COMING THROUGH THE FLEET

(c) 2009 Doug Peckover

Photo published with permission
At the Wrangle this weekend, I left the course before the 6th race to get a jump on wrapping things up and making sure we got the competitors out of the club early. At the end of racing, the race committee came in with the scores and the photographer came in telling me he didn't see it but something happened to Doug and he was in last place and a good distance behind the the fleet at the first mark and then he did the most amazing thing and worked his way through the Laser fleet and into second place. I asked Doug what happened and it appears that he took the name of the regatta seriously and tried lasso the lead competitor at the start by wrapping his mainsheet around Mark's neck (among other things). This was too good not to share. Here is Doug's version. Nice to know that those at the top sometimes sail like me...Pam

A lot of Laser sailors have trouble holding their position on the starting line and I wanted to start at the committee boat, so I used my favorite White Rock Lake approach. This is putting my bow near the committee boat motor with 30 seconds to go and then letting the boats below me drift out of the way for – bang – another perfect start. But my plan had one flaw – one sailor was really good and, yup, he decided to start right below me. Mark Eldred is a former North American Laser champion and knows how to ruin a perfect White Rock Lake approach by simply starting below me and holding his position without drifting out of my way. Damn!

I tried to put on the brakes by pushing my boom out, but this did not work because the main sheet wrapped around him, his centerboard, and tiller. It was a real mess. With ten seconds to go, I think he said “protest” but I’m not sure because my mainsheet may have cut off some of his air. Anyhow, as a seasoned escape artist, he broke free and got my perfect start from my perfect position.

I decided to do something that is very rare for a White Rock Laser sailor – my circles. The plan was to tack onto port, clear the committee boat, and then jibe to immediately start my 720. But there were two problems – there were a bunch of Sunfish in the way getting ready for the next start, and it was blowing about 20 making it harder to bear off because the rudder stalls. When everything was sorted out, I was about a minute behind all of the Lasers that had continued on starboard. They made an almost perfect white picket fence 150 yards in the distance. Not my best start.

The normal way to close this kind of gap is by going to the opposite right side of the course to get separation and hope for a Hail Mary right wind shift. But I noticed something surprising – the entire Laser fleet on starboard was pointing ten degrees lower than me. Tacking would have ruined this advantage (see my blog article on Sailing Angles) so I continued on starboard. This is why a compass will sometimes lie to you – the fleet was on a lift, but I was on a bigger lift which they would have seen if just one person had looked back at me.So I continued in good pressure closing the gap. After about a minute, I was headed and tacked to stay in phase for the rest of the windward leg. By the first mark, I had almost caught Bo who had sailed the entire leg completely out of phase. With the Olympic course, the next leg was a reach and I caught Bo by bearing off in the puffs to pass him at the jibe mark. But I didn’t jibe because there were six Lasers right in front of me and I needed to try something different to catch them on this technically unchallenging lower reach. So I sailed by the lee for most of the leg. It was tricky because it was blowing about 25. This did not really gain me anything, but it was worth a try.

Approaching the leeward mark was also tricky as we sailed through the Butterflys that were just starting. On the second windward leg, the Lasers split up going both left and right, so the only option was to work the boat hard and stay in phase relative to other Lasers – not the compass reading or position of the next mark (Sailing Angles). By the end of the beat, I had passed all but two with Mark Eldred leading comfortably. The run was uneventful except I was able to close the gap a little by playing the waves that were big by White Rock standards.

At the bottom of the course Mark stopped. I thought he was confused about the course because the previous one was Gold with a downwind finish and there was no committee boat. I yelled “Olympic” but he was waiting for me so we could play on the final beat. We did and split a few tacks, with him winning the race with a nice inside lift as we approached the line on port tack. Really fun race.One more thing – during the race, I repeated to myself “never give up” at least a hundred times.