Shields Fleet 9

Our #17 crew were psyched for a prefrontal sea breeze that lived up to the forecast and then some.  Only problem we were missing Carroll and Sharon.  So Dirk Kramers, back from 2 years in chase boats following Alinghi and Dave Moffet and I said “they sail with 3 on an Etchells, we’ll be all good”. The line seemed slightly boat favored to us and with the mark up beyond the bridge we were thinking right side.  Dave recalled a similar situation on an Aloha race where Charlie Shoemaker made out in similar conditions. Going to the left for current relief and lots of tacking wasn’t high on our list.  We also saw more breeze on the right. We started at the boat end and tacked early to port for a long leg toward Jamestown.  We started to get some good blasts, which were headers, and once into solid breeze and about a 15 degree knock we tacked and were close to layline.  We just crossed Jeff Gladchun in 108 and looked good with the boats on the left although we were in more current and the left would have some relief under Rose I.  We had two more tacks to clear the bridge tower and were surprised we were doing well with 108 who had 5 crew.  We did have some light spots where we could pull the trav up and power up easing backstay.  We gained slightly on 108 and rounded a few boat lengths ahead.  We had an uneventful run, just trying to stay in clear air.  A pretty big sustained blast came in as we rounded the leeward mark and we were overpowered getting up to speed. Dirk started to complain that he wished he had done more sailing than chasing in the last few years.  We lost a little on 108 who was right on our tail as we cleaned up the mess in the cockpit.  We tacked a little early for the line and we were starting to feel like “Where are those girls when we need them”….we were overpowered and sailing a little high, whilst on our hip, 108 had the bow down and with a bit more weight on the rail, clearly had better VMG….we held on and tacked twice to make the pin end and just nosed out the guys on 108. It always feels good to win on a windy day!  Where’s the cooler?

Phil Garland

Gosling – 17

Race #1 – Summer Series ( Make Up sailed Weds June 30^th)

Report from Shields 217- John Dory

Greetings fellow Shields sailors and Fleet 9 enthusiasts from the John Dory team. Our successes on board the mighty 217 have been limited, few and far between thus far in the 2010 season. This is reflective of the depth of competitors in the fleet and the high level of competition our fleet has come to know. It’s tough to win a race because nobody gives an inch out there. No friends between the Warning gun and the finish line! Except for the second race last Wednesday night when, in our view on John Dory, the entire fleet decided to forego the Pin end of the line which we figured to be 10-15 degrees favored except for Charlie Shoemaker, Craig Auman and the Hawk team on 245 as well as the team on 165. It was an uncomfortable feeling being down near the pin, virtually all alone, with 90% of the fleet packed up near the Committee Boat with less than 15 seconds to the start. But there we were, at the pin, at the gun. Us, Charlie and Craig and 165. We sailed right up to the boundary of the War College stand off bouys, tacked on to port and started feeling really, really smart. We crossed 245 by about ½ boat length and were crossing everybody else easily. It didn’t seem anybody to leeward was going to have any chance to get to us no matter which way the breeze shifted. Any left shift would favor us. Any dramatic right shift, big enough to help the boats to our right,  would have been ok because we’d have been close to laying if we’d tacked back to starboard. In any event, the pressure and angle was better the farther left you got.  In fact 245 got by us when we tacked near the layline onto starboard. They crossed us on port, but once again the pressure was better left so we were happy to switch sides with them and were able to get back in front of them by the top mark. We stayed on starboard gybe after rounding and were able to make slight gains when we got a small veering shift and gybed onto port gybe. 245 made one last strong gain as they got out to the east side of the course near the bottom of the leg. We’d gybed back on to starboard and were converging with 245 about 4-5 boat lengths from the mark. They being on port, we being on starboard. 245 could not cross us and were forced to gybe to avoid us. Thanks to some good driving by our fill in helmsman Brian Fisher, some deft bow work by Co-Owner Chris Murray and some top level pit work by Jeff Dionne we were able to gybe away, break the over lap and round cleanly ahead. From there it was an exercise in patience and we were able to hold on for the win.

I think the key take aways for the race were :

1. loose rig settings . We were too tight from the first race
2. start at the favored end virtually by yourself when ever possible
3. don’t screw up a good thing when you’ve got it
4. savor the win, they are not easy to come by