Sunday was another lovely day of sailing on the Potomac. The temperatures got up into the high fifties with wind into the high teens – overall a wonderful day for a sail. I didn’t feel great about my racing today, but here are a few tips from your returning champion third-place finisher regardless.
First, I will once again advocate for standing up and scanning the course before the race. I will beat this drum until I see everyone do it before every race. In the first race, I stood up at the two-minute gun and saw the breeze was stronger on the left. Lo and behold, I started at the pin, stayed further left longer than everyone else, and was first to the top mark. I managed to hold on to my lead almost the whole way and won the race. The first leg is a) the most important leg and b) the leg you can prepare for most. Use all the tools available to you before the start.
As an addendum, check the forecasted wind and tide before you hit the course as well. The tide was coming in during that first race and we as sailors know that current is stronger in deeper water. I made good ground on downwinds in that first race by sticking left and letting the stronger current in the middle of the river push me to the mark. Farley also saw that the wind was supposed to shift left as the day went. As the day progressed, he started to take more and more advantage of those lefties. Consequently, Farley scored very well today. Preparation isn’t a guarantee of results, but it sure does help.
As I was pulling my boat out of the water, Len (who lost the honor of penning this column by beating me on tiebreaker) told me that in the lighter wind races, he was able to make ground on me because I moved my body and my boat too much going downwind. Disturbing your rudder can induce drag, which is lethal to your boatspeed. I’ll note that my two best downwinds of the day were the ones where I committed to a line early and only really made serious course adjustments when gybing to a puff. Keeping my boat more static on off-wind legs is going to be a focus for me next week.
Finally, winds on the Potomac are variable as hell in my (limited) experience. That means that no race is over, ever. I made crazy ground on boats in front of me by trying to sail to the puffs and keep my speed up on some of the screwy final legs today. There may have been a lucky shift or two as well. Never give up, folks, especially not in these races.
Thank you to race committee Jim Klein and Kevin Cowley for being good sports and resetting the course five (!!) times in four (!!!!) races this afternoon. Congrats to Farley on his victory for the day. I hope to see everyone out next Sunday.
-Connor