Hike Out Regatta - Racing Recap (Gei It Laldy)

 

Crew: Ben Williams.

Finishing Place: 4th out of 8 boats

The local CLSA Thistle Fleet 66 is an up-and-coming racing fleet and I see potential with this group.   I borrowed a high-end Thistle a few years ago and recruited experienced thistle crew and dominated the local Hike Out Regatta event.  It's not much fun when a regatta lacks competitive racers who can challenge you, but the fleet and the events are now showing much promise.  Kelly Chang is a local grad student and Thistle racer from New York who has friends with high-caliber racers on the East Coast and she has been successful in recruiting them to race at some CLSA thistle events.   Kevin Arrow and Mike Gillian are competitive regional racers and are now showing up more consistently to CLSA thistle regattas.   Gerry Christman is the local thistle Fleet Captain and he has been traveling to regattas and is improving his game.  Last but certainly not least, a few newer racers including Tom Johnson and Max Christie/Nooreen Meghani are working hard and showing big progress.  I see it as a fun challenge to jump on a different boat and see how I stack up against competitive racers like Kevin Arrow and Mike Gillian.  If I enjoy it, I might even travel to a Thistle regatta here and there.  I think it will help make me a better sailor and supporting these events might help grow the local Thistle regatta events. 

This offseason I acquired Thistle #2221 and named her Gei It Laldy which means Go with Gusto in Gaelic.  If you are reading my notebook, you probably know that the builder of the Scot and the Thistle is Sandy Douglass and he has a strong Scottish heritage.  The boat needs a lot of work and needs some tuning, but I took it to Rod's Garage and we got her sailable, or at least we thought we did.   The sails are old and we didn't do any tuning on the rig.   Ben Williams agreed to race with me in this regatta and went out prior to a Thistle Thursday casual sailing day to practice and get a feel for the boat.   By the end of the night we felt like we generally had things figured out and were ready to go.  We learned Kevin Arrow and Mike Gillian would be racing so we were looking forward to competitive racing.  

Race 1 (Very Light Air)

We were first to the first mark!  I love it when this happens.  It was very light wind to the point where the only way you knew you were moving was to look at the pond scum and see if it was moving.  I feel Ben Williams and I are both very strong light wind sailors.   We worked extremely hard for every iota of boat speed and we passed several boats as we were hyper focused and constantly adjusted our weight until we found the fastest balance.  Things were looking great after we rounded the first mark in first place until we found ourselves in the middle of a giant hole as the wind started to come down the left side.  These are the situations where you cringe because you know the wind is going to bring the whole fleet back down to you and all you can do is watch and wait.  To make matters worse, another boat sailed right down on top of us to windward and made it even more frustrating by sailing inches away from us.  When we finally broke free, we had fallen back to 6th or so place but played the puffs perfectly and caught back up quickly.  As we gave mark room to the boat ahead by turning wide to avoid that boat's stern, the boat behind us did not give us mark room and just drove it in there.  We got tangled up, no damage, but this allowed the leaders to break away.  Fortunately, they went left because we saw much better pressure on the right and went that direction.  We were the only ones who saw it and we were worried the leaders saw something else on the left that we didn't, but we trusted our instincts and went all the way to the right layline.  Turns out we were correct and we'd come back big and finish second by just a boat length.  It's a race we should have easily won if we hadn't got tangled up two separate times and this was a confidence-building race.   You can't put too much weight on a light wind race like that, but it was good boat handling and seeing the wind better than everyone else that carried us.  Unfortunately, the wind died completely and we'd only race one race on Saturday.  

Race 2 (Medium Air) 

We were first to the first mark!  I love it when that happens.  With the higher winds, this would be our first good test of boat speed and boat handling and I thought we were looking really good.  Unfortunately, the two regional hotshots decided not to race on Sunday so Gerry Christman and Tom Johnson would be our primary competition.  The race committee set up a short course and only had us sail three legs so it was a sprint.  We rounded the first upwind mark in first place.  We went after the puff on the left side but spent the whole leg fixing a topping lift that shredded.  The screws ripped out of the hull when we tried to lift the centerboard so the centerboard would be stuck in the down position for the rest of the regatta - not a big deal.  We rounded the downwind mark in front of Gerry and did a hard cover and easily won the race.  It seems our boat speed and point were superior to Gerry even though he was sailing a brand-new boat with new sails.   Above all else, that was the thing we were hoping to see at this regatta.   It's not much data to go on, but I'm thinking Thistle #2221 might be a fast boat.   I felt we had Gerry's number and I felt we were easily the best boat there on Sunday.  It was our regatta to lose from here on out.  

Race 3 (Medium Air)

Oh man.  Between races we were bailing water because we needed to replace the seals on the bailers.  Our radio was floating in the water and probably fried.  Ben spent the time between races to strengthen his fix on the shredded topping lift bungee cord.  Our boat was falling apart but we were still fast and still in the fight.   We started towards the pin on this race because I thought the pressure on the left looked a little better.   The boat to our windward pulled the trigger WAY early and we attempted to defend without going over but we thought we might be over.  At the start the race committee boat signaled all clear.   We thought we were questionable and thought for sure the boat to windward was on the course side (OCS) at the start.  We questioned the race committee but kept going because that's what you're supposed to do when they signal all clear.  We got 1/3 of the way up the beat and we see someone on the race committee boat furiously waving what looks like the abandoned race flag.  We concluded they must have realized they screwed up the start so we stopped racing and started to sail back to the boat.  On our way back to the starting line they lowered the flag.   What in the world is going on - that makes no sense?   It turns out they were waving the X Flag (also blue and white) because we were over.  At the start in question, we were going to dip the line and only kept going because they signaled us all clear.  Wow.   The race committee was completely clueless on the signals and generally unqualified to run sailboat races.   We had a slam dunk case for redress, so what should we do?  Ben I talked about it and we had a boat that was falling apart and a redress hearing didn't sound very fun.  Sailing with a broken boat just didn't seem worthwhile if we were not competing for a regatta victory.  So we decided to go back to shore and drink beer and hang around for the awards ceremony.  At the awards ceremony, the PRO came up to us and informed us that Gerry, as the race organizer, informed him that it is the racers' responsibility to know whether they are over the line or not.  Gerry probably was not aware the race committee violated rule 29.1 by not flying the X flag and not sounding the horn.  The rules clearly state we would be entitled to redress in that situation if we asked for it.  Whatever.   It's tough to find qualified race committee volunteers and sometimes these things are going to happen and these little regattas.

I'm supremely confident we were the best boat on Sunday and I'm sad we didn't get to size ourselves up in the medium breeze against Kevin Arrow and Mike Gillian.  We'll get the Thistle fixed up and tuned up and hopefully race against them another day.  

What we need to improve on

Generally need more time on the boat and need to get to better know the racers we're racing with.  At mark roundings, warn the boat behind you they have no room as soon as you enter the zone so there is no confusion.  If we had done that we'd have another bullet on the scorecard.   

What we did well

Communication and chemistry was exceptional on both days.  Great starts, except one was too great.  :-)

Eric Bussell
Thistle #2221 Gei It Laldy