LASERS CHECK THE MULTIHULLS

These folks were fastest around the world.  Can we learn any thing from them?   Rick White, one of the multihull instructors, (NOT TALKING ABOUT AROUND THE WORLD RACING) says that starting is 90% of the game and the other 90% is rounding marks.  He gives us five MUSTS for rounding the leeward mark.
1) Perpare for the upwind leg.  Outhaul, Cunningham, centerboard.
2) Remember the inside overlap rule and watch for inside boats.
3) Watch for the "pin wheel" and don't get caught on the outside.
4) Slow down to get behind if you need to.
5) Enter wide and exit close to mark.

Then I add to 5, if you are way ahead or way behind, nice wide turn and pass close to mark.  No need to go below the leeward mark.   The exit close is to keep the followers in your back wind or to be up wind of the folks ahead it they have bad rounding.

AND  as you go into the mark visualize the last wind shift and your exit angle from the mark.   Then  you can better hit the close hauled course, not to high or to low.    

THANK YOU, RICK.
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LASERS SAILING GETS EASIER

Reported in the recent Sailing World. Dick Rose and the US Sailing racing rules committee proposes some changes in the rules. They say that in some regattas a lot of protests are made. In others none or not many. Some fleets are doing a lot of penalty turns and other fleets not many. They don’t state where the data came from, but they want to fix it.

Three ways: 1) change the two turn to one turn penalty except in the zone except for the start. (Apparently one turns at the start)

2) If protested and didn’t do on water turns, accept fault and receive 20 % penalty or 30% depending on how quickly you do it.

3) A simpler protest procedure.

So, no real change in the rules –just the penalty system.

Talk it over with your fleet. You can use the experimental rules or not. Don’t disappoint the Rules Committee. They will keep meeting.
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LASERS LAST AND FIRST

 

Sorry that I have so much personal stuff in these last few days, but as long as I  mentioned below about our Last Day Sail on Decomber 31, 2011 and our First Day Sail on January 1, 2012, there was four of us that did it.  Here is a picture of three of us. The fourth, who also got a T-shirt, was out in the motor boat at picture time.

Left to right. Dave Johnson and Dave Moring sailed MC scows and Sam Chapin a Laser.  Dave Meaker who is not in the picture sailed a Laser.  So it was three Daves and Sam.  You can see the back of the shirt twice and the front once.

I am sure we have a lot more people that sailed both days and maybe someone who sailed at midnight -- 5 minutes in each year.  If you did, leave a comment so we can tell.  We may send you a T-shirt.

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LASERS CHECK THE SIGNALS

This is the B flag for the B course.

Yesterday in a light air race, the old guy was carefully picking out the ares of pressure to work toward on the first beat.  He linked up a group of patches leading up to the mark and it looked like the others could not get to it before he did.  Good work!  We will get to that mark before them.  Take another look. They are going around the other windward mark (we have two windward marks to handle major wind shifts).  Oh! Oh!  I am sailing the wrong course.  Ouch!

So now I need to add another note to the "before start list":  1. Check for up wind end of line.  2. Get a range. 3. Time the line.  4. Check for current.  5. CHECK THE COURSE SIGNAL.

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Lasers have PAIN.

 I wandered off-- following links to blogs on Laser sailing and stumbled onto one by Kevin kevinlikesstuff.wordpress.com with a title “Lost At Sea”. He has various topics including one on pain in Laser sailing both when windy and light wind. We recently had a sailor stop sailing at least partially because he developed sore muscles. It can be a problem, but not forever.

Oh yes, I stole the picture above from Kevin.

My reflection on the subject goes back 10 years or more in Key West when a friend of mine, Howard Crane, wanted to sail a Laser. Howard and I had sailed Sunfish together for a few years and had enjoyed each other. We both fixed up some old boats and went at it. When I had sailed a Laser years before, I had hurt my back pumping and told myself if that happened, I would stop right away. What happened was sore legs at night which had me taking Tylenol with Codeine or Ibuprofen at night to sleep. That lasted for a couple of months and since OK.

