Shields Fleet 9

Bullet Blog Spring 3

Reed Baer, Grace 107

Lesson #1: Doing Good Leads to Doing Well!

A coincidence that three of the folk who met throughout this past winter to reorganize Fleet 9 ended up at the top of the standings last night? I think not! Fleet Captain Andy Segal and his team on Rajah, 3^rd; Fleet Secretary and Web Master Architect Kurt Edenbach steering Zephyr to its best finishes ever, 2^nd; Executive Officer (only a heart-beat away!) Reed Baer, your humble bullet blogger of the day, sailing on Grace with John Burnham, Pete Schott, Matt Buechner and Rachel Balaban, 1^st.

Lesson #2: Dress for Success

Anyone who caught a glimpse of our fashion-plate skipper, John Burnham, with the newest addition to his swag-based wardrobe courtesy of Ken Read’s Volvo Ocean Race effort, knows what I am talking about here. Sayeth John:, “My new gum-soled Puma sneakers were obviously fast-out-of-the box, gripped well in the death rolls, and are much more orange than anything I’ve ever worn before.”

Lesson #3: What’s with those guys on 36?

No one was faster upwind than Kurt Edenbach and his team last night.

Kurt refused to answer my question as to whether he has a new set of rags aboard – if he does, whoever the sailmaker is might want to speak up to get some credit! He did say that they used way more vang and backstay than they had in the past, and that it worked – they sailed high and fast. My prediction is that we should all look for Kurt et. al to be writing the bullet blog themselves soon!

Lesson #4. How we did it.

Excellent start 2/3 of the way down the leeward-favored line, with acceleration off the line allowing us to go over Scott Ferguson on 254, then flipping to port to cross the bulk of the fleet, with 101 and 36 eventually tacking to port up on our hip; on the long way over towards the 1^st gong, we lifted off the boats to leeward, and had good speed and height versus 101 (they seemed to fall into us a bit), but 36 was just as fast and maybe a bit higher. We tacked short of the layline to the 1^st gong to stay in the current, extended to mid-channel, then flipped back to port short of the layline. A super set allowed us to head towards the bottom mark with a boat length lead on 101, and when the traffic thinned, we made the move that sealed the deal – a jibe to the left. As the wind was still more southerly that it had been earlier, the temptation was to stay on starboard, but we were going for the cone south of Rose Island; the bonus was that most of the fleet continued on starboard, so we had clear air all the way down the run, while 101 had to fight to keep clear air. We avoided the round-ups that seemed to be a problem for a few (Jamie, nice one!). We rounded the bottom mark with a several boat length lead, and just covered to the finish.

 

For the technical stuff: Uppers at 840 (tighter than the tuning guide, but it seems to help in a blow), lowers at 300; headstay was a bit longer than usual for us (we have been using our own Spinlock numbers so long we don’t have the inches datum that the North Guide talks about – need to work on that!); 2006 jib which still looks good, a blownout 2002 main (heh Chuck, where’s that new North main we ordered back in OCTOBER?!), a 2005 chute. We find that the old main needs a TON of Cunningham to get the draft forward, plus max outhaul to flatten the lower part of the sail. Upwind on the first beat, lots of backstay and constant playing the traveler to keep Grace tracking with a minimum of rudder movement; on the 2^nd beat, with more waves, a bit less backstay, less mainsheet and higher traveler for a more forgiving feel in the bounces. Downwind in the gusts, Pete kept a steady hand on the vang to blow her in case of a round-up; Rachel warned of impending gusts; Matt kept the chute choked down pretty much to lessen the possibility of a broach; John steered aggressively; and the pastor did what he does best – prayed a lot!

–RRB

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Bullet Blog, Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.