Team Seacats

I finally was able to get to uploading the photos from Lake Carlyle, IL. Some of them tell quite a story (see below – links take you to the album).

This was a humbling event for me personally. We were coming off a high of a 14th place finish last year at the North American Championship where we made some obvious painful mistakes we felt like we could avoid this year. We felt like we could have been a top 10 team last year. Earlier in January, John Williams crewed with me at Tradewinds in Key Largo, FL (the NAF18 Mid-Winter Championship) where we earned a third and were close to taking the second place position in a largish and competitive fleet. Most recently, Frank Moore and I finished the Tybee 500 with an amazing 3rd place in a 9 boat small, but very experienced, field of sailors.

As I look back on this past week, I realize that both David and I were much too quick to give up based on the assumption that we were mostly doing things right but were suffering from ‘bad luck’ or that we wouldn’t be able to overcome any boat performance issues that we were experiencing. Normally, I’m not a big believer in “back luck” and feel that the phrase is simply an excuse for not having all the information coupled with a correct answer. In atypicall fashion, I found comfort in a bad upwind leg happening due to “bad luck” last week and apparently had a lot of it. Our other problems were not necessarily related to boat speed but we were having a problem pointing as high into the breeze as everyone else. This is due partially to boat setup and probably partially to my impatience as a skipper. I’m increasingly becoming what they call a “footer” and distance racing makes me worse in this regard. During the week, tactically speaking, if we could get clear and foot off (and make the correct windshift decisions) we had a lot of speed to A-mark. The issue with this is that this is a very weak position to be in when sailing around other boats that are capable of sailing higher as there are very few positions on the race course that you can find undisturbed wind. Our downwind speed/ability was never really a problem. I think the ‘giving in’ issue stems from a little burn-out on my part and I also think that perhaps I’ve been tactically ‘damaged’ from so much recent focus on distance racing. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to shift myself toward doing more reading and studing about course racing and wind tactics as well as crewing on different boats for different skippers for a little while so that I can “get my head up and look around” on the race course. I’m going to use this winter to work on some other projects (the one-meter R/C boat and working on the house) too. Hopefully this will help me get my head back in the game ready for another good run for the Tybee 500 without frying myself. Regardless, although I walked away from last week a little dissapointed, I still really enjoyed the week and really enjoyed being with all the good friends we’ve made from across the country. Time to rekindle.

Speaking of which, I’ll be racing with Trey Brown from Team Velocity at the Outback cup this weekend. Trey has been having some great success with the I20 recently and he will be driving Plays With Matches while I do the crew work. You can see Trey immortalized at the helm in the Statue of Liberty Race video in the link up top.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Don’t ever bet with JC when it comes to shaving something.

Friday’s racing was…interesting. NOAA was calling for 15knots with gusts to 28knots. We were a little busy trying to keep the boat upright (and fast) to consider what the wind was really doing, but I wouldn’t be surprised to have seen some of those upper 20s. We started the day by raking the mast back a little further to experiement to see if we could get the boat to point higher into the breeze…with the heavy air, this was a good idea anyway to help depower the boat. I think only 25 boats dared to venture out in the breeze so we stood to pick up a few positions by simply finishing. The Race Committee set us up for a three lap course and we started conservatively. We were doing pretty well and were mid-fleet coming into the second rounding of the windward A-mark when we noticed one of the new Nacra Infusions had broken their wing-mast and demasted (their mainsheet had come uncleated during a jibe leaving the mast unsurported to handle the high wind spinnaker loads). There was one boat capsized at A (and several around the course) so we were going wide to give them some room. A big sustained blast of wind came down on us and we were struggling to get the boat to turn through the wind to get back down the course. I tried twice to turn but had to quickly jam the helm to weather as the wind drove the bows in and started to pull the rudders out of the water. The gust seemed to subside a little but David and I had a miscommunication on the boat and as I turned down, he moved forward to release the jib sheet on the front beam. We plowed in and flipped just a little beyond a boat that had broken their spinnaker pole and were trying to recover. As we were trying to turn the boat into the wind to right it, the boat with the broken spin pole (still upright) drifted into us. They brought up their daggerboards but their rudder caught our trapeze lines and while their skipper desperately tried to free them from our rigging, they capsized on top of us. Incredibly, no damage occured other than breaking the bunji’s holding our trapeze lines in place. We righted the boat and setoff downwind again without the spinnaker while we caught our breath and tried to get the boat back in order. We rounded the downwind C-mark gate and headed back upwind slowly catching boats again. The trapeze lines were streaming out behind the boat and if I timed it just right, I could snag one or two with the tiller extension everytime we tacked so at least one of us could trapeze. As we rounded A-mark for the last time (more on that later) we were in the back of the fleet but had two boats just ahead. Unlike the other boats, we set the spinnaker to try and pick up a couple more positions. We passed those two boats and during a lull just leading a big gonzo blast were making the last jibe for the finish line – I was concerned that we might overstand the layline to the finish and thought we could get the boat jibed before the blast got us – but I was wrong. Without enough boat speed, the wind nailed us and we went swimming again. We righted the boat again and started back for the finish line but the Race Committee had finished us on the course and sent everyone back for the beach.

