Race 1. Course #2. 3 beats, two runs, the full length of the lake. Shifty westerly 10 to 25 mph. Sitting on rail for first beat. I started near the starboard end in relatively clear air. The boats that started at the starboard end got a lift and appeared to be ahead. In the strong, shifty winds I got a couple of shifts just right and had a good lead at first mark. For the rest of the race, I extended lead and finished way ahead. I noticed that few of the other racers were paying attention to the wind shifts immediately after the start of the race. Although the wind was very shifty most of the other racers seemed to be more concerned with surviving, than with using the wind shifts to their maximum advantage.
Race 2. Course: Portables (a modified traditional Pinecrest course). I was over early. Wind strength medium. It took 4 minutes to get the word I was over early and return to restart the race. I finally finished 13th place. I was over the line about 8 seconds to go right at the committee boat, and I thought I was able to return to the correct side of the start line before the gun. Unfortunately, the race committee did not see me get to the correct side (maybe I didn't get there?) since they were busy recording the sail numbers of the others over early further down the line. When I got the word I was over early, I turned around immediately and sailed back to re-start. Starting back that far in the fleet was a bit difficult but I kept at it and gradually passed boats on each leg of the course. On the last beat I caught up to the pack and was in the second group of boats, just behind the leaders. If the race was longer, I'm sure I would have continued passing boats, my speed was good. After the first day Aad Rommelse, Gordie Nash, Rich ?, and George Siefert were at the front of the fleet. I was in 5th place.
Race 3. Course #2. Wind light and shifty from the west. On the first beat I went the wrong way and was way back. For a long time, my 13th place yesterday looked pretty good. I got a couple of good shifts at the end of the second beat and caught the pack at the mark, and rounded just behind a big clump of boats. On the run I moved up to 5th place and was able to hold this position. Aad finished in 1st, way ahead of the pack.
Race 4. Course: Portables. Finished 5th place. On the first beat I didn't go the best way and had to keep fighting to get back to the top of the fleet. At the end of the second day, counting the best 3 of 4 races, I was tied for 2nd place. Only Aad was able to get through the first 4 races without having a bad finishing position. His worst race at this point was 6th, and I was next with a 13th as my worst race. Richard had an 8, 1, 18, 1 and his best 3 races was 10 points. Aad and I had a best 3 races totaling of 11.
Race 5. Course #2. Light winds for the first leg. Dave Vickland won the race, I was second by about 2 seconds after 1.5 hours racing. We both were safely ahead of the pack, although it didn't start out that way. Shortly after the start Dave and I had been sailing on the right side of the fleet, in the middle of the lake and there was a big port tack lift. At first it looked pretty bad for Dave and me, since a lot of boats in the main body of the fleet were lifted above us. These boats had much lighter winds near shore and Dave and I had much better winds in the middle and we ended up ahead of the pack at the first mark. The trees are quite high on the south shore of Pinecrest and they present a big wind shadow, extending well out into the lake when the wind has a southerly component. It was this wind shadow that caused the boats nearer to shore to go slower and allow Dave and myself the opportunity to get to the mark first with the better winds in the middle of the lake.
Race 6. Course: Monarch. Strong westerly wind. At the first beach mark Gordie and I were in the lead. I passed Gordie shortly after the downwind mark (Stump). On the beat, Gordie and I were hit with a hard, quick microburst and we both swamped. I decided it would be faster to capsize the boat to empty the water, since it was nearly to the top of the centerboard trunk and it would have taken a too long time to bail. After re-righting the boat, there was not much water left, which I quickly bailed out. When I re-started racing I had fallen to 3rd place, with Richard and Paul Tara ahead of me. I was close to the north shore and got a big strong northerly lift and caught them both in a few minutes. In the strong shifty winds, I continued to gain and passed them both before we got to the Tower. I was able to keep ahead of Richard to the finish line with a bit of match racing covering. The years of practice with regular fleet racing and team racing at Stevens Creek was very valuable for giving me confidence and practice to keep ahead of Richard on the last beat to weather. This was a good racing day for me, with a second and a first place. During this last race, in the strong winds going into the Tower mark, I concentrated on the wind shifts and did not tack merely to cover those close behind. This was one of the most satisfying race of the series for me, being swamped and still winning in a strong shifty wind.
