Sailing Nationals was great fun, and great racing. One of the defining moments came when we were standing around the cranes helping out of town boats haul out. People were poking around other boats, talking setup here and there, all the while people (including the champ) are leaping off the seawall. Everyone was just so friendly, it really showed what our fleet was all about.
We had a good time on 88, but it's only fair to acknowledge we didn't have as good a result as we'd expected. After having 2 really excellent seasons in which we won just about everything we sailed against everyone we could I felt like we'd be top 5 at least, but we ended up 7th overall. That said, as Niki and talk about the regatta I think we're both really happy with our first Nats. The experience of getting to race against some of the best boats in our class was really thrilling. I always felt like we just outside the pack of 3 or 4 front runners, and if we had done just a little bit better we would have been up high in the results.
Good times aside, I really like to learn something constructive from every day of sailing, and we picked up quite a bit from this event. Some of the things we could be doing better:
-Light air upwind speed. For whatever reason we felt slow most of the time in light air. Lots of factors could be at work here, but I think the biggest one is that we just haven't sailed enough light air races! This seasons been really windy, and much of 08 was as well. We felt very well prepared for big breeze, but knew we were a bit weak in the light stuff. Looking at
photos from the event, our sail setup usually looks a bit different than the really fast guys. We tend to have less headstay sag, and far more main leech return down low. One interesting thing from a measurement point of view, is that the boats that are at max partner aft/max step forward tended to do better on the later days of the event, and the ones with more moderate step positions tended to do better in the light. This seems like a good reason to experiment with blocking the mast at the partners, something we've been thinking about all season but only really tried once.
-Light air tactics on big courses. In Chicago we're used to the RC adjusting course length depending on wind strength. In big breeze we might do 4-5 mile courses, and in light air it's usually under 4. All of our races were started, and usually ended up around 6 miles. That means that on a 1.5m windward leg, you can had boats separated by up to that same mile and a half! Saying it pays to pick a side is an understatement. In the really light air stuff-like thursdays first race- the favored side was a huge advantage, but changed leg to leg! We tend to be a boat that plays the shifts, and usually ends up going up the middle of the course on the favored tack. After racing we realized we'd been tacking way too much, and some of the tacks were probably due to velocity headers more than actual shifts. Seems like patience is another thing we need in light air.
-laylines. We had 5 or 6 bad layline calls in which we saw boats sail right by us. Part of my usual upwind strategy is to have a really close top third of the beat where we come in in port late enough to really nail the tacking angles, which we didn't end up doing this regatta. Adding to that was all the extra boats around! Even if you called a good layline, you had to anticipate the traffic better as a good layline goes bad once a boat stacks up above or ahead of you.
Those were the couple big shortcomings on 88 I feel. Once the breeze was a little bit up on Saturday, we had 1 good race (2nd) in which we could power the boat up and punch through chop well, at the same time we could play the shifts the way the compass called.
There are far more good things to come out of this event than bad though, and in keeping with the great time we had there are areas we did really well in.
-Starts. Usually my weakest part of the leg, this turned out to be a really high point for us. Part of it was the out of town boats are used to starting in fleets this big, so they tend to go for their own best start instead of trying to mess with whoever happens to be to windward (the OCS we had in race 7 was actually when a Chicago boat sailed under us and took us up). The other part was picking our spot early, and coming in with lots of speed, but still taking big luffs when we needed to. I found myself really looking forward to the starts this regatta, and think it was a good confidence builder for the future.
-It never really blew over 12 or so even on the "windy" last day, but anytime the breeze was up a bit over 6kts I felt really fast both upwind and down. This makes a lot of sense, as most of our teams experience is in bigger breeze.
-Our team really kept it together when things looked bad. In my 10 years of Shields racing, I've been on the fleet3 season winning boat every year, so we've always been confident going into Nationals, and sometimes things go badly early and everyone melts down a bit. This weekend we certainly got tense, but never really lost control. I was really proud of Niki on the bow, as she kept the attitude on the boat light, and kept us working hard to get back what we might have lost. Everyone on 88 is a really good sailor, but they're on the boat because of attitude as well.
-Sponsoring this event with Chicago Yacht Rigging as title sponsor was really rewarding! We got great feedback from people who checked out our boat, and people seemed to really appreciate our involvement. I'd really like to be involved with future National events, as it's a great feeling to do something big for the class.
-Boathandling was great. We never really had bad moves all week, and I feel like we'd gain with every tack on other boats. A couple new tricks appeared on our boat, probably my favorite was how Jocelyn and Brian are working the main in tacks: Brian does a big traveler up to initiate the tack, at the same time Jocelyn is pulling like mad on the fine tune mainsheet. This gives us a lot of weather helm fast, which means I use less rudder as the boat turns up. After the tack, Jocelyn eases the fine tune mainsheet to the pretack postion, plus a bit, so we have a nice ease to sail down on after the tack. Downwind was really great too! We were using our weight really well, and Bam is awesome about timing (and throwing) the main through. Likewise Niki really nailed the gybes this week, and I always felt that we could put the boat wherever we wanted, regardless of how tough the move might be.
The tougher thing to describe was how thrilling the event was, to be getting such quality racing with so many boats in. I love sailing in Chicago, but our races are usually fairly straightforward; get ok start, sail course fast, and watch out for 1 or 2 boats who are near us. Racing 18 boats is only twice the number, but probably 10x the fun!
As an event it was a great success, and it was wonderful to meet so many enthusiastic Shields sailors. I think I met nearly everyone there, and they had nothing but nice things to say about CYC's runnign the event. A lot of that is due to Kevin from 150, who not only put together a great event, but managed to have the best Chicago finish is over 30 years, with a hard fought 2nd, only one point out of first! Great job Yankee Girl!
HL Devore won the event, and he's one of those guys who you're cheering for even if he plants a tack in your face. He's the outgoing (in more ways than one) class president, and has done a nice job for the class, and really deserved this win.
Perhaps the best part about the event was as soon as it was over, both Niki and I started talking about how to do the next one, as we're really hungry for more racing of this level.
We got one last great sail in on the 18th. Sunny, flat and breezy. We took the boat downtown and went past Navy Pier.
Whats on the schedule for boatwork this winter? Jack! There are lots of jobs I can think of, like draining/sealing the deadwood, fairing the bottom, etc etc. but the boat is good enough for what we're doing with it next year, so I think I might just take the winter off 88 projects for once, and save a bunch of money and frostbitten fingers. Nationals next year is TBD, and depending on where they hold it we may or may not go, which could change this plan, but right now I think it's pretty light winter projects.
