Update from the J/22 Midwinters in Texas

Sunday, March 16

We go two races off today because lunch and awards were planned early. We managed to patch up our hole and fix all of our other equipment. Nothing broke today, partly because the only other thing to break was the mast.

It was forecast to be from the east at 5 knots but it was more like 16 knots. So far we have seen wind directions from the North, South and East. Because the lake is long and narrow running north to south it was ridiculously shifty.

Since the two time we have been OCS have been our best finishes we decided to go for clear air. Most of the fleet went right but we went left and sailed an amazing lift in to the windward mark where we met the entire fleet on starboard. Forty boats rounded in a span of 30 seconds and it was total chaos coming in on port.

We had to duck about 10 boats before we found a hole. Not the best call. We worked the sides because we found the middle really does not pay off on the lake. We had to sail some bad headers due to boat position and finished in our usual midfleet spot, a 31st.

The second race we decided that we didn't do so hot by going left and felt that since it was the last race of the event we should go for the boat with basically the entire fleet. We just about won the start, rolling the regatta leader to windward. We made the mistake of playing the middle and tacked way too much trying to mimic the leaders moves but we found ourselves taking more and more transoms. We fell back to mid-fleet.

We were very fast downwind, always catching up and we banged the corners back upwind the next two times and caught about 5 boats, finishing in 26th. We managed a 28th overall.

It turns out there were two college sloop national teams here. They were sailed by all college seniors. They were from College of Charleston and U. of Rhode Island, both two extremely strong college sailing programs. We beat both of them with room to spare which I think is a testament to a solid performance.

There was some great action and competition. We had an excellent time, sailed very fast, got a handle on lake sailing and were hands down the best juniors on the race course. We made it into the raffle for the rudder but lady luck was not on our side.

Although I will be sailing for the Coast Guard offshore team (hopefully in sloop nationals) the team is already talking about East Coasts and Worlds. We want to thanks all of our sponsors and supporters, we would not have been able to do this without you. I think we represented you well and I hope that you will be able to help my team as they continue to campaign the J/22 as I move on to the next chapter in my life. Thanks again and I'll see you in Annapolis.

Saturday, March 15

One hell of a day. The breeze blew from the north today peaking at about 18 knots. Because we are sailing at the south end of the lake it was extremely choppy with very short wave periods which took some getting used to, especially on the helm. Much more steering then I am used to.

Race 1 we had a decent start, nothing to write home about. Atwell and Scchoene both got the wrong time and we started a minute late. We hit the left side hard and rounded mid fleet and held our own down wind. The left payed off for a while again and then the breeze went right. We were finally getting a good grasp on the lake tactics but we had trouble tuning the boat for the waves and the breeze but because we are so close to the class weight limit we managed to sail very flat upwind.

The charter boat is proving to be a handful. We were plagued with multiple gear failures today. Our traveler line just snapped as we gybed, our outhaul shredded yesterday and we had to grab a boom from another boat on the yard and some other stuff I'll get to later.

At the start of race two this total marshmallow tried to gype right on top of us and knocked our brand new windex of the top of our mast. Once again we had a ridiculous amount of general recalls. Of course we had excellent starts with massive holes to leeward on the two general recalls when we went for the boat end. The fleet wanted to go left but we saw the breeze coming down on the right.

On the third start of race two some other people started to figure it our and we were pushed over. We thought we were going to have all that room on the boat end and we set up too early. We went back and were waved clear by this guy on the back of the committee boat and so we went upwind. About a quarter of the way up the leg we heard our number on the radio as still being OCS so we decided to press on and request redress.

We had excellent boat speed and tactics for once. Almost the entire fleet went left and we hit the right, which really payed off. We rounded in the teens. We went towards the left downwind and then back to the right up wind. We decided to go to the middle left on the third upwind leg and as the breeze was oscillating back and we held our position beautifully. It was a triumph for our lake tactics.

As we came to the finish, the finishing boat was dragging anchor and you couldn't make the line on port. We tacked on to starboard to make the finish and got t-boned full speed by a port tacker. We have a hole in the boat about the size of a soda can. We immediately took down the sails, requested a support boat and got towed in due to the possibility of taking on water. We were unable to race the third race.

The guy that hit us was very upstanding and retired from the race which exonerated him from the protest. He is going to work out the repair with the club who we chartered the boat from. He was the executive officer of the J/24 class. Really nice guy.

We filed four protests. Three for redress, and one for the collision. We won our redress for being OCS on race two mainly because the guy that waved us clear prematurely came forward. Our second redress was for the boats we lost by being hit at the finish. We lost about six boats but the race committee couldn't prove we had lost six so they gave us three. That put us in 17th for race two. The third redress was for not being able to compete in the third race and the RC took the average of our results which came out to a 26th. The protest for the collision was dropped because he withdrew from the race.

When we were hit our boom vang bail that attached the vang to the mast broke in half. The club understands and we fixed the hole with some packing tape and sail repair tape. We will be fine to race tomorrow.

We learned that its not so much what happens on the water but the entire experience. We are in the 30th overall and our scorecard is decorated like a Christmas trees with all the OCS's and a DNC. After spending an hour in the protest room I joined the team for the Texas turkey fry dinner and drove some golf balls into the lake off the yacht club lawn with the guy who t-boned us.

It was the most stressful day of racing I have had in the year I have been racing competitively. We are trying to look on the bright side. We wouldn't be surprised if the mast came down tomorrow.

It's supposed to be light tomorrow so we are hoping our bay experience will help us finsih higher mid-fleet. Although we haven't rocked the standings we are beating the only college team here despite the state of our boat. It is unbelievably stiff competition here and we have learned so much. I wish we could be higher in the standings, like in Annapolis but somethings you can't control and that was the biggest thing we took from today in addition to the value of perseverance and sportsmanship.

We'll let you know how tomorrow goes before we hit the airport. Hopefully we'll make it into that raffle for the rudder.

Friday, March 14

After forecasts in upwards of 20 knots the day started off rather calm at around 5 knots. Each race has consisted of 3 upwind legs and two downwind. Heavy cloud cover moved in for the first race and the breeze began to go right. We had a good start with clear air but a bad spinnaker set and going to the wrong side downind lost us around 15 boats.

We managed to make it back upwind to finish towards the back. As the second race began the clouds began to lift and the breeze began to build to around 12 knots. After lining up a great whole to leward, and being to leeward of the Vice President of the J/22 class association and Commodore of RCYC Kelsom Elam, there was a general recall.

On the second start we failed to properly defend our hole to leeward and got shot out the back, but that's OK because it was another general recall. The second race went slightly better, the lake sailing has really been throwing us off. We had good downwind speed but lacked tactically upwind and improved a few places. The breeze continued to go right and die to around 10 knots. At this point the temperature hit about 82 degrees (ya I bet you’re jealous).

We tried an incredibly aggressive start at the boat and were about 5 seconds early causing us to be OCS. We went out on port tack and found ourselves laying the pin as most of the fleet went right. The RC moved the mark and the breeze began to oscillate. We managed to hold down a 16th.

It was a very interesting first day. Our boat speed has been excellent as we have paid very good attention to detail but we have found out the hard way that our Bay style tactics need serious updating to the lake. We played the middle way too much and need to focus on winning a side.

Tomorrow is forecast to be a little colder with winds from the North which apparently makes the lake pretty choppy. We finished the day in a preliminary 30th place. Not so hot but we are getting the lake thing down and tommorow’s another day. The good news is that there is a midfleet raffle for a new rudder.

We'll shoot another update out tomorrow. Thanks for watching.