Race 7. Course #2, light winds. At this point, after discarding the worst race, I was 2 points ahead of Richard and about 5 ahead of Dave Vickland. I had the best throw-out (13th,) and Rich had an 18th and Dave had the DNF from race #2. I started near Richard and Dave near the port end of the line, and it turned out to be the bad side of the course. Shortly before the start, the wind shifted northerly and the boats that started near the right hand end did very well. Dave, Richard and I were on the left side of the fleet and never did get the big northerly lift that carried most of the fleet over us. With a light wind and lots of chop, we never went anywhere until the last beat when we all moved up in the fleet. Dave was covering me, to my advantage since he only finished in 12th place, just ahead of me at 13th and Richard in 17th. Greg Morrill was able to finish ahead of Richard, catching him on the last tack to the finish. This gave me an extra point relative to Richard. In this race, I picked up four more points on Richard so I was now 6 points ahead (with the throw out) and about 8 points ahead of Dave, although at the time I really was not too sure where Richard had finished, because we had a hard time counting the boats ahead at the finish.
Race 8. Light winds from the west. Richard was way up in the race and finally finished 2nd place, and I was holding on as well as I could finishing 6th place. At this time I was very tired form the big blow in race 6 the day before, and was happy with a 6th place, although I was still trying hard to pass the boat that was just ahead of me, and stay ahead of the boats coming up from behind. Dave Vickland finished 4th and only gained three points for the day which was not enough to pass me. After the last race, I was up 2 points on Richard, and 3 points on Dave Vickland.
After the last race was over we were still not too sure of the finishing positions in the morning race. I knew if Richard had finished 16 or worse, I would win, and as best I was able to determine, he had finished a few points behind me. It turned out both Richard and I got 19 points on the last day so I won by 2 points after 8 races. This is a very small margin, and in any of the races the outcome might have been different by many places if the wind had shifted a little differently. This close a finish shows how important it is to keep working in each race to pass just one more boat, since a few points often can make a big difference in the outcome of a series.
In shifty winds with a big fleet, it is important to sail your own race, and choose the correct side of the course shortly after the start, and stick to it, not changing from one side to the other, especially at a mountain lake like Pinecrest. With big shifts, like we had at Pinecrest, the race strategy I used was to make sure I was always on the favored tack for the wind I had in my local area. If I got a big lift and boats were to weather with the same big lift, I took the favored tack and waited for the wind to shift back to my side of the fleet.
In the second race I was in a bad position trying to fight off the bargers at the starboard (committee boat) end of the line and made a bad mistake being over early. If I had moved down the line a little, I might have had a good start, and would have had a much better finish. This late re-start almost cost me the series.
After the second race, I always attempted to get a start away from the pack to stay out of trouble. Before the start in the strong winds there were some collisions and I did end up with a hole in the hull near the deck about a foot ahead of the stern where a port tack boat ran into me. In a large fleet it is imporant to pay attention to all the boats around you.
In the second race Dave Vickland was leading and went to the incorrect weather mark and dropped out. If he had turned the correct mark, he most likely would have done well in that race and in the end might have won the regatta. He did beat me in 4 of the 8 races. It is important to race with the goal of doing as well as you can in each race, and avoid the bad finish. The margin for victory is often very small in a long series.
This spring I bought a new carbon fiber rudder and center board which was a little bit faster than the standard Moore blades that I had been using. I had been using a relatively new Jotz F150 sail that was not as fast as I thought it might be, so in May, I bought a used sail from Max Fraser (Jotz F150 with +1/2 inch) who took delivery of a similarly cut new Jotz sail at the Whiskey Town regatta. I immediately noticed an increase in boat speed with this particular sail. Max was going well with his brand new F150 in the weeks leading up to the NA races and I thought we both might have a good chance at Pinecrest after the Clear Lake Regional championship. The winds at Clear Lake were very steady and Max and I both had good boat speed, although we weren't quite as fast as Gordie and Fred Paxton. With the addition of the shifty winds at Pinecrest I thought I might have a little extra edge that I was missing at Clear Lake.
