IRC Race Report: Shengli's story
Race 1
The ominous looking storm clouds never threatened, and by the start of race 1, the wind died down to a steady breeze with the characteristic shifty wind patterns off the Tuas coast. Race officer Gordon Maxted and Jerry the RM Marina Manager took advantage of the increasingly assertive SW monsoon winds to lay a short (approx 1nm) windward leeward course along the length of the straits. The tide was ebbing, and from the start of the race day to the end saw the current steadily increase in strength from the 2nd link out to towards Merombong.
Shengli, with Winfrid on helm, Zhenghan on trim, Junjia on box, Tse Tiann on mast and Ben on bow went for a conservative start, eschewing the favored starboard end for clear wind further down the line. Good prestart positioning up current allowed Shengli to stay close to the line in the fickle winds and merciless tide, giving us a decent start. We were slightly slow to the line, so perhaps timing needs to be improved. Ben doved back from the bow position with a good 10 seconds to go, shouting “full-on trim, go go go” – that was how much buffer we had approaching the final countdown (but of course, it might simply be that his weight on the pointy end was slowing the boat down too much). Still, a decent final approach on what is probably the most crowded start line the helms & team has started in. With more practice, the timing will be cut down.
Soon after the start, perhaps the inexperience of sailing with bigger boats showed and we slowed significantly by being surrounded by Sumatra, Foxy Lady and Wings. More concentration is the order of the day, especially in the first 100 seconds after the start (as many a coach has mentioned before) – the temptation to pinch too high to avoid a leebow boat or foot too low in the shadow of an approaching boat to windward must be avoided.. just sail fast and tack away if you need to or can. This is mostly applicable to IRC racing, one design racing doesn’t quite have these problems.
Overall, upwind performance was quite ok. Played the shifts well to claw back to midfleet, and the team were aware of the increasing ebbing tide and took advantage of this by sailing out to the right (deeper water) and gaining that extra bit of speed over ground. A quick glance told us that SMUve was behind us! This gave the team a boost as we were psyched to try to beat SMUve on line honors and try to take the win on IRC.
We extended our lead into the upwind mark, and rounded without much incident – except for this one lesson: no matter how fast one hoists & pulls in the clew, to get that satisfying “pop” requires teamwork and coordination between the box and trimmer! And this was a lesson we learnt very fast. Winfrid and Zhenghan communicated well during the downwind legs, pointing up in the lulls to get speed & soaking low in the gusts to get VMG. However, we hit a few holes going close to shore on the downwind leg… the victim of the infamous Tuas roulette wheel of wind, close to the blocky industrial buildings and shoreline. SMUve did a good job steaming downwind, and every second saw the Big Red Spin of SMUve inch closer. Good job to them, for at the bottom rounding they managed to gain some ground, catching Roo & Rainbow Dream (who were between us), but still rounding behind us.
We had the plan to go right and protect the right because we anticipated the right shift, so were happy to see SMUve go left. However, it seemed that SMUve had managed to resolve their speed issues and were in full flight, worthy of their superior rating. Still, we were doing fine by bouncing them to the left once or twice and still managed to maintain our (slowly decreasing lead). At this time, a series of unfortunate incidents happened… First, we were too busy caught chasing a gust all the way to the left of SMUve, thus allowing them to head right. They seemed to like the left though, so pretty soon we were on a port-starboard approach, us back on port heading back out to our favorite right and SMUve heading left. In what seemed to be a close crossing to close, we did a crash tack to starboard to prevent a collision… which saw us being right ahead of SMUve! Looks like it wasn’t an imminent collision, and that the cross was actually on. This prompted SMUve to tack out of the cover where they promptly gained in a shift. Well, this was the defining moment because from then on SMUve pulled ahead to take the lead till the finish. No worries though because this is a good learning about judging crossings and also about tactics.
