It was great to be back in the boat this weekend. Although Wrightsville Beach is known for its wind, it was fairly light, blowing a max of 7-10kts in the last race on Sunday. Both days started out with drifting around the race course, fighting seasickness, while we waited for the wind to fill. Once it did, however, it was beautiful, tricky racing.
On Saturday, we had a westerly breeze blowing between 4 and 7. We forgot our compass on shore, but it was apparent when we were headed and lifted. In the first race, we didn’t get a very good start and ended up being caught on the wrong side of the shift. Downwind, we struggled to keep the spinnaker full due to the lack of wind coupled with the swells. However, the second race, we got a beautiful start at the boat. We sailed our long starboard tack first, tacking a couple of times here and there to reflect the headers and lifts. We rounded in first and maintained the lead the whole race. We were pleased to say the least: finally our time in the boat was paying off.
However, the glory was short lived. In the third race, our limiting factor was our maneuverability downwind: we were trapped in between two boats the first downwind and couldn’t break free, drifting in and out of their dirty air. Unfortunately, we couldn’t bounce back from the slow downwind leg, so we ended up in 6th.
Sunday morning was even more of a drifter, but the wind finally filled in enough to get a race off. We won the start by the pin with clear air and plenty of boat speed. However, we were on the wrong end of the race course. We decided that we were focusing too much on the shifts, and less on the other boats and boat speed. The second race, however, we started a little late at the boat, but tacked off right because that had been working all day. We paid more attention to everyone else (while keeping the shifts in mind) and ended up barely rounding first around the windward mark. However, we lost a couple boats downwind because the left side of the course started to work and we were protecting course right. A couple more boats slipped between us and the first place boat before the finish because we were too late in noticing the shift left. We ended up 5th, at the tail end of the winning pack.
Although our scores were a bit all over the place, we ended up 5th, only 1 point behind 4th. We are content with our results: there is room to improve, but our two best races show that our work and time in the boat over this summer is paying off. Check out what each of us has to say about our specific positions below!
Darby (skipper): I’m proud of our performance this weekend. We had mishaps in the boat and made mistakes on the race course, but I’m pleased with how we were able to maintain our lead for the whole second race on Saturday.
As far as driving goes, these were tricky conditions. I’m not used to driving in swells as large as those, so downwind was hard when all the sails would lose power as we came down the backside of a wave. Wheeler struggled to keep the spinnaker flying, but I think it was largely due to the light wind/large swells combination instead of his skill. Nevertheless, we still were getting frustrated at how slow we were downwind. He’ll talk more about this, but our biggest struggle was figuring out how to trim the spinnaker when we were going dead downwind and a swell would kill all the wind that was in the sail. The spinnaker would collapse, but he didn’t know how to get it back up to speed before another wave would come. We decided that sailing at such a deep angle wasn’t ideal for these conditions, so I started sailing at a higher angle to have more speed over the waves. This worked well.
We filmed a bit with the GoPro, and watched the film on Saturday night. Wheeler and I decided that keeping the spinnaker away from the boat only works in steady breeze with few waves, but once the waves pick up, the sail is too far away from the boat and too unstable to be beneficial. Therefore, by sheeting in more and relying less on just the pole, Wheeler was able to keep the spinnaker flying on Sunday, even if it was closer to the boat.
Upwind, I was constantly looking up to our top batten to 1) ensure that it was parallel with the boom and 2) ensure the tell tale was flying half the time. I would slightly adjust the main trim every time our boat encountered a header, lift, puff, or lull, and I think this process is what kept us going fast on Saturday. We noticed the first race that we had little boat speed, but we then adjusted the main so that the bridle was way loose and the backstay was off, which gave us the flexibility to keep the leech open with each shift. During our second race (the race we won), I looked at Wheeler and Hannah and said, “I think we’re the fastest boat on the race course,” and they both agreed. We were able to maintain a lane upwind and keep our boat speed, holding our own against others.
However, the races on Sunday were less satisfying because we lost our ability to hold a lane. The wind on Sunday steadily increased, blowing about 7-10 by the end of our last race. I think we were slow to adjust our controls while the wind increased. In the first race on Sunday, a boat sailed past us upwind. However, after adjusting our controls, we were able to hold a lane against the regatta winner in the second race. We just need to be better about adapting to the different conditions.
