2009 FS Wife Husband Regatta – RC Review from the PRO

The recent FS Wife – Husband Regatta was a big success in virtually every way imaginable (kudos to Regatta Chair, Diane Kampf), and we on the Race Committee seem to have gotten good reviews on our work. (The sailors were a great group to work for – very patient and gracious. Thank you to all who had nice things to say.) We did some things differently than MYC SOP (standard operating procedure) and I think this is a good opportunity to document those things and discuss what worked and what didn’t.

T Course

Certainly the most noticeable thing we did was to sail a new and different course. I fretted for weeks about the difficulty we would have if the wind blew directly from the East or the West, giving us very short (the width of the lake) windward legs. With 3 fleets, Championship, Challenger, and Non-Spinnaker, how could we avoid interference among the fleets?

Sparked by Eric’s suggestion to use a trapezoid course, I laid out a course with two parallel windward – leeward legs and a beam reach crossover from the first side to the second. This would allow us to use more of the lake and separate the fleets enough to minimize interference. One windward-leeward setup was North of the Rock Marks, and the second one was South of the Rock Marks. The course goes – windward-leeward-windward-crossover reach-leeward-windward-leeward-reach to finish. It has the same number of windward and leeward legs as our W-3, plus a long broad reach and a short reach to the finish.

We used this course for the second and third races of the regatta. It proved to be a competitive course and did a good job of separating the fleets. For both races we let the first fleet do their first windward and first leeward before starting second fleet. This cleared out the first fleet so that they had no overlap with other fleets. In race 2, we started fleets 2 and 3 five minutes apart, and although the traffic was not bad, there was some crossing of the fleets. For the third race, we used the longer spacing between the starts of all the fleets and this worked perfectly to separate them. The only drawback was that fleets 2 and 3 had to wait a while before their starts.
I think the timing would work so that back to back to back races could be done with three fleets with minimal waiting time between races and no interference among the fleets.

New Flags

We equipped both rescue/mark boats with enough flags to shorten course, change course, and act as a finish boat. Diane made two great new sets of flags on staffs to outfit these boats. Our plan was to have one boat at the windward end of the course and the other at the leeward end, so that we always had one mobile boat close for anything the race committee needed to do with the course.

Orange Tomatoes

We bought a second “orange tomato” to use as a second substitute mark in the event we needed to change course. This gave us a “new mark” in each mark/rescue boat, and a “new mark” at each end of the course.

The orange tomatoes cost $20 each and have sash weight anchors (from old double hung windows), making them very lightweight and easy to move by dragging them. Contrast this with our standard marks which cost $98, and are attached to un-moveable Danforth anchors costing about $35. Our crew preferred using the tomatoes.

Multiple Wind Readers

Before setting the initial course and during the races, all power boats were used to get periodic wind readings from various points on the lake. Having information from all over the lake allowed us a higher degree of certainty in understanding the antics of wind that was not behaving as forecast by the weather experts.

The Ball Trick

Instead of fastening our anchors to our boats, each anchor was attached to a floating ball. The original purpose for this is to allow an anchored boat to quickly un-anchor, do a mark moving or rescue task, and return to the spot precisely and quickly. The anchor, in effect, becomes a moveable mooring. As it happened in this regatta, we found another use for these moveable moorings.

In races one and two, we needed the start boat to serve as the finish boat as well. To facilitate this, we had our mark boats set up “moveable moorings” and finishing pins, so that the start boat merely tied up to the appropriate mooring or pin and was immediately on station. In both races, the time saved by the preparatory work of the mark boat prevented a panicked set up for us at the finish.

Teamwork and Versatility

Teamwork is certainly not a new idea, but it certainly works. Each person on each of our boats had some specific tasks to perform, but also served as back up for all the other tasks needed. Everyone provided valuable information and played a role in monitoring the wind, setting the courses, running the races, dealing with contingencies, observing starts and roundings, and recording finishes. Put simply, everyone on the team was ready for almost anything. My thanks to a great team – Laura Hackell, Gene Neault, Brandon Dickerman, Bobby McShane, Patrick Pilvines, David Gilman, Matt Russell, and Ryan Werden.

It seemed that everyone enjoyed the cooperation of the team and everyone had a good time. We all approached the regatta as a challenge in understanding the wind and managing good races, and we were all happy to have the best efforts of each other in trying to meet the challenge.

Things We Could Have Done Better

The first race had a windward-leeward course with West wind, and turned out to be as chaotic as I feared. The five minute starting sequence tied our hands in regard to timing the fleets and the first fleet arrived back at the leeward mark too close to the start of the third fleet. It turned out that the wind did not shift left as predicted and that the T course would have worked much better.

A finish line needs to be well windward of the windward mark to avoid confusion, and in race one, our finish line fell a little short. The line looked good when it was set, but a wind shift brought the starboard layline to the windward mark very close to the finish line, resulting in some interference between boats of different fleets.

I thought our course set up could have been quicker, but the Massapoag winds hindered us greatly in this effort. Almost every mark or pin set an hour in advance of the race had to be picked up and moved.

We made mistakes with flags in starting sequences twice and had to restart the sequence each time. Obviously we should have reviewed the Rule 26 procedures a little better.

In the third race, our leeward mark boat set up near the pin to help sight the starting line, but unfortunately, it was carrying the finishing pin which looks identical to the starting pin. This created some visual confusion among the sailors.

Overall Reflections

If there was an overall pattern to our approach to running these races, it could best be described by two key words: agility and multitasking. We tried to be ready for everything and to be able to adapt quickly to whatever changing situations might occur. That meant every boat was fully prepared to be a finish boat, a mark moving boat, or a change of course indicator. Every boat set marks, set anchors, moved marks, and pulled anchors. We moved marks before races many, many times trying to get them right, and we moved them three times during the racing. We planned on having the windward mark boat take finishes in race one, but they were needed for a rescue, so the committee pulled up as a last second substitute. In the second race, the leeward mark boat was on station at the finish just in case the committee boat couldn’t get there in time. They did such a good job of setting that finish line, that we just let them take the finishes for race three.

If all this seems difficult, after all the preparation and planning, it really wasn’t that complicated. All members of the team continually communicated and worked together to do whatever was needed. All in all, it was really a lot of fun!

Gary Werden