The rest of the upwind and the final downwind saw us consolidate our lead over Roo and Rainbow Dream. The last downwind was considerably better for us as we managed to track down most of the gusts and overtake Roo & Rainbow Dream. In what was the final gamble, we decided to head out into the channel because we observed that the current wasn’t directly on the nose, but rather had a slight left to right (from the channel to the shore) vector. After a few unrewarding minutes, we quickly realized our mistake as the current had by then shifted to a full on the nose direction and we immediately gybed back. Still, it seemed that we didn’t suffer too much because the boats close to shore had limp spinnakers while ours was full the entire leg. So I guess it seemed that it’s a fine line between going inshore to avoid adverse currents, and going too far inshore and getting suckered by the wind holes.
We finally crossed in 8th place, behind SMUve by 1 position… but still it was a good race in that we were now feeling more confident for the second race.
Race 2
And what a race this was! The starting plan was still the same, but perhaps emboldened by our decent start in the first race, we became a bit greedy and tried to start closer to the favored. The timing was spot on… or so we (and half the fleet) thought! The ebbing tide had finally come into full swing and as the minutes counted down the entire fleet were being swept over fast! It didn’t help that out of nowhere came… FOXY LADY on our leeward hip. Cries of “Up! Up! Up!” from the Foxy crew caused us to panic…and resulted in us heading into irons and doing an accidental tack, onto port with the huge Wings coming at us on starboard. They were clear astern of us before our tack, and were making a maneuver to come to the windward stern of us because of the uppity Fox. They didn’t think that the Fox would cause us to tack and so they had to bear hard to avoid us and Foxy Lady. Not a hot start as the tack caused us to OCS and stall on the line. We put our heads down and quickly dipped and started promptly. It wasn’t the best start, but we were determined to climb out of this hole and take advantage of the stronger winds and long-ish course to catch up.
This time around, we managed to maneuver into clear air and more concentration saw us reap the rewards of better boat speed. Mark roundings were tighter this time too. Overall, we did better this race, and the results showed it. 6th place out of 11th, an improvement of 2 spots. Still, we can do better, and we will do better the next time.
Overall, a good day out on the water. The IRC Races showed us how fun and tightly knit the sailing community is, and this has served to whet our appetites for success at the coming RSYC regatta.
The ominous looking storm clouds never threatened, and by the start of race 1, the wind died down to a steady breeze with the characteristic shifty wind patterns off the Tuas coast. Race officer Gordon Maxted and Jerry the RM Marina Manager took advantage of the increasingly assertive SW monsoon winds to lay a short (approx 1nm) windward leeward course along the length of the straits. The tide was ebbing, and from the start of the race day to the end saw the current steadily increase in strength from the 2nd link out to towards Merombong.
Shengli, with Winfrid on helm, Zhenghan on trim, Junjia on box, Tse Tiann on mast and Ben on bow went for a conservative start, eschewing the favored starboard end for clear wind further down the line. Good prestart positioning up current allowed Shengli to stay close to the line in the fickle winds and merciless tide, giving us a decent start. We were slightly slow to the line, so perhaps timing needs to be improved. Ben doved back from the bow position with a good 10 seconds to go, shouting “full-on trim, go go go” – that was how much buffer we had approaching the final countdown (but of course, it might simply be that his weight on the pointy end was slowing the boat down too much). Still, a decent final approach on what is probably the most crowded start line the helms & team has started in. With more practice, the timing will be cut down.
Soon after the start, perhaps the inexperience of sailing with bigger boats showed and we slowed significantly by being surrounded by Sumatra, Foxy Lady and Wings. More concentration is the order of the day, especially in the first 100 seconds after the start (as many a coach has mentioned before) – the temptation to pinch too high to avoid a leebow boat or foot too low in the shadow of an approaching boat to windward must be avoided.. just sail fast and tack away if you need to or can. This is mostly applicable to IRC racing, one design racing doesn’t quite have these problems.
Overall, upwind performance was quite ok. Played the shifts well to claw back to midfleet, and the team were aware of the increasing ebbing tide and took advantage of this by sailing out to the right (deeper water) and gaining that extra bit of speed over ground. A quick glance told us that SMUve was behind us! This gave the team a boost as we were psyched to try to beat SMUve on line honors and try to take the win on IRC.