Wheeler (middle):
I was really happy with how our boat sailed this weekend. We were a pretty light boat which definitely helped us go fast out on the water. Having sailed in 6 regattas together now, I think we’re finally starting to get in the swing of things. One thing I learned this weekend was how to fly a spin in light and wave-y conditions. Having sailed the boat in the Charleston Harbor pretty much all summer, I was used to being able to fly the spin decently far from the boat in moderate winds. However, the large swells and light/puffy conditions meant a lot of going in and out with the spin. When the wind filled in, I could fly the spin pretty far from the boat but the second it shut off the spin would collapse and it was tricky to get it flying again. When this happened, my first instinct was to bring the pole forward and have Darby head up a bit so it would fill easier. However, we learned from watching our videos from Saturday that this killed our speed. On Sunday, we tried prioritizing trimming the sheet to bring the chute closer to the boat which allowed us to get it flying again quicker. Doing it that way seemed to work a lot better and our spin “downtime” was reduced significantly.
From a tactical perspective, I would like to see us playing “defense” a little bit more rather than just sailing to the parts of the course with good wind. During the race where we got 1st, we were constantly looking at what the boats behind us were doing and made sure to defend our position. Even if there was a puff out right, we decided to stay with the fleet to protect our spot. This strategy worked for us during that race, and I think it is part of the reason we did so well. In the future, I would like us to factor protecting our position into our strategy.
Hannah (forward):
I’m also really happy with how we did last weekend. We are getting better at debriefing after every race and actually acting on the things that we talk about for the next one. The biggest example of this (as mentioned above) was making decisions based on what other boats are doing on the course, rather than just on sailing to the puffs. This made my (and Wheeler’s) roles of looking around constantly and communicating what we see all the more important. We definitely had better results in the races that we did this, most notably being the 1st place finish we got on Saturday.
Something that hurt our performance this past weekend and that we easily fell into was taking way too long to make decisions. Our communication is really good on the racecourse about strategy and tactics, with us all bringing up ideas and suggestions for the next move. But often, we will discuss a decision for so long so that by the time we reach a decision, we missed our opportunity that brought up the discussion in the first place. It’s this balance of being a team and discussing what to do next and being on the same page combined with making quick tactical decisions which is often needed during racing that we need to get better at. I do think we made some improvements with this on Sunday and it’s something I want to focus more on at future regattas.
Something that was new to me this past weekend was the swells. I haven’t done a lot of open ocean sailing, but I eventually figured out that it’s important to tell Darby and Wheeler when a particularly large swell was coming on the downwind leg so they could adjust appropriately as we went up and down the wave. Other than that, I struggled with knowing where to tell Darby to go on the downwind legs; the swells made it a little more difficult to tell exactly where the wind was coming from. Between that and the seasickness, I think I’m glad we usually sail in less wavy conditions, although it is beautiful to be out there on the sea. I won’t be able to go to our next regatta, and I’m pretty bummed, but hopefully my stand-in will have a good time!
Thank you to Ron Medlin for letting us stay at his house, even though we barely saw each other – we got in at 2 am on Friday and missed each other the whole weekend until Sunday morning. Also a thanks goes out to Carolina Yacht Club and Chip Till the PRO. He did a great job getting five races off in tricky conditions. We’re happy and excited to have him as the PRO for SAISA Champs, which will be hosted by Georgia Tech at Lake Lanier Sailing Club this November. This regatta and yacht club was one of the friendliest we’ve been to, with multiple members coming up to us after the races on Sunday saying goodbye. We appreciated the hospitality! Next we will be at the Wild Oyster Regatta in Charleston. Also, we are excited to start the Winter series in November and hope to do as many regattas as we can!
Finally – if you haven’t been to Carolina Yacht Club, we highly recommend. Not only is it a beautiful yacht club with a nice sailing area, it’s also right on the beach. You can get done with races on Saturday and chill out on the beach while your skipper attempts to surf, which is entertainment at its finest. Just ask Wheeler and Hannah for details.
