Tuesday Night thoughts on Starting
Well we had a dozen boats on a beautiful Tuesday evening at Wet Pants SA last night… we did two practice starts, a race, two more starts an race, etc… here are some thoughts on yesterday’s starting.
First: the first race or two the pin was definitely NOT favored… the wind was coming from a SW direction (right to left) which was across the course layout… Gerry Hesse told me that the pin was drifting… it was fixed after the second race. One sailor was experimenting with approaching on Port. In one start he was about 30 seconds to the start and about 6 boat lengths to leeward… i explained to him that approaching on Port does not mean to be necessarily CROSSING on port. the final approach is from port, and generally tacking to starboard in to a HOLE, just LEEWARD to a boat or group of boats.
TIMING- also yesterday it seemed as if people were on the line about 30 seconds luffing. This created a situation where there was a front row and 2nd and third rows… so it was important to BE IN THE FRONT ROW at least 30 seconds to go. Earlier in the front row is fine, but you MUST KEEP YOUR HOLE (acceleration lane of water to leeward of you) CLEAR. I noticed one sailor luffing and each time she trimmed in a bit she slid closer to the leeward boat, as the gun went off her speed helped her keep her in the front row, but maybe being too close to the leeward boat kept her from punching out and creating a big lead….
Good starts can really help with winning… Ryan Messina won the last three races. He always set up to leeward of the fleet and got off the line really cleanly. Once in front, he did a good job of keeping his lead and in front of the boat behind him… and in one race where Ted Cremer was gassing him from leeward and I was covering him from windward, he tacked out as soon as he could and got to the right… and if you remember from the beginning of this article the wind was generally coming from right to left… he found some breeze and salvaged his bad start and won that race, too…. so a good start is not only getting off the line, but sailing to where the good air is with the ability to control your own destiny…