Wednesday Night Series 1 - 5, May 15, 2024

Results Race ( 1 - 5 )

"I'm eating Header here" said the skipper to the crew. Or maybe the skipper hollered it... lol those back of the boat guys am I right?

Race 5 turned into yet another gorgeous night on Lanier. I packed my foulies and thought for sure I was going to need them based on the cloud cover on the way up. Of course when you pack them you never need them, so I guess you're welcome for warding off the rain. 

What the dark clouds did bring was great breeze to start the night! It was blowing enough that we decided to finally try the headstay adjustment we've been wanting to do on the ol 22. Of course we didn't have time to measure the rig properly and do this so who knows what the shortening of the headstay did to the shrouds, but we said "There's breeze! Let's send it and see what happens." Of course the breeze slowly eased up through the night as the clouds passed over the lake, which led this back of the boat guy to do his fair share of complaining... Talking with other sailors at dinner led me to realize everyone had similar feelings to me of hunting for power and feeling headed. 

"I can't get it going!" "Find me more breeze!" "Why are we so slow?!" "More header!?" Common words from those grouchy skippers on any Wednesday, but they might have been more prevalent this week than others. 

This particular slowly dying breeze was yet another new condition for me to sail in, and it presented another new learning opportunity. Turns out my bickering was not because of our adjustment but because the eerily slow dissipation of wind velocity created an apparent header effect. Do you chase this header to try to keep boat velocity up? Hold course and wait for the breeze and boat speed to line up? Roll tack to gain momentum again? I'm not sure what the best course of action is and it is likely boat and situation dependent but this is one of the many challenges in sailing that allows the sport to keep giving. Our desire to learn more and master the conditions keeps us pushing. And a night like tonight had equal chances of stumping those crazy young whippersnappers like me as well as the old farts like Papa Doug (I suppose he's not that old yet but we still gotta poke at him). 

​Many thanks to RC members Jim Chambers. Mike Harrington, Norman Plotkin, Linda Hopes, Penney Johnson, Mike Smith, and Jillian Gray for an appropriately long course to enjoy our good breeze! And thanks to chef team Anita Lenkeit, Tammy Duran, Cathy Freeman, Irene Petree, Linda Cellamare, Marie Umberger, and Dennis Terrell for some sweet spaghetti and meatballs! 

I've attached scores for this week as well as one more edit to last week's scores. Let me know if there are any corrections! Also I am aware that the RDG scores for RC are including the drops at the moment. I will unfortunately have to manually override these at the end of the series, but they should be an okay approximation for now. 

Thank you,
Kyle
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