Now, remember that last A-mark rounding? The race committee had set a new A-mark to compensate for a wind shift but because all the chase boats were busy trying to assist the capsized and damaged boats, they blew the horn and flew the Charlie Flag (change course) from the committee boat that was a little further away from the C-gate (we never heard the horn due to the howling wind and the deluge of water). Further complicating things, the previous A-mark buoy and offset mark were still in the water. It turns out that not one boat sailed the proper course for the last leg and the Race Committee threw the race out – on paper, it never happened. That was terribly dissapointing.

We left shortly after the awards ceremony last night and got about 1.5 hours down the road – we were watching one heck of a light show from a major storm ahead of us (to the south) and a check of the radar on the computer showed multiple tornado watches and multiple flash flooding warnings. We elected to shut down for the night just north of that system at a rest stop (John Williams joined us about 45 minutes later). We got up at 5am and headed out – that same line of storms was STILL there but had subsided a little overnight. We got through and are currently just south of this pretty severe building line. I feel sorry for the guys that are trailering with RV’s that left this morning! I hope they’re safe.

I’ll put up some reflections on the event maybe later today or tomorrow. I need to check the radar again.

Results can be had HERE.

We had a decent day today – the wind was up again and the shifts were large and obvious so we were able to capitalize on them considerably. We wanted to go to the right side most of today so we camped out at the committee boat and simply patiently waited for the log jam to clear the boat end of the start line. We would start 10 to 15 seconds late but we would be clear to immediately tack to port and foot off in the breeze. We would sail that way until the wind shifted and then we would tack back across the course. We had a finish in the teens today and the rest, except for the last, were mid-fleet. During the last race today, our mainsheet line cover started to fray and it eventually separated (naturally right after I asked David “I wonder how much longer that will hold up?). We were pretty cripled because we couldn’t reliable sheet and unsheet the main as pieces of the cover were getting jammed in the blocks. We elected to finish that race and then head for the beach because it could become a safety liability if we had to bear away to avoid someone and couldn’t uncleat the main. While sailing back to the club, I was sulking about how I had never had a DNS (Did Not Start) before. A few minutes later, David turned around and remarked that they abandonded racing for the day and the whole fleet was following us in! We’ve put on an old mainsheet that should work just fine for tomorrow – if there is any racing. There’s a huge storm system moving in on us and most are doubtfull about getting any racing in tomorrow…we’ll see.

Be sure to check out the video link above. AdventureOnline.tv has been putting together video from the week – there’s some good stuff there.

The wind was pretty light and shifty yesterday but we had a couple of decent mid-fleet finishes. David took the helm in the second race and did a good job to post a 20th place finish. We’re going to continue to see if we can improve today – the wind is up again and we’re expecting 10 to 15.

Our friends, Mike and David, had an altercation yesterday with another boat on the start line. A boat jammed up hard to weather right in front of them and they didn’t have time or opportunity to avoid them. They ended up kissing the side/rear of the hull with their bow as they attempted to duck the boat. A couple of protests were filled but the judges determined that they were not given adequate time to avoid and are assigning them a finish position based on their previous results. The boat (a brand new Nacra infusion) has a split in the bow but it looks like they can fashion a temporary repair and be back out on the water today.

We’re sailing in marginally cool conditions and have been wearing our dry suits. I have to say that I’ve used a feature on the Astral Bouyancy life preservers that I haven’t had a chance to use until now – they have a hand warmer feature where the outer shell is lined with fleece on the inside and you have access to tuck your hands inside to keep them toasty. It’s very very nice!

I snagged another copy of the results and you can see them HERE.