Saturday was the crewed lightship - the crew: Tom (trim 2/foredeck), Mark (trim), Heather (foredeck/trim 2), Pete (pit) and Nat (helm) - very light winds (from 2 to about 7 knots all the way, except near the gate (topped 16 knots at some point) for the last 10 minutes of the race.
It looks like we could have cut off on distance a little but after we rounded the mark and shave a few minutes. Although, we would have been unable to keep a hot angle without a lot more jibes and zigzag, so 100% sure it would have been a better trace. We played the currents heavily, particularly because there was no wind, so we stayed in the middle of the channel on the way out and on the way back.
The start was the weirdest thing. The flag didn't seem to agree with the horn. We weren't the only ones confused. Everyone was looking at everyone else effectively saying 'are you in our start, I think you are in our start, are we starting yet?' Even after boats at crossed the line, everyone was still looking around to make sure that everyone else had started. We didn't hear any recall on the radio so we kept going.
The divisions were a bit weird. We were in the same division as super fast boats...the two synergy's were on the same start. Hard to beat those!
On the upwind, the forecast indicated that the wind would stay pretty much, and if anything move to SW (a few minutes before the start), so we decided not to go too far North of the course. That was our big bet of the day. Looking around, it doesn't look like we had less wind than the other boats on average, although at times, we could see boats move and we never really got the push they did.
Pete actively shifting his weight around to keep the boat at a roughly 10% angle. At times, we went over to 15% when it was so light that the sails would become floppy and we really needed the weight on the leeward side.
A couple of times, I felt that boat speed was kind of low, probably my fault, mostly when the wind was very floppy and kept changing direction by over 10%. I may have been too slow to react. We actively moved weight around which I think made a BIG difference. We are less than 10 min behind the other Express (which probably had a 45 second lead at the start to begin with) which isn't so bad after 24 miles and a new crew.
And apparently, I eat in a specific order: carrots first, sometimes fruit, then almonds and other related nut products, then my sandwich, then some kind of dessert. Never paid attention to that...
What we did well:
- maneuvres: all of our tacks were real smooth - and we kept the spinnaker full on jibes. We even jibed right under the bridge in a tactical maneuvre and we made it no problem.
- sail trim, particularly on the upwind - out telltales were flying horizontal the whole time. We tried playing with the traveler and the various mainsail control (less outhaul/less cunningham when it was really really light) to shape the sail better and we monitored boat speed to see whether what we were doing helped at all.
- current management: we tacked or jibed right before bad current lines.
What we could have done better
- start (although we weren't the only boat confused by the discrepancy between the flags and the horn)
- driving (especially in the really fluky winds) - particularly expensive in light winds as dropping half a knot in speed could mean a reduction in 50% of boat speed!
- course? (not entirely sure what would have been a better course, would be great to see what the winning boats picked)
6 out of 9 on corrected time.
Would love to hear others' thoughts on what we could have done differently and on what we can take into our next event. Was a nice cruise I guess ;-)
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