Shields Fleet 9

From John Dory- 217

RACE 1 & 2

Incoming tide increasing as the afternoon went on Breeze at 095-115 Mag Rig set at headstay 48.5″, Caps at 29 and Lowers at 17 on Loos Gauge.

Race 1- Lousy start by Jamie  but managed to get left as planned. Looked bad early but good pressure on left bailed us out and we rounded top mark
around 5th. First to gybe downwind. Fought off charge from 108. (the only thing worse than having a competitor like Jeff in front of you is having
them right behind you) .. but managed round the left hand gate first and hold that position on the short weather leg to the finish.

Race 2 . Same settings on Rig . More tide. Breeze basically the same. Jamie got average start. Maintained lane. Tacked. Almost hit 166 because
Jamie pinned tiller to leg and couldn’t turn any more but didn’t want to alarm co-owner so didn’t say anything. 2/3′rds up the first beat we stepped
up once onto stbd for 300 yds, on a small knock, and were never threatened there after.  Downwind, while watching some good puffs move through the
fleet, we had a brief discussion on what to do if we started to deathroll, about 15 seconds later we started to roll but were now well prepared and
took action as discussed.

Crew :Jeff Dionne, Tim Healy, Chris Greenman, Jamie Hilton, Chris Murray. Same people sailing together for many years now makes huge difference
especially early in the season, It is certainly enjoyable when it all comes together.

Race 4 Bullet Blog

Rig settings: Caps 29, lowers were eased 1 turn from previous setting of 17. Headstay untouched from last week

Jamie had lousy start, again. This always gives us a good look at boats ahead and the breeze on the course. After getting pinballed a bit after the start we got to the left as per our game plan (current) As in the first race good left puffs were rolling in on that side of the course, changed gears frequently to round second behind “Bandit”. After a brief period of indecision we opted to sail a high course which kept us in much stronger breeze to pass them…. recurring theme this season , ” we’ve found luck and favorable shifts on the left thus far” ……

Crew, front to back: Johnie Walker (that’s his name, really) Jeff Dion, Chris Murray, Tim Healy, Jamie Hilton.

Fall Race 7 prelim results. Stay tuned for final tabulated fall results.

The Point Yacht Club aka Peter and Audrey Denton’s abode will host an Old Fashion BBQ after racing on Sept. 15.

Come give a proper send off to our teams heading to Nationals!

Fall Race 5

Race 5 started off at the mooring putting the 224 back together after great storm that has come to be known as the Dupe of Earl. On the craft this evening was Mark Kroening on brains, Henry Maxwell on the blue sail, Peter Clark on the throttle, Briar Macky on the Jib + entertainment, and rounding out the 5 was Brandon Flack driving the bus. Robin and his RC staff had to relocate due to our racetrack being occupied by the Intergalactic Yacht Club Clash of the Titans qualifier, so the 25 or so ships headed back to the friendly waters north of the bridge. Conditions found were a strong flooding tide and a 8-12 knot breeze at 235 deg. The forecast was calling for the breeze to shift right as the front passes through later on that evening. The course was set for special race mark 3p and back down to Xp (twice around). This shaped our game plan to start at the boat third and remain on starboard tack for a bit to get the tail end of the current relief from the Rose cone. At the gun we had Stubby (59) on our windward hip with Sollitto (76) pacing us to leeward. About 5 minutes into the beat we were able to tack onto port in clear breeze 2 lengths below Dirk on the Helen and send it back to the right side of the course and pass under the bridge at approximately the mid section of the right center span. The 217 was a threat from the right who appeared to be sailing in less current but as we neared the top end of the beat the right side pressure began to fade and we were able to tack on the leeward hip and shift the 224 into 5^th gear point mode and round the mark in lead. The majority of the downwind leg (sponsored by Narragansett Lager) was pretty tame until we neared the bottom third of the run. Kyle had the 254 hard charging on our starboard hip in the fading breeze leading us to jibe out to port to protect the inside. We ended up rounding several boat lengths ahead of the 254 and 217 with our game plane to continue on port until there was a threat of boats tacking onto to starboard. About 200 yards into the leg, the knocks started to become pretty evident and we tacked… onto layline from about 2 miles out. The forecasters earned their cash today calling for the right shift, that during the beat was about 30-40 deg right of base.  We maintained a good split between 217 and 254 marching up the right side of the course, cracked off at about 80-90 apparent but as we approached the bridge we saw the graceful sight of the Burnham/Baer syndicate bonecrushing it right of the middle of the course to our leeward. This made for a close rounding with the 224 maintaining a 2 boat length lead over 107 at the mark. The RC posted a change of course to finish to the southwest of Rose making for some of the most hair raising racing we’ve scene this summer. The 224 and the 107 in a dead heat rocked and rolled down wind at and exhilarating 7 knots. We must have paid more for our seats because the view back towards the mark was hair ball with a micro squall kicking up rain and gusting breeze in the low 20’s. As one person put it later that night at Zelda’s, “These Wizard of Oz-like clouds came out of no where and the rain drops were the size of golf balls…” That boat must have had the beer sponsorship too…

All in all we had a great race, squeaking out the 107 at the very end to claim the gun.

Great job to Robin and the gang + help from the 138 last night. These guys had a major game of chess on their hands.

Last Plug: If you haven’t signed up and considering sailing Nationals, it’s not too late of do so. Also, spoke to some who want to sail but are having difficulties filling out a crew. If this is the case, let me know and we can sort it out. GET ON IT!

Peter Clark

Dos-Dos-Cuatro

Virginia.

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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