Shields Fleet 9

Fall Series Race 3, Report

Race 3 was the second race of the day.  We were first to the windward mark in the first race so we modeled our strategy on that race.   We planned to start as near to the pin as possible yet staying out of danger. With a few minutes to go we saw that the pin end would be a bit crowded so we delayed our tack to stbd for about 20 seconds. Tacked into a nice space below 222 and opened some room to leeward then launched with very good speed. We sailed parallel to the bridge until we got our first 6-7 degree left shift. We immediately tacked to port. Now we were in the lead. Later we did have to tack to stbd on a shift that allowed us to protect our lead over a few boats gaining on the left. We did a bare-away set and stayed in phase down the leg. We round the leeward gov. can overlapped with 224 but in the lead. We held the lead up the short leg to the finish. In Chuck’s Race 2 report, Wendy and Chuck won the first race in very much the same conditions but emphasized current over wind.   We did just the opposite; we emphasized wind shifts over current. We actually ignored current because before the start we observed almost no current on pot-buoys and on the new mid channel gov. buoy in the middle of the course.  This often happens on the flood tide as it comes in underneath the fresh water after 3 days of rain.

It was a good day for Team Karaselet 74. Curtis, Dwight, Ken and Mary; thank you for a job well done. Nice work Robin and crew.

Bill Shore

Race 2-Fall

It sure was nice to see the sun pop through after four days of rain just in time Shields Yachting…  All was looking good to get the scheduled two races in after the drift fest the week before.  We were seeing wind shots ranging from 320-005 degrees with current pushing into the bay.  The “current push” would be the deciding factor aboard 138 on where we would position the boat on the line allowing us to take the fastest route to the first mark. We figured a third up from the pin was the place to be, the line was fairly square but… we wanted to be one of the first boats to reach the center spans, where the current was strongest. Our boat, 74 and 107 all reached this area first and got into “the elevator” rising all of us up to the rest of the fleet, where tacking and crossing the majority became easy enough.  As soon as you could tack you had to pull the trigger because there was about 70% port tack sailing up the beat.  After rounding just behind Super Bill Shore we were able to pull off a nice set, where Bill looked to be having some issues, he gybed to port, as did many of the boats around us.  We thought it was important to stay on starboard, keeping the bow more into the current flow (versus on the beam/port) and get to the relief of Rose Island.  We had to gybe twice on lifts because they were so pronounced, but for the most part we sailed on starboard 75% of the time.  Sure enough when reaching the relief, we began to really punch forward on the fleet and it became quite easy from there.  Nice early dowse by the team (Wendy, Nate Merrill, Mike and David Marshall-pretty much our core team since spring) helped 138 have a sweet rounding and it was a fetch from there.  Race two we would try to duplicate but there was more “right in it” and we got pinballed around the race course-basically we got smoked… Nice job by Bill Shore and Team 74-they seem to be back on track, Jamie Hilton credits it to his 12 Meter collision in Edgartown “clearing his head”, I though he bought new sailing slippers.

-Chuck Allen-138-Envy

Shields Fall Series Race #1 report from #74

Weather forecast:
SE 5-10 mid-day, going E 5-10 in the afternoon and evening. Winds diminishing late night then back to E 5-10 Thursday morning. Tide low at 2:58 pm.

The wind at race time was more like SE 6-11. Curtis noticed the wind was more E on the left side of the course and more SSE on the right side, but he felt the wind was stronger on the left.

The weather leg was short and the starting line was fairly long with plenty of room for everyone to get a clear lane at the start. We liked the pin end for several reasons and got a very good run at it, building speed for about 6 seconds and nailed the line near the pin at full speed. Before the start we did range the line using Portsmouth’s “skyscraper” as the land mark. A few minutes later, still on starboard tack, we started to nose into that left shift Curtis noticed before the start and immediately tacked to port and in-phase. We first looked to be about one hundred yards below the port tack lay line, but as we crossed every starboard tack boat (very close to 101, 181 224 and 138) we continued to lift as the wind came even more left and with the current on the lee bow we were pushed right up to the windward mark about 10 yards in front 101 the second place boat. All alone at the mark we pre-set our pole on the leeward (starboard) side of the boat in order to have a very fast hoist, and bare-away set and the pole in place ready to go. 1/3 down the leeward leg with Dwight on the sheets and Christine on the pole we jibed to port which put us just about on the lay-line to the left gate. We were still on the lead, with only one tack and one jibe so far. After rounding the gate it was no problem to loose cover the few boats nearest us as they tended to stay bunched instead of split for the corners.

2..181
3.. 76
4.. 138
5.. 224
6.. 101

Sometimes things just go right. Last Wednesday was one of those times. Thanks to our fiends and sailors on IDA, it was a nice day and a nice course.

Congratulations to Wendy in 138, she is having a great year in ALL of her sailing.

Bill Shore #74

Greetings from the Fox team on 232, led by our skipper Jay “Ahab”
Gowell, who is obsessed with his quest for an elusive puff of white
smoke at the end of the race course. The best decision of the evening
came before we left the dock at CYC when Jay shanghaied not one but
two younger Gowells from their duties with the CYC Junior Program,
bringing our total crew to 6. We also shortened our headstay by a
half inch from the max long position that we like for most light to
moderate conditions.

Setting up for the start of the second race of the night, we judged
the committee boat to be about five degrees favored and with the new
windward mark “13” a bit to the right of directly upwind, so we wanted
to start toward the committee boat end and tack over to port once we
got a clear lane. With more breeze than the start of the first race
and lots of current keeping everyone back from the line, we had a
chance to do the rarest of things in a Shields; a dinghy style luffing
start. We tacked onto starboard about six boatlengths to astern of
the committee boat at 1:30 to the gun, then luffed our way up to the
line putting the bow down a couple of times to defend what turned out
to be a one and a half boatlength hole to leeward. Putting the bow
down for the last time at five seconds, we were able to get bow out on
the two boats to leeward and then blade out the sails and put the crew
weight to work generating lots of straightline speed.

It turned out that most of the fleet liked the boat end even more than
us, so about two thirds of the fleet tried to squeeze into the 1/3 on
the line to the right of us. This meant delaying our tack onto port
for about two minutes as we waited for the last of the boats to our
right to tack over. After getting pingponged a bit in the first race
trying to work the current relief on the left, we were happy to focus
on boatspeed while waiting for a nice clear lane to get across the
fleet on port. Patience paid off as we were able to take a port tack
all the way to the starboard layline without any ducks and tacked onto
starboard ahead of 254 about 15 boatlengths from the mark. We
overstood by two boatlenghts allowing 138 to tack below us and
threaten to get inside at the mark, but we managed to reach over them
and round just barely clear ahead.

Downwind we were left to defend our position in the lead. We stayed
on starboard briefly after the top mark to stay clear of the bad air
from the fleet on the starboard layline, then jibed to port with 138
to defend an inside position at the leeward mark. By staying low and
occasionally by the lee, the current carried us all the way to the
leeward mark on port tack with 138, 254, 108 and others nipping at our
heels.

On the final beat, we covered our closest competitors, 138 and 108, as
they went left while 254 and the next pack went right. We tacked
across about midway up the leg and were lucky that no big shifts came
through to give our competition a chance to use leverage against us.
Hearing the gun as we crossed the line was a relief after coming up
just short a few times earlier in the season.

BOTTOM LINE: a great start and a little edge in boat speed makes the
tactician’s life much easier, especially when there are no big wind
shifts to play. So always ask the generous skippers of Fleet 9 to
leave you a nice clear spot to leeward when coming up to the line!

Dexter Hoag

Fox

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