We extended our lead into the upwind mark, and rounded without much incident – except for this one lesson: no matter how fast one hoists & pulls in the clew, to get that satisfying “pop” requires teamwork and coordination between the box and trimmer! And this was a lesson we learnt very fast. Winfrid and Zhenghan communicated well during the downwind legs, pointing up in the lulls to get speed & soaking low in the gusts to get VMG. However, we hit a few holes going close to shore on the downwind leg… the victim of the infamous Tuas roulette wheel of wind, close to the blocky industrial buildings and shoreline. SMUve did a good job steaming downwind, and every second saw the Big Red Spin of SMUve inch closer. Good job to them, for at the bottom rounding they managed to gain some ground, catching Roo & Rainbow Dream (who were between us), but still rounding behind us.
We had the plan to go right and protect the right because we anticipated the right shift, so were happy to see SMUve go left. However, it seemed that SMUve had managed to resolve their speed issues and were in full flight, worthy of their superior rating. Still, we were doing fine by bouncing them to the left once or twice and still managed to maintain our (slowly decreasing lead). At this time, a series of unfortunate incidents happened… First, we were too busy caught chasing a gust all the way to the left of SMUve, thus allowing them to head right. They seemed to like the left though, so pretty soon we were on a port-starboard approach, us back on port heading back out to our favorite right and SMUve heading left. In what seemed to be a close crossing to close, we did a crash tack to starboard to prevent a collision… which saw us being right ahead of SMUve! Looks like it wasn’t an imminent collision, and that the cross was actually on. This prompted SMUve to tack out of the cover where they promptly gained in a shift. Well, this was the defining moment because from then on SMUve pulled ahead to take the lead till the finish. No worries though because this is a good learning about judging crossings and also about tactics.
The rest of the upwind and the final downwind saw us consolidate our lead over Roo and Rainbow Dream. The last downwind was considerably better for us as we managed to track down most of the gusts and overtake Roo & Rainbow Dream. In what was the final gamble, we decided to head out into the channel because we observed that the current wasn’t directly on the nose, but rather had a slight left to right (from the channel to the shore) vector. After a few unrewarding minutes, we quickly realized our mistake as the current had by then shifted to a full on the nose direction and we immediately gybed back. Still, it seemed that we didn’t suffer too much because the boats close to shore had limp spinnakers while ours was full the entire leg. So I guess it seemed that it’s a fine line between going inshore to avoid adverse currents, and going too far inshore and getting suckered by the wind holes.
We finally crossed in 8th place, behind SMUve by 1 position… but still it was a good race in that we were now feeling more confident for the second race.
Race 2
And what a race this was! The starting plan was still the same, but perhaps emboldened by our decent start in the first race, we became a bit greedy and tried to start closer to the favored. The timing was spot on… or so we (and half the fleet) thought! The ebbing tide had finally come into full swing and as the minutes counted down the entire fleet were being swept over fast! It didn’t help that out of nowhere came… FOXY LADY on our leeward hip. Cries of “Up! Up! Up!” from the Foxy crew caused us to panic…and resulted in us heading into irons and doing an accidental tack, onto port with the huge Wings coming at us on starboard. They were clear astern of us before our tack, and were making a maneuver to come to the windward stern of us because of the uppity Fox. They didn’t think that the Fox would cause us to tack and so they had to bear hard to avoid us and Foxy Lady. Not a hot start as the tack caused us to OCS and stall on the line. We put our heads down and quickly dipped and started promptly. It wasn’t the best start, but we were determined to climb out of this hole and take advantage of the stronger winds and long-ish course to catch up.
This time around, we managed to maneuver into clear air and more concentration saw us reap the rewards of better boat speed. Mark roundings were tighter this time too. Overall, we did better this race, and the results showed it. 6th place out of 11th, an improvement of 2 spots. Still, we can do better, and we will do better the next time.
Overall, a good day out on the water. The IRC Races showed us how fun and tightly knit the sailing community is, and this has served to whet our appetites for success at the coming RSYC regatta.
posted by Ben at
5:17 am
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