Raimonland Day 1 Races Photos

What a start! 15 boats jostling to be first on the line!

Mark rounding

Raimonland Day 1 Races Photos

Neck to neck with the Weasel

Going Upwind.

The Ferret got a new paintwork and is now called Southshore

Just before a race started

P/s: Blogspot and Picasa are rather screwy when it comes to uploading photos...so i will only be uploading a select few.

Day 0 Training Photos

Life jackets in both small size and Large size.

Hiking out for maximum effect.


Juniors heading up to TOGR in May can expect such clear waters. That's the Platu's rudder when the boat heels.

Raimondland Day 2 Race 5,6,7

To sum up Day 2’s races, we were outclassed.

The winds were light for the first race, gradually picking up through the subsequent races. Despite our good starts, we were nonetheless outclassed by the sheer experience, local knowledge of our competitors. Once again, we have a no mistake race, and even improved on the timing required for certain sequences (for eg, raising the pole took no longer than 2 boat lengths). But, as experience (or rather, the lack of it) would have it, the other boats had their no-mistake races too, and coupled with their superior wind readings, the cloud readings, the current readings, the tide reading…..you get the idea.

I was invited to race on Lee Marine, a Platu owned by Kevin Scott (aka The Ferret) with some Dutch and Aussie guys. These guys sailed from young, sailed off Ocean Marina for God knows how long, and were overall 5th for Day 1’s race. They usually sail with four persons, and I asked, “I don’t understand how you can sail with just four persons, there’s just so many things to do.”

“I don’t understand how you can sail with SIX persons!” they replied.

They seemed to be expert cloud readers, always judging the direction and strength of the wind to come, based on the cloud formation. Before the Platus start, the tactician (who happened to be the mains trimmer) observed boats from the other classes that started earlier; “ok, that boat is being headed from near mid course, and judging by the clouds forming there, the winds will be bad for us. And don’t forget the current is coming in from that side, so, we better stick to this side of the race course.” Maybe that’s something we can learn from.

The amount of information flow amongst the 4 of us was non-stop. Lee Marine was a fine example of how the helmsmen job is to steer the boat. The Mains/Tactician was mostly calling the shots on the boat. “Let’s tack here, to get out of their shitty winds. Let’s head out to the right side of the course, the winds are better. Let’s not tack anymore, we have tacked too much!” Everything on the boat was democratic, yet not. A paradox, but somehow the boat drives very fast and high. There’s just something about these seasoned sailors who can read the wind shifts so well, that they always catch the gust and just sail past our SMU boats.

Perhaps we have to grow more facial and nose hair to be as sensitive to the wind changes as them.

Guys, it’s time to take a visit to Yum Nam Hair Care.
(Photos of the races will be uploaded soon)

Team SMU Champion in Singapore Laser SB3 Fleet Match Racing Regatta 2008

For those who don't know what match racing is about, it is basically equal boats sailing one on one with each other and whoever finishes the race in front of the other wins the match. Format is slightly different from fleet racing that we usually do. It starts off usually with one or a double round robin with many races in it, and the top four ranked boats at the end will be entered into the semifinals, and the winners will face each other in the final. in the knockout stage, it will usually be in a best of 3 or 5 races format. One thing to note in match racing is that there is a pre-start elemient to it. Meaning before the start gun goes, the 2 boats will engage with each other to try and gain an advantage to start ahead of the other team on the start line. This is usually the most exciting part of the race and requires very good communication among the whole crew.

This time around, six teams were invited to take part in the 1st ever match racing regatta organised by the Singapore SB3 fleet. Our school was one of the six. The other teams included, Vladimir Borstnar's team our old J24 namesis, a german team skippered by Hannes, an olympic level sailor, Team NUS skippered by SEA Games Medalist, Alvin Hong, a team from Changi Sailing Club skippered by James Cole (winner of our WCSR multihull division), and the last slot was taken by John Heng with our very own Vivian Neo (Just graduated) in his team (lets call them the Singapore Press Holdings team, coz john and the other guy are working for SPH, i think). The boats used are SB3 (like duh...) and are sailed 3 up. Our team: Me - Helm, Maxi - Main, Justin Wong - everything else.

The event was held over 2 days. Sat and Sun. Unfortuantely for me, my stats mid term fell on saturday and i had to get my best friend Xu Yuan Zhen to stand in for me. Maxi took over the helm and on day 1, topped the round robin series with 5 wins against the other 5 boats, putting us in 1st place.

Day one round robin series ended in this order:
SMU
Germs
Borstnar Brownies
CSC
NUS
SPH

In this regatta, the format is slightly different, and it's like this:
1st vs 2nd
3rd vs 4th
5th vs 6th
Best of 3 races will be sailed.

So, we were up against the the germs today to fight for 1st place....

