Combination WR informal instruction

Following the windy Friday racing of the 4th, I was sore and bruised and needed some time to recover.  Also a couple of days after that dunking in the Charles – coincidence or not – I came down with a bit of a cold.  The forecast for WR today was green flag though, I was feeling brave enough to try sailing again.

With Elena running race control for us, the plan was racing in Mercuries.  As the first racers were checking out boats, a non-racer was at the dock house looking for informal instruction.  Come race with us! the racers urged.  When I walked up a moment later, “Sonia, would you take someone for informal instruction?”  Perhaps they know I like to give informal instruction, perhaps they thought I would be good at it, perhaps they were dumping on me.   No matter; of course I was interested.  “And race at the same time?  Is she okay with that?”  She was.

Allison had her green rating, but hadn’t bothered yet with classes.  She had a little bit of experience sailing Hobie Cats.  That experience turned out to apply well to Mercuries.  You would think they’re pretty different boats, but a similarity is that neither boat tolerates sloppy tacks well.  I think the Hobie experience had given Allison an appreciation of acquiring and maintaining headway through a tack.

Also (I’m writing a week and a half late, so I don’t remember well) I think the flag might have gone to yellow.  Wind was brisk for green anyway.  I like to tell new sailors that sailing is best with both theory and practice.  The classroom knowledge is good and valuable but also sailing is a physical sport and there’s a “feel” for it.  The feel comes more naturally for some than others and can always be improved with practice.  With the nice wind we decided to work a little more on feel and a little less on practice.  I coached her just enough to kind-of sort-of get us around the race course and we typically finished last (if at all) but I thought it was excellent practice for just getting the feel of sailing.

Wild wind for Friday informal racing

Red flag, gusty, with MIT recording gusts well over 30 mph, nearly 40 by sunset.  I sailed with Eve, who had just passed her red test within the last week, and who I raced against in the light air Sunday.

I had the tiller off the dock and for the first race, and was barely in control, coming very near capsize more than once.  We finished last, of the boats that stayed upright that is.  Eve and I were getting reorganized after the first race and I was having her hold the tiller in safety position for a minute.  “Do you want to sail the next race?” I asked.  “Okay!”  Eve is confident and eager.

We actually survived just fine with her at the tiller and me crewing.  Crewing and frantically providing coaching for surviving the wind, that is.  We got another last place, then as the fleet size was building, Eve got a respectable finish in our third race, finishing ahead of a few other boats.  In the next race (I think it was) she was having trouble rounding the windward mark and had run into it.  “We will capsize now,” I fatefully proclaimed, as I could not imagine staying upright hooked on the mark.  The boat slowly turned head to wind though, and I said maybe we could back off of it.  Eve handed me back the tiller, and I did in fact manage to back us off in irons then fall off on port clear of the mark.

I continued to helm then, for a wild ride downwind, and a second windward leg of this two-lap triangle course.  Around the windward mark more easily this time, and on to the reach leg.  In front of us was a reefed MIT Tech Dinghy that we were easily overtaking.  They were actually right on our course to the next mark and I sailed right at their transom waiting to see of they would happen to turn one way or the other.  Eve was beginning to panic that we were going to hit them.  When they weren’t turning, I bore away slightly to pass them to leeward.  Eve now switched from imploring me not to hit them to imploring them to understand that they were on our race course.  They responded with blank looks of incomprehension and a wavering course.  I was distracted with this pointless exchange, wanting it to end, and in this instant of inattention, we capsized.  I heard later that in the end there were only two of our Friday racers that avoided capsize.  It was crazy windy, but still I imagine many of the capsizes were as pointless and avoidable as mine.

Mainsail only

Forecast was for unseasonable warmth and wind was up.  It was red flag all day and I was hoping for some of it for an after-work sail.  Delays on the train ride there though got me to the dock late and in a quiet mood.  I took out a Mercury alone with just a mainsail as the flag was going to yellow for one lap up to the bridge and back.  There were a number of reddish gusts left though and it felt nice.

It was interesting that the air felt hot from the sidewalk, but much cooler from the sidewalk.  The still-cool river was providing air-conditioning.

Spring series I

It was the first Tiller Club series race of 2018.  In contrast to other TC races where I showed up on the dock without pre-arranged crew, this time I had invited Katherine to crew for me.  Sadly, the wind was very light and surely didn’t encourage Katherine to come back for Tiller Club racing another day.

We started the first race relatively promptly in the morning, it was just a single lap on a small course, and it took the entire morning!  It was the only race we got in before lunch.  Much of the time the water was glassy and we had very few clues of wind direction.  The steam rising from the power plant is a good visible indicator but it’s pretty far from the local conditions on the water.  Shroud tell-tails were misleading if you only looked at the shroud and the tell-tale.  You had to be careful to sight the tell-tale against vertical lines of buildings on the shore.  It was interesting at times to sight the tell-tales of other boats against verticals on shore.  At times the best indicator of wind direction was to look at which boats were moving best, see how their sails were, and imagine the wind direction that their sails would be properly set for.

After lunch there was a little more wind and we got in two more races.  I didn’t do well in any of the races, which I’m sure also wouldn’t have encouraged Katherine to return.  We were there though, we got some series points, we got some racing experience.