Remember with a Laser, there are smaller sails, the radial and the 4.7, that you can use when the wind is above what you can handle with the full rig. Sail yourself into shape or skip some of the higher wind races. Get to the gym. Use the smaller sails.

Why the pain if you would rather be without?


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LASERS IN "SAILING WORLD"

This is an e-mail that I sent out to friends that was enough fun that I will put it in here.  Some Laser stuff. plus.

Sailing World magazine. It came yesterday at my house. What a Surprise! Opened the cover to find a two page add from Sperry Topsider with pictures Of LASERS across the top and lesser boats across the bottom. Now the extra personal touch--- Paul Sperry who designed the first topsider (the first shoe with a thousand little cuts in the sole so won't slip on a wet deck) had a great grandfather Capt. Sereno Armstrong. My mother was an Armstrong, so I might be related to the Sperry Topsider. I have an Armstrong cousin working on the possible connection.

Then there is a few more pages into it a great picture of Fujimo (a "50 footer") from the first Key West race week. More on that at the end.

Then toward the back is a long article with pictures about the Park City, Utah Laser Fleet with a lot of unanswered question like how powerful is the air at 6,000 feet.

OK, back to FIRST Key West Race week. Sam had just bought a third ownership in a J-24 and John Smittle is going to show him how to sail the boat. So I am doing fore deck !!! Yes, yes, just follow the instructions given to you from the cockpit. So everything is going OK. We are in the last start and the smallest boat. Now this is the last race on Friday. Wind is up to twenty. Almost half of our fleet doesn't start. No problem on our boat-- John has never seen a wind he didn't like. This is triangle course day and around the gybe mark, Sam gybes the pole and the crew swings the spinnaker. (A little background-- the J-24 will surf down waves but not plane flat out. The J-22 which is 1,000 pounds lighter will just plane away in 20 knots wind.) Now the 50 footers who start first on the same course come sailing through our fleet. Fujimo sails by to leeward and John jumps on their quarter wave. Foredeck person on J-24 sits  just behind the mast after the spinnaker is up and holding the vang ready to release it if the boat starts to round up. We go bow down and stern up (It is a big quarter wave.) Our speed goes from hull speed of about 6.5 knots to the hull speed of the 50 footer (about 12 ). Fujimo is about 10 feet away and their crew is laughing and smiling at us. We hang on for about 1/2 mile and then round up and loose the wave because Sam doesn't ease the vang soon enough. No worry, here comes the next 50 footer, Abracadabra, John jumps on her quarter wave and we ride that through to the leeward mark. We win our class for that day with a tow from the 50 footers. Wondering about that oriental sounding name Fujimo? We understood that the owner was having trouble with his wife and it stood for F-- U Jane I'm Moving Out. I don't really know, but that is the story.

Take a look at the mag.
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LASERS SAIL INTO THE NEW YEAR

I will get sailing this afternoon on my first sail of the year and will let you know about that later.

This is a picture from 2009 Rule 2 Regatta.  Notice all the big smiles.  It was picked up by "Sailing Magazine" in a nice article.

Most of my posts have been about "practice".  I guess I do that most of the time, but I have 45 posts about FUN.

Now that is something that is NOT written about in the books or shown on the CDs.

So maybe I am the one with the biggest leg up on the FUN factor.

Paul Estrom touched on it, but had a hard time applying it when he was not winning.

In our little fleet in central Florida, I am usually in the middle of the group racing.  If I have a bad start or tack or capsize, then I am racing for last or next to last.  I am trying to get ahead of the boat just in front of me.  If I don't and they beat me, somehow I am happy for them. 
Going up those last few tacks to the finish I know I have that split.  I want to get ahead of them--

but will be happy if they sail well enough to be ahead of me.  Now everyone can't be in the fleet building business, so what makes you happy?  What is FUN about the sailing thing??   and we will try it again to tell you how to do it.
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