Race 1:
Started at the starboard end, entered the pre-start area bang on time. the germs were late and we tried to keep them from entering (if we manage to do that for 2 min the get a penalty). we failed, and after that the sneaky germs slowed their boat as we were hunting them, and we went overshot to the wrong side of them. they eventually managed to start infront of us, and tried to cover us tack for tack in a tacking duel. midway up the 1st beat, rain engulfed us and the wind picked up significantly. we managed to split tack from them eventually and head to the favoured side. when we crossed paths again, we were ahead, and lead them all the way to the finish to make it 1-0.

Race 2:
Wind strength dropped and we started at the port end and entered the prestart area about 2 seconds late. met the germs in the middle of the start line. we eventually forced them to round the big committee boat with one minute to go, and we chose to head for the pin end (which was the favoured of the starting line) for the start. the germs started at the starboard end and we started in a strong position at the port end. we lead throughout the course and made it 2-0 to wrap up the victory.

There was free beer after that as usual sponsored by brewerks. we filled the huge perpetual trophy we won with beer and passed it around. oh yes overall results:

1st: SMU
2nd: Germs
3rd: Borstnar Brownies
4th: CSC
5th: NUS
6th: SPH

Last but not least, special mention has to be given to both Priscillia and James who volunteered their time to help out in running the regatta. And Lizzie Maxted for helping us take photos. Thanks guys!! Ok Back to my BGS and MA project...

Cheers
Captain Jack Sparrow

Day 1

Apologies for the late posting people. I was on the Comm Boat the whole day yesterday, and we didnt have time to post Day 1's race then. Today, I was crewing on another Platu, so I can only post now.

Anyhow, here's what's supposed to be yesterday's post!

Day 1 Race 1,2,3,4

Today’s race consisted of four sausages, and in short, we didn’t do well for the races. Our starts were good, usually in the top five of the fleet, but somehow, we always lost out in the middle of the course. Boats overtook us on different tacks and we played a strategy wrongly to the far side of the course, thinking the winds there were better, but forgetting that the current changed and slowed our entry into the top mark.

We made a no-mistake race, but lost out on tactics to the more superior Thai Navy teams, Thai National Teams, and other seasoned sailors. It seemed that local knowledge was very important to maintaining our good starts, and often the crucial, determining factor in being in the front pack of the fleet.

Our mood wasn’t the best after having a bad race day, not even the tasty dinner with free beer lined up did much to lighten the mood.

After dinner, and washing up, we had a two hour debrief to discuss how best to approach tomorrow’s race. Later, we decided to head to Walking Street for some supper.
One more day of racing. The last day of racing. We can improve!

Photos: Day 0, Part 1

Our new, sexy Platu 109

The Pseudo Bow

Platu 109

One pull and it starts!

RaimonLand Platu Open: Day 0

Greetings from the Ocean Marina Yacht Club in Pattaya, Thailand! The Raimonland Platu Open Championships are about to open tomorrow, and the crack team from SMU was making good headway in today's training. We weren't the only boat out training today, so you can really feel the anticipation of a fleet race of 15 boats tomorrow! Imagine the scene at the start!

For the uninitiated, the Raimonland team from SMU consists of:

Alvin -Helms

Fiona - Mains

Louis - Jib Trim

Lips - Box

Junjia - Mast

Fang - Bow

Moi, Jason - your blog editor, shore liason, transportation negotiator, and friendly reserve (i had to create more positions for myself to fill while the main team sails.

We were assigned Platu 109, a brand new, sparkling clean boat, so almost-new that our dear Lips said that he “dares to sleep in the box.” The boat was in good condition, looked liked it was cleaned on upslip recently, and came with racing Techron sails! We were all excited, and after some simple tunings and getting-used-tos, we set off at noon to brave the South China Sea.
Today’s training was a commando-styled one. Enter, execute, and extract: We entered the race course, executed what we wanted to train on, and extracted ourselves from the course when we completed our objectives.

According to the locals here, the winds today were moderate, but to us, Singaporeans, they were more of the good strong winds you see in RM. We made good headway in training today. Essentially, our objective was to get acquainted with the boat’s reactivity, and iron out any last minute crew synchronizations. Some key issues we faced today were:

1) Do proper tacks without losing speed, and getting the heel right. We lost speed during out tacks today, but after some adjustments on crew work, we got it all it settled, and our tacks were rather good. Sweeet.

2) Hoisting timing – We shuttled between the Bear and Seattle Hoist, and generally, the problem was about the timing of the hoist. After some communication, and some trial-and-error, we got the timing right.

3) Get the spin to fly. Somehow, it seemed that despite the different parameters (pole height,guy and sheet, sailing angle) being set correctly, the spin could not fly fully. Later, we discovered that adjusting the pole just higher by an inch or so, set the spin to fill well.
Overall, we had a good training, settling some issues, working out movements on the boat, and evaluating the currents, winds off Ocean Marina.

Check out the pics in the following entry for more info!