Division=Express 27
Date: 06/07/08 StartTime: 11:15:00 Distance: 67.5nm
| Pos | Sail | Boat | Skipper | PHRF | Type | Finish | Elapsed | Corrected |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Get Happy!! | Busch,Brendan | 129 | Express 27 | 21:37:53 | 10:22:53 | 10:29:57 |
| 2 | 11e | Wile E Coyote | Pruzan,Dan | 129 | Express 27 | 21:42:08 | 10:27:08 | 10:34:15 |
| 3 | 29e | Eagle | Groelz,Ross | 129 | Express 27 | 21:53:14 | 10:38:14 | 10:45:28 |
| 4 | 67 | Shenanigans | Moore,Bill | 129 | Express 27 | 21:56:27 | 10:41:27 | 10:48:44 |
| 5 | 0 | Dianne | KATZMAN,Steve | 129 | Express 27 | 21:57:07 | 10:42:07 | 10:49:24 |
| 6 | 77539 | Desperado | Bruzzone,Mike | 129 | Express 27 | 22:01:33 | 10:46:33 | 10:53:53 |
| 7 | 8444 | Swamp Donkey | Goldfoos,Bill | 129 | Express 27 | 22:06:53 | 10:51:53 | 10:59:17 |
| 8 | 28031 | Take Five | Carroll,Donald | 129 | Express 27 | 22:06:59 | 10:51:59 | 10:59:23 |
| 9 | 3e | Lightn'Up | Powell,Bruce | 129 | Express 27 | 22:09:25 | 10:54:25 | 11:01:50 |
| 10 | 18079 | Alternate Reality | Jensen,Darrel | 129 | Express 27 | 22:09:28 | 10:54:28 | 11:01:53 |
| 11 | 40428 | Ergo | gage,Chris | 129 | Express 27 | 22:12:01 | 10:57:01 | 11:04:28 |
| 12 | 18355 | Archimedes | Balderrama,Joe | 129 | Express 27 | 22:15:34 | 11:00:34 | 11:08:04 |
| 13 | 101e | Elise | Criou,Nathalie | 129 | Express 27 | 22:19:35 | 11:04:35 | 11:12:07 |
| 14 | 49 | Scandalous | Owens,Garry | 129 | Express 27 | 22:20:56 | 11:05:56 | 11:13:29 |
Speed as VMG of winning boat: 6.5 knots
Speed as VMG of winning boat: 6.5 knotsI had
We had a great time - we were all focused on the race, on boat speed, trying to make the most of the wind we had, trying to get the most wind we could and staying in clear air. We were all working as a team on maneuvers. Everyone taught something to everyone else and learn something from everyone else. Here are some lessons we learned that I thought could be helpful for the Pacific Cup.
- Downwind driving
Delta Ditch Run is not a jogging race but a sailing race sailing mostly with the wind behind. This year, the wind direction was a bit odd at times but we had our spinnaker up during the great majority of the race, including start and finish! So there was a lot of driving under spinnaker, first in light air, then in medium air. We could try depowering the spinnaker by bringing the pole slightly forward (less sail area and a not so ideal angle to the wind, air flow disrupted). In light air, we couldn't always fly the spinnaker at the ideal angle. Perhaps the apparent wind was becoming too light to fill the sail. In order to keep our sail full, even if we weren't reaching, we had to bring the pole much further forward than we normally would for that point of sail. Lessons learned in light air:
o Weight counts A LOT (as our speedo indicated): have your crew sit on the leeward side...
o Trim the main constantly! In light air, wind tends to be shifty and every puff is worth running with. Your main sail is a pretty powerful sail, don't forget it! If you have an idle crew, it's not a bad job to do :)
o Obviously, you'd trim your spinnaker constantly, but I have never seen anyone forget about that...
o Move your tiller as little as possible to avoid any loss of speed
o Make small shifts, adjust and then continue with a change
o Have someone stand at the mast, as high as possible and look around at the surface of the water to spot the areas with dead air and the areas with puffs
o Go for the wind - in light air, even an increase of 1 knot of wind speed (out of say 5) is HUGE! You can get 20% relative increases! Imagine what that can do to your boat speed
o Expedite your gibes: a) you don't want to keep weight at the bow for too long and b) the air is so light that you can just gibe your main and your spinnaker at the same time.
