 420 crews, then Sunday morning when he didn’t get a spot on an MC, he sailed a laser with us. In the afternoon crewed with Francois Simon (another of those devilish Frenchmen) on his Flying Scot– second again. Craig claims that the Kiwis are the best sailors and what we need is a Laser distance race like the Lasers have "down under". Maybe we have that in the works.
The 420s sailed with us Saturday morning and Ben Getchell and Seth Bahr were first, Conner Kechriotis and Craig were second and Bart Eckhart and Jonathan Watson were third. I can’t report much about them as I was busy watching for puffs on the water and trying to keep the boat moving, sitting forward in the light stuff and then back and flat for the puffs. Not a day for a lazy sailor.
Those high school guys and gals are welcome to sail with us on Sunday. We may need to solve the 420 problem, but the Lasers are usually free. I will try to telephone to get the message out. E-mail is wonderful, but we are not sure who reads and what they understand if they read.
Our Race committee was our regular Joan Bryant on both days and Mary Jensen and Caitlin Jensen (granddaughter) filled in while Marjorie took a day off after a few days in the hospital with a little pneumonia /bronchitis thing that she did instead of visiting her friends in Key West. So the Key West thing is put off till later. Well, Marjorie was back on Sunday full of Vim, Vigor, antibiotics and steroids. Thanks, thanks- if it wasn’t for RC, we would be taking turns or doing rabbit starts and really arguing about the finishes.
SOME OBSERVATIONS about what we can do better.
Coming into the windward mark. You are not quite there and need and double tack to make it, but another starboard boat is just above you and on the lay line. Be conservative, take a deep duck to leeward and tack to clear the starboarders transom or gybe around to port tack and go behind him. You have the next two legs at least to catch him. Do the Alejandro thing or at least sail fast and wait for him (or her ) to make a mistake.
Another windward mark thing, it you are trading tacks with someone coming up to the mark, stay to the right of your competitor so on the last crossing you will have starboard and that should be worth at least one boat length.
On the run into the leeward mark, if the last wind shift was from the left (looking downwind) then after the rounding, tack onto starboard as soon as you are clear of down wind sailors coming into the mark. Yes, I know you will have right of way as the close hauled starboard tack boat, but collisions are very slow. If the last shift is from the right (looking downwind) then stay on port tack until things get sorted out.
NOTE- Sam says it is easier to get a second place if Rob Krentel has to work on Sunday. Thanks, Rob, we love you.
Keep track of the upwind end of the starting line. If you get too far to the right (looking upwind) then it is hard to get back to the pin end if the wind shifts left. Use the three minutes– Time the line, get a range and check for the favored end. I think this is a repeat, but it seems we need it.
Then I promised about Sam’s Sunday capsize. It was in the fourth race at the gybe mark with the biggest blast of the day surrounding the mark and Marc Solal right in front of Sam. Marc gybed around the mark and Sam figured he had room to gybe and go above Marc. Sam was concentrating on getting turned enough to get above Marc and caught the sheet on the transom. Now the sail is trimmed in. Drop the sheet and it doesn’t go out. The boom end goes in the water. Sam is looking over the high side at the centerboard and still thinking he might come out of this. Then the sail is in the water, and now he climbs over to stands on the centerboard and we will be right back in the race, but when the boat comes up, he has tacked through the wind and the whole thing blows over on top of him. Now get around and pull on the centerboard climb in the boat– he is heading the wrong direction. Nice sixth place. Glad we didn’t have 20 boats or it would have been a 20. Thank goodness for the warm weather! Did anyone say boat handling was important or it needed practice?
If you can’t figure this stuff out, e-mail me the question, and maybe we can get some diagrams or something simple. This part of the message will go in the how to sail the laser blog at howtosailthelasser.blogspot.com so you can look at it again with all the other junk there.
Stu Einhorn came by to talk about sailing lesson but he is an old Sunfish sailor so Sam stole him and sent him out his Laser Sunday afternoon. He did fine and we have him on our e-mail list. We are still looking for more Laser sailors and with the evening hours and warm weather it is time to get them sailing. Call Sam if you need help.
Monday the Wayfarer fleet painted a great number of mooring buoys with the International horizontal blue stripe on the white buoy AND THE PERMIT NUMBER so any international traveler will be able to identify those little white and blue things on the water . The State of Florida Department of Buoys will also be happy and we have the Wayfarer fleet to thank for that. Thanks guys and gals.

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