Sail Melbourne 2010 - Day 4

Sail Melbourne 2010 Day 4 highlights. Great weather, great sailing from Radials, Optis and Laser Full Rigs.

Life Members Day

This was our last Saturday race day for the year. As you can see from the wind data capture, the wind was up on the lake. 20 sailors from the Albert Sailing Club decided to give the conditions a try, with all sailors taking at least one swim during the day.

As for me. I only managed one race for the day, as I received a hit to the head late in race one and decided that it would be better not to continue. Lesson from today was that I should get some head protection in the very near further for days like today. Barring this incident I did have a good day. Speed was good (if you ignore the unscheduled swim activities), with my runs achieving a max speed of 10.73kn, 10.12kn, & 9.76kn. I really enjoyed these periods of peak speed :).

Next race at the club commences 8th of January, 2011, so I will need to look for sailing opportunities between now and the 8th, as I need to keep my practice up for the Australian Laser Master's in Port Stephen's, scheduled for mid Feb, 2011.

Till my next update.

How to repair a Laser dinghy daggerboard and rudder foils

Staying in the Lane-way

Today on the Lake was a great day with a southerly of around 10 to 15 knots. The wind was shifty and you needed to keep on your toes if you wanted to get any advantage over the others. A fantastic example of this was on the numerous reaches from St.Kilda, with a boat not 4 metres away from you gets a nice breeze to get him planing and all you can do is watch, as you are not in the same breeze :(. When the reverse happens it is all good  with the world :).

My lesson from today was when beating up the eastern side of the island, unless I am positive that I am on a lifting tack. I must stay within the lane-way, as this mitigates my risk of potentially losing ground on the others. As I did on my first leg, as I was looking for a lift off the south end of the Island, which did not eventuate.

I am writing this lesson in my blog today, so it can be a reminder for me in the future. I have learnt this lesson in the past, but again I have fallen for trying a high risk option with no benefit on the first leg. The result I ended up at the tail end of the fleet and I spent the rest of the race playing catch up.

Till next time.

Volvo Ocean Race - Online Game

Tonight I found the following link regarding Volvo Ocean Race - Online Game. For me and many Albert Sailing Club sailors the 2008-09 edition provided many hours of fun, competing against some 220,000 players from across the world. Below are to links relating to the 2011-12 online game, which you might be interested in reading.

1. Back in the Game
2. Newsletter Sign-Up

My Summer Sailing Program 2010/2011

The southern hemisphere summer is just just around the corner and so it is time I look at my sailing program. This year I have decided that is it is time to try some Laser sanctioned regatta's. For the past few years I have only fronted to Victorian Laser Masters Regatta and I must say I have enjoyed them. So looking forward to the challenge for this year. Below are the regatta's that I am planning to attend, subject to family or work activities taking a precedence.

• Nov 06-07, Jolly Roger Laser Regatta, PMYC, VIC
• Nov 13-14, VLA Port Phillip Championships, MSC, VIC
• Feb 05-06, VLA Masters Championship & Youth Regatta, MMYC, VIC
• Feb 11-14, Australian Masters Championships, PSSAC, NSW
• Mar 19-20, VLA Championships, MCCRAEYC, VIC

So if anyone else is planning to attend any of these events, I would be interested in hearing from you, as I find it is fun sharing the experience.

race no.3, a lucky first :)

Well after 6 weeks of not sailing. It was clear that all upwind legs, bar the first one have a lot of room for improvement, but overall I am pleased that I managed a first for the day (with a little help from Rod on the last leg).

Leg 01

The screen grab above is of leg 1. I was very pleased with the outcome rounding mark A in second, with a clear break already established from the rest of the fleet. My strategy for this leg was to play the shifts and as you should be able to see from the image above, I managed to achieve my goal throughout this leg, with the exception of deciding to duck under Rod on the second last tack.

Then it was off for a couple of reach/run legs and heading down to the St.Kilda end of the Lake. The diagrams below are of my two upwind legs from St.Kilda. As you should be able to see that I was not picking the lifts very well at all, with Leg 4 being the worst of the two. Rod increasing the gap significantly from me and the rest of the fleet gaining to the extent with Denny in third round mark B with me for the start of Leg 7. My analysis of Leg 4 was that I did an ok job from St.Kilda through the narrows, but once past the narrows I decided to go to the right. Looking at the tack for Leg 4, this is the place I lost a lot of ground to the rest of the fleet.  Leg 7 I did take note of my loss, once past the narrows and made some adjustments, which you should be able to see in the Leg 7 screen grab. I felt that I was able to extend the gap from the chasing fleet and I made some in-roads on Rod's lead.

Leg 04

Leg 07

This completed our last trip to St.Kilda.

Now all that was left was three small triangles to complete and I was some 200+ metres still behind Rod. As the course was laid out, this meant that we only had two more upwind legs, as the screen garbs below represent. Leg 10 for me was an improvement on my other upwind legs, minus Leg 1 of course, and I was able to close some of the gap on Rod, while extending my gap on the chasing fleet. At this point I did set myself a goal to at least catch Rod before the end of the race. I must admit that my next two reaching legs and last upwind leg went very well, with me reducing the gap from 200+ metres down to less than 50 metres and a chance to have Rod thinking about having a race on his hands, rather than a cruise to the finish.

Leg 10

Leg 13

The next reaching Leg, I managed to close the gap to an extent that I attempted (unsuccessfully) to achieve an inside overlap at the next mark, so it was now on, one mark to round and then to the finish. On the second last leg I was able to establish an inside overlap on Rod and to my benefit Rod attempted to push me up prior to the mark. The outcome for me was that I was able to come over the top of Rod, to an extent that I clearly rounded the last mark in first place. In the end I was able to maintain my lead to finish in first for Laser Full Rigs division, so I was very pleased with the outcome for the day.

Even with a lucky first, my lesson from the day is to play the shifts and get a better feel of my new boat, as I am know (based on my GPS tracks) I am missing some of the small lifts that always present themselves on the Lake.