o If it gets really really light, take out your light sheets. It didn't get that bad for us on Saturday
o Have one of your off crew sometimes look behind, or have the driver do it on a regular basis. This is where you will notice the puffs
o Driving in light air is super tiring mentally as you are trying to pay attention to the tiniest change. On a 70 mile race, change your driver and trimmer on a regular basis. We had a crew of 4 and we running with groups of 2 ON and 2 OFF, except for maneuvers.
o Pay close attention to the current lines
o In light air, you can carry your kite pretty high. It can be well worth it.
o Try to stay in clean air. Several times boats tried to play with us, come on top of us and take our air, push us up, etc...(especially a Santa Cruz 27 which we finally passed, only to be passed again when we assisted the other vessels!). Of course, at times you need to play the game as it is very narrow. Sometimes, these boats are not even in your division. Ultimately, I am not sure if it is worth it. When I said "let's stop playing and just sail fast" because it felt that we were too focused on that one boat and lost our focus and perspective on the race, I think that everyone thought I meant "don't do anything about that boat". I guess I meant "the bay is big, let's just get out of here". Two Moores 24 play each other up out of the channel at some point. They didn't run aground but for about 5 minutes, they were definitely not heading in the direction of Stockton...
o Having someone sit just forward of the mast did not help our speed (contrary to an observation made last year by Nathan and Jerry on the Spinnaker Cup)
- Stay comfortable and hydrated
It was so hot!!! The metal parts on the boat were burning, the sun was unforgiving, the light air run made it even worse as there was virtually no air floating around the boat...At some point the display of our speedo just stopped displaying...we think it might have gotten too hot. We put a cover on it and it went back to life. Strange for a device which is meant to operate in pretty tough conditions. Our solar-powered TakTik ran well after sunset, maybe because it was super wired? Interestingly, inside Elise, it wasn't too hot and uncomfortable which bodes well for the Pacific Cup. We decided to have a dodger installed for the race (Elise looks horrible with this kind of stuff on...almost like a cruiser!) but it'll keep the inside dry and us cool.
o Dress lightly in breathable material and in layers (synthetic is great)
o Wear a hat and sunglasses
o Drink often, it doesn't matter if it isn't cold but bring some ice if you carry beer...
o Eat small bites regularly, some small salty bits and fresh fruits (until you can't!)
o Try to stay out of the sun if you can: great incentive to sit on the leeward side of the boat!
o Sit on a cushion (it won't be as hot as some of the metal parts...)
o close hatches to prevent the sun from getting in
o Take turns if you can (so you can rest your mind...and stay alert when you need to)
o In the delta, wear your layers back as soon as it gets dark if you don't want to be eaten alive by bugs...(like I did...) I had pretty rosy legs afterwards!
o Wear a lot of sunblock and apply some more on a regular basis
o Keep the wine for the evening
o Bring a water gun...
- Driving in a crowded channel
There were quite a few boats in that race and it is helpful to know the various rules of the road.
o It might be hard to look at starboard tackers when they are coming from behind so having someone in the crew look out for traffic and call those out is great.
o Make sure to check behind before you do a gibe or anything dramatic, you don't want to cut across someone's path!
o Stay cool and don't do anything too fast if you get close to other boats. Keep your course, assert your rights by asking for the right of way to make sure the other boat is aware of what you are going to do, or acknowledged you have seen a boat you need to give way to. If you make brisk moves, you may surprise the boats around you and cause them to do more of these brisk moves...
o Keep charts on deck, or regularly check your GPS as sometimes marks were hard to see (behind boats or looking just as red as a car taillight...) Always know where your safe side is, just in case you need to make a correction.
o If you overtake the last boat of your fleet coming back from a 15-minute rescue operation, don't shout "Oh my God, that's an Express 27! We've caught up with our fleet!".
I played a bit with the various GPS modes and we monitored electricity usage (running lights all night was no problem and using the speedo all day was also fine. At times with VHF and GPS also. Coming back, we salute the heroic efforts of Roger who drove all the way to Stockton with his 10 horse-power motor and stayed up all night with Dayne to drive the boat back. I went down to sleep, expecting to be woken up three hours later. About 7 hours later, I woke up in time to make some breakfast for the kids on the deck. At least, it is dark enough in the quarter berth, even in broad daylight to sleep pretty well! Our second spinnaker (which we hoisted after the "assist" operation) didn't seem to fly as well as the old patchy one, not sure why.
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