Since I won the day Sunday, I'm supposed to reveal how I did it. It wasn’t boat speed or fancy tactics. I simply was conservative and avoided capsizing! Although I capsized twice, I believe that was far fewer times than the rest of you. In the first race, I had a terrible start. I fought hard to catch up, but after rounding the windward mark, I remember looking ahead to a cluster of 4 or 5 boats and deciding they were uncatchable. Then one by one all but one of those boats capsized and let me by. I learned then that being patient pays. Greed may have caused the guys ahead to take unnecessary risks in order to get ahead only to capsize and let me pass. So how did I avoid capsizing in those gusty and shifty conditions like we had on Sunday? Upwind Of course, I had my vang, outhaul, and cunningham on pretty hard so that the sail was pretty flat even when I eased the mainsheet. Naturally, I hiked hard but not so hard that I could not maintain it for the full leg. As Frank says, drive the boat! Just hiking like a madman won't work. What does he mean by that? I think he means to feather up a bit into puffs and bear off in lulls. Steering a straight line while hiking like a hero doesn’t work. I also tried to anticipate the puffs and feather up BEFORE they got to me. If I thought a puff was going to be really nasty, I tried dumping the main again BEFORE the puff had a chance to heel the boat excessively. One of my capsizes was caused by my trying to feather up AFTER the boat was heeled over, and it simpled dumped. Also, I know from past experience that if you are heeled over too far, you may not have the option of easing the main without dragging the boom in the water, which causes you to get broadside to the wind and the boat to dump. So I made it a point to hike out and enjoy the scenery AHEAD. I then respond to that gray patch of water BEFORE it reached me. I either eased the tiller to feather up or I let out a lot of mainsheet gain BEFORE it has a chance to heel me. Some of those gusts were big headers. I sometimes found myself being "teabag"ed, but I tried not to panic, and simply pulled the tiller and waited for the wind to fill the sail again. I may have slowed down but I stayed upright. During tacks, I always ease the mainsheet and I always steer with the tiller behind my back for a few seconds. Downwind I have the new controls on my boat, so I ease the vang some downwind. During race three, I sailed a boat without the new controls, so I didn't touch the vang, cunningham, or outhaul during the whole race. The tiller and mainsheet were enough to worry about and I ended up winning the race! I guess the lesson is to not let yourself get distracted with too much fiddling with sail controls in those conditions. Driving the boat with your tiller, mainsheet, and weight is plenty. When bearing off around the windward mark, I stay hiked out and I have a long length of mainsheet untangled and ready to ease out. I pull up the centerboard, so the boat can skid a bit when a puff hits. I don't let the main out past perpendicular, and I try not to sail by the lee. I have saved myself from many many capsizes as a result of squatting, not sitting in the boat. My weight is on the balls of my feet, so that I am ready to make a dramatic jump to leeward when the boat starts to roll over to windward. I'm ready to move from side to side if the boat starts to rock and roll as it is prone to do downwind. I use my tiller. When I feel the boat rock to windward, I jump to leeward while pushing the tiller ahead of me. That causes the boat to steer back under the sail. That has also saved many a capsize. On gybes, I try to get it done quickly. While holding the mainsheet between the block and the boom, I bear off and wait for the pressure to ease (which means I am by the lee), I jerk the mainsheet once to get it to move, and a second time as I duck to prevent it from catching the transom, and immediately I start to steer back downwind. The last bit is the hard part because I am trying to do four things at once: move my weight, duck the boom, jerk the mainsheet, and steer an S. So that's what I TRY to do on those windy shifty days. If I’m lucky enough to win the day again, I'll give you my secrets to recovering quickly from a capsize and avoiding the mast-stuck-in-the-mud problem. By the way, my bow line is 10 feet long and I don't tie it away. Several weeks ago, I capsized at the start and immediately became impossibly stuck in the mud. However, I was able to throw the bowline to a passing Laser sailor who tugged on me enough to get the wind to pull the mast out of instead of further into the mud. Of course, once you accept help, you are DNF. I wonder if Andrew Campbell does any of this stuff? I’ll ask him on Saturday |
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