Spinnaker Handling: 180 Turn - beam reach to beam reach?

[paulk]

We have rounded a buoy with the spinnaker up and tacked to the other gybe, but the current was doing funky things in order to make that maneuver advisable. Before you worry about it too much, check to make sure the Race Committee has no way to change the course to have you leave the buoy to starboard. The Sailing Instructions at our club call for rounding the marks of the course on the same side as the starting mark was left. By moving the committee boat we can send people clockwise or counter-clockwise. If I was running the RC at your club, and had the wind coming the way you say, I'd switch it to a starboard rounding and help out the racers by simply avoiding the problem. The reach to reach gybes would still be interesting enough to watch. If they can't change the course and you have to turn through the wind to 'round the buoy, you can go the dowse/reset route as others have suggested, or you could sail past the mark, pinch up a touch for a half minute to work to weather a bit, and then "wear ship" - gybe. You have to be careful not to work too far to leeward in your gybe, because you have to be able to carry the 'chute and still leave the mark to port on the return leg, after you've gybed. You should pick the maneuver that you think will be the quickest and least problem-prone. Let us know how it goes!

[SEMIJim]

We raced. We flew the kite. We had a terrific time!

Was looking bad for a while there. All the way out the boat, while we were prepping to go out, and when we started motoring out: No air. I mean no air. None. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Zero. Bupkis. Nothing was stirring. But then, with the committe boat in sight, I look up and... here we are, motoring at 4 kts about dead north and the Windex is pointing steady dead aft! I point up, and say "Hey, I think we have air!" Raised the main, pointed back down until the boom was dead center, to get a wind bearing: Sure enough: Wind was straight out of the south.

Got the genoa up and everybody got familiar with their jobs. Got over the line nearly perfectly as our class flag went down. Two hours later: Rounded the southern mark, steadied her up, and up went the chute! Got the genny down, got 'er all trimmed and away we went! Eventually the wind backed, because we ended-up on mostly a beam reach most of the way back up.

Final result: Out of a fleet of ten boats, four in PHRF and six in JAM: We finished second in the PHRF class and second over-all. The winning boat beat us by a mere three minutes--out of an (approximate) 3-1/2 hour race. And we might have taken first, had not the air kind of died on us about two miles short of the line and the power boat wake not gotten so bad. The combination of the two was really damaging to us. The boat that beat us, a much larger boat, carrying much more sail area, was not as badly hurt by this as were we. (And I think they sailed a somewhat more advantageous course on that second leg, truth be told.)

The weather was beautiful. The sailing was fantastic. All-in-all a terrific day!

Jim

[paulk]

Sounds like fun! We launch Friday and will be trying to make a race that night. Hope we have more than 4 knots of wind!

[Faster]

Well done, Jim! ...and this is just the beginning! Good results too.