[Public-List] Another race night

[Wes Gardner via Public-List]

Hey Gord,

For you to say it was "the nut behind the wheel" making the boat slow, I
assume that everyone in the fleet has similar bottom fairing/paint jobs and
similar sails?  Although I do remember in J30, for some reason, we were
fast in light air...who knows

Peace

Wes

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Gordon Laco via Public-List <
public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:

> Good morning,
>
> SURPRISE was out on the race course last night here at Midland Bay Sailing
> Club.  My business day was hectic (hectic because we¹re very busy... I kept
> telling myself this kind of stress is good.  The bad kind of stress is
> sitting in a quiet office wondering why nobody calls...) so I looked
> eagerly
> toward getting down to the boat.
>
> Our crew last night was much attenuated.  My son Pete couldn¹t come; his
> foredeck associate Steve is getting married on Saturday so begged off.
> This
> later was perfectly understandable of course but I affected a pained voice
> when he called me, and thought it appropriate to commend that it bodes ill
> for the future if he¹s already curtailing his Œguy stuff¹ when he¹s not
> even
> quite married yet.
>
> So off Clint and I went.  I decided to make our absent members feel worse
> by
> putting ice on the beer, a rare thing in our boat and the fact that they
> missed it would, I hoped, make their choices sting a little.
>
> Motoring out to the start, I was very pleased to find that SURPRISE had her
> top speed under power back.  Here¹s what that¹s all about.  I actually
> nearly wrote to the list about it, modifying the pleasure I was feeling
> earlier about the performance of our new propeller.  We¹d noticed lately
> that full throttle barely got us up to 5 kts, and towing the dinghy knocked
> some off even that.  The change happened so suddenly that I thought perhaps
> we had weed on the prop.  We didn¹t.  I thought the knotmeter was wrong, it
> wasn¹t.  Then I remembered that I hadn¹t given the engine a tune up for
> years... Turned out it was five years.  In real life Clint is a highly
> skilled mechanic so he had a look at our Atomic IV¹s ignition system.  The
> points were closed up and very worn.  The rotor was worn, etc etc.  so
> after
> new points etc (during which I sent out my appeal for the gap figure) all
> was back together.  And what a difference...
>
> Back to the race.  The wind was 10 kts+ and squarely north...  We joined
> the
> fleet of about 20 boats swinging back and forth before the start sequences.
> A Fleet (full of big boats) got away without stress....  We had a superb
> start with B... Our main foes MAID MARION and SUNDANCE nicely tucked under
> us and both looking unhappy.
>
> The wind dropped, leaving a slight chop and the worst of all conditions for
> our Alberg 30 in a mixed fleet... About 5 knots of wind.  We¹ve found that
> in more than 5 or less, we¹re competitive, but at 5 and particularly with a
> bit of a chop, we are very slow.    So away went the whole fleet. By the
> end
> of the first windward leg we were in last and we never got back up into the
> pack.  We occasionally gained, but never much and the gains were always
> lost
> again going to windward.  Because there were only two of us, and perhaps
> because I was getting demoralized, we didn¹t use the chute downwind so any
> gains we made off the wind were incidental and fleeting.
>
> The long agony ended with the shame of the committee boat crew having to
> wait for us as we crept across the finish.  I shouted Œthank you for
> waiting¹ to them, they responded with Œwe don¹t often have to wait for
> YOU¹.
> Which was nice I guess but not great.
>
> Why so bad, when last Wednesday, also in light air, we were first?  Well I
> think the difference was that the lower wind last night was not until the
> end as light as the week before.  And last night there was a slop on the
> water, whereas last week the water was smooth as glass.  While trudging
> back
> to the club I remarked to Clint that maybe we were so slow because I¹d
> filled the portside saddle fuel tank in anticipation of our sailing trip
> next week.  Clint responded saying we were about 300 pounds lighter with
> the
> missing crew taken into consideration.  There was the lack of spinnaker
> use,
> but the truth is if we had used it, it wouldn¹t have brought us up the
> distance we were astern.
>
> I think that last factor was me.  I wasn¹t Œon¹ for the first half of the
> race and by the time I was feeling tuned in to the boat we had lost too
> much.   Both MAID MARION and SUNDANCE came over after the race and
> commented
> Œwow, we certainly got our revenge tonight, what happened?¹   I
> complimented
> SUNDANCE on his ability to make his boat point, and as usual MAID MARION
> was
> deadly fast in light air.
>
> Maybe I¹ll have to develop some sort of pre-battle ritual to get my head
> clear of conversations with customs brokers etc and into the boat.
>
> Onwards,
>
> Gord #426 Surprise
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