SP3 was sailed in North Lake on the Inter-coastal Waterway in Hollywood, FL. The breeze began light from the the west, before shifting slightly right, and gusting to 15-18kts by the second A set. Very shifty, but with a creek to windward that had more puffs coming out of it than anywhere else. Staying on the lifted tack and seeing, communicating, and sailing to the puffs was the key. Boathandeling was very tricky as the conditions put a premium on "Dinghy reflexes" - the ability to react instantly to stay flat in puffs, while smoothy moving in for lulls. Varsity overall preliminary results are below. St Thomas Aquinas was 4th, while Pinecrest came in 18th.
Starting
As you may have surmised by the prevalence of OCS's starting was an issue for all our teams! JV did a good job staking out the favored pin end, but sometimes had to pull the trigger to early in order to make the end - basically a hyper-aggressive approach that requires practice and precise timing. Practicing test runs at this spot in the pre-start (before 2 minutes) can help you know where you need to be at 30 Sec. and where the pin end layline is and im not sure the sailors were fully utilizing their time pre-race.
STA Varsity, after an OCS to start the regatta, got overly conservative, and wasn't always in the front row or at the favored end. With land all around, they should have been able to utilize a line sight and should have known they were over the first race (they were closest to the pin, 1/3 of the line from it). Its also important to note the effect line bias has on how over/under the line you feel. Many sailors judge the line by their competitors, and if the line is boat favored, starting even with a boat to windward will put you over! Conversely, if its pin favored, the lee bow boat should expect to start punched out on their competitor.
Pinecrest simply struggled with being late for the start, and needs to work on mainsail trim and crew movement in the final approach to keep flow on the foils and a hole open to leeward - when you luff the main all the way or trim it with the crew "nesting' in the boat, you go sideways!
All teams need to work on accelerations. There are 2 benefits to having good accelerations - you can start at top speed or better, and you can store potential energy until the last second by heeling the boat if you have set up too close to the line, then rocking flat at go. Below is a pretty good FJ acceleration video - keys for the crew: 1) Steer the bow down with weight to windward and sail trim, 2). Help the driver rock by throwing wight to leeward and eases the jib to establish flow 3)then finally flattens aggressively and trim smoothly.
We sailed our own boats for these regattas with the Supersails in which we had practiced for the last two weeks. Still, the vang, outhaul and Cunningham were sometimes neglected. Former St. Mary's All-American John Lowe calls the outhaul "the non-adjustable adjustment" because it should always be tight. In light air this opens the leech, and in heavy air pulling it even tighter flattens the sail. Having the vang off in light to medium air is critical. In the lulls you need to be able to ease the mainsheet an inch or two and have the top of the sail "twist." Having any vang tension restricts the mainsheets ability to be an immediate twist controol. In the first A set, Pinecrest had vang on and was really slow through the lulls. When the crew is hiking at least 75% of the time, begin to vang-sheet. When you are overpowered, the vang can be used to bend the mast and flatten/de-power the sail. When you bend your mast, it creates horizontal wrinkles - crews then needed to use more cunningham to almost completely remove these wrinkles.
Downwind, crews should be looking up at the sail and judging the amount of twist. Generally, the top batten should be out 10-15 degrees past parallel to the boom. Precisely adjusting the vang while looking at the twist is critical to downwind speed - too much vang and your sail is stalled, too little and you spill too much air and the boat becomes unstable! Pay attention to adjusting all of these basic controls any time the wind strength changes before and during a race!
Heavy Air Reaching
With the RC shifting to triangle courses as the breeze built, sailors had a great opportunity to practice reaching. The heavy air power reach is where rock star crewing can make a huge difference, as boats that are flat with the Jib trimmed perfectly get planning, and those that are not, get passed! In marginal planning conditions, the skipper and crew must anticipate a puff that is strong enough to make planning possible. The skipper should head up slightly to get to the pressure first and get on a hotter angle. The crew needs to transition from holding the jib out to flattening or even hiking. If you only use one jib sheet, the sail will invariably luff during this transition, so crews should practice using the lazy cross sheet (the unused windward sheet) to hold the jib out on a reach, then use the primary leeward sheet to trim through the jib lead while on the windward side of the boat. Note: this cross sheeting-technique only works if the jibsheets are long enough! Sailors need to move out and back and fan the mainsail to initiate planing (pump the sheet and body pump your shoulders). Once you are plaining, try to use the apparent header caused by your speed to point lower, and move forwards and head up if you feel the boat start to come off a plane. Crews allowing the boat to see-saw as a puff hit, or having the jib trimmed imperfectly led to us being pretty average on the reaches - this is a key skill we need to improve on for team racing so you don't loose your pair when they try to go high!
Finally, check out this interview with Thomas Barrows after he finally won College Sailor of the Year as a Senior (one year after he let this hack beat him at Yale) - his thoughts on working on ones weaknesses, and competing in each race, regatta and practice are pretty on point. Identify what you need to do better from this regatta, and make it a habitual point of emphasis in your practices!
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