The Donzo Week 13: What Have I Learned

Many of you know that one of my greatest passions is competing in races with my J/24 sailboat. Sparky is a 44 year-old fractionally rigged keelboat with a conventional mainsail + genoa + spinnaker (symmetrical) sailplan. There are almost 6,000 J/24s that roam the globe and our little fleet consists of almost a dozen who show up for our Wednesday night racing series named "The Donzo" - after a larger than life member of the Mystic River Mudhead Sailing Association.

Wind And Current

Week 13 featured an evening breeze out of the East, which usually means rain in the forecast. The tide was low and the flood tide was already whisking us past Groton Long Point on our way to the starting line. The committee boat (Eddie Maxwell) was in her "usual" perch just east of Horseshoe Reef. The other end of the starting line (the pin) was slightly favored in angle toward the first turning mark (Intrepid Rock) and in proximity toward the shore.

Strategy And Tactics

With in incoming current and seemingly consistent wind across the race area, it seemed "obvious" that short tacking up the shore would give us a current advantage. We "won" the start and then battlewd out way up the shore until we were forced to tack out past red nun #26 and out toward the black and red can marking Interpoid Rock. To our surprise, two of our classmates were ahead of us at the top mark. We launched our spinnaker and reassessed our strategy.

One thing that immediately became clear to us as we rode downwind back to ward the next turning mark - the incoming current had changed in its westerley path near the Groton Long Point shore much earlier than the water with much larger momentum out near Intrepid Rock. The evidence of this phenomenon showed itself as a current rip almost splitting the racing area along an east-west line. Being on the shore side helped us when heading downwind toward our next turning mark. Would favoring the south side of the current rip help us on our next upwind leg toward Intrepid Rock? Would the effect still exist and could we use it to our advantage?

Ignoring Our Stomachs => Using Our Brains

After rounding the leeward mark and trimming in our sails, we made a "clearing" tack to avoid the bad air from the boats ahead of us. One of our fiercest competitors was on our tail and had tacked toward the shore sooner than us. We were still in a controlling situation, but had our tallest crewmember stand up and give us a quick wind and current report. It appeared that the current rip was still in place and that the wind was more consistent away from the shore. We tacked - and held our breath for what seemed like an eternity. Our worst fears seemed to materialize when that fierce competitor seemed now to be ahead of us. We again opted for a wind check and all decided that the situation looked better offshore beyond the magic current rip.

Using our brains allowed us to remain calm and sail on - without the need to constantly second guess ourselves. We trusted our decades of experience in similar situations to quiet our minds and focus on the proper execution of our current tasks. The bottom line is that sometimes doing nothing is MUCH harder than doing something. Tacking up the shore was akin to the rat race - lots of activity for not much to gain. By remaining bold and true, we made huge gains and very narrowly finished third that night.