Before the racing at Pinecrest, I paid special attention to the surface preparation of the blades and the bottom. I polished out all the scratches in the blades and the bottom with West Marine Gel coat cleaner, which helped to give a highly polished finish. After polishing the blades and hull, I used West Marine Boat wax on the blades and StarBright wax on the hull. There are some who think wax is bad for a racing finish, and others who think wax helps. I chose to use wax on the boat and blades. However, I was not able to do any direct comparison testing, e.g. switching blades with someone who does not use wax and testing to see how they compare with wax. Once the racing started, I spent no more time during the races thinking about the preparation. All I was concerned with was the task at hand, namely, what is the wind going to do, and how can I position myself to take maximum advantage of the next wind shift.
An important aspect of preparation for the last two years was the weekly racing of the HP Sailing Club at Stevens Creek each Wednesday night. The continuous practice and testing against some very fast boats in the HP Sailing Club Fleet (Max Fraser, Dan Mills, John Pacholski, Paul Tara, Art Lewis, Paul Zander, to name a few) polished my skills and made me sail in a more effective way in the shifty winds that we found at Pinecrest. The fact that both Max and I were able to win in each of our fleets (Junior and Senior) is testimony to the excellence of the race preparation that we obtained from the HP Sailing Club experience.
In addition to the weekly HP Sailing Club racing, I attended as many of the Bay Area El Toro regattas as I was able to this winter and spring. I sailed in both the Richmond and Lake Merritt mid-winters and in the Fremont Sailing Club races on Lake Elizabeth. These Lake Elizabeth races were very good because this spring Fred Paxton and Max Fraser raced and we had a lot of practice with great competition in light shifty winds.
For the last few weeks leading up to the North American Championship, I started an exercise program where each day I did a few maximal effort exercises for as long as I was able, usually about 60 to 75 seconds. The theory behind this type of exercise is to increase the peak effort that one is capable of doing at the same time improving one's overall condition by forcing the body to compensate a bit more for the peak loads of the short duration maximal efforts. Traditional aerobic exercise at a slow steady pace without the peak loading does not seem to provide the same increase in fitness for the same total amount of daily effort. In the sixth race, when I was hit with the micro-burst and swamped, the conditioning and physical training I had done was extremely valuable. Swamping, capsizing to empty the boat, climbing back in and finishing bailing, and then catching the leaders and finishing first shows the benefits of being in top physical condition. Ordinarily, El Toro racing is not so athletic as it was in the strong afternoon winds at Pinecrest. However, when it is, being fit is a great advantage.
Overall, the racing was very demanding with strong winds in many of the races. Many of the participants were not able to race to their potential because of their lack of top physical conditioning for the conditions we had in the 2004 race series at Pinecrest.
At the start, it was important to determine the favored tack and then to be on the favored tack, and generally ignore all the other sailors. In a big fleet, I found it helpful to keep sailing on the best tack for my local conditions. A compass helps to decide if you are on the favored tack, and it was helpful to get out 10 or 15 minutes before the race to check on the range and direction of the wind shifts. The west wind was generally oscillatory at Pinecrest. If there was a big port tack lift, eventually, there would be a starboard tack lift.
Luck does enter into the race, when the shift occurs when you are on the favored side and then lasts enough for you to get to the other side before it shifts back. To minimize bad luck, it was helpful to avoid sailing on an unfavorable tack. If the wind does give you a header, it is important to determine that it is going to last (delay the tack for a few seconds if the recent conditions show there was a lot if instability and false shifts) and then tack when you are sure that the shift is really going to last. Once you are sailing on the favored tack, the only people that are keeping up with you are those on the same tack, everyone else in the fleet on the other tack is losing ground to you.
Once in a while I'd notice that I was all alone on the race course, far from the main body of the fleet. If I was sailing on the favored tack, I'd continue on and wait for the inevitable header before I would tack. I almost never tacked towards the body of the fleet "just to be safe," especially if I had to sail on an unfavorable tack to get there.
On some of the first weather legs of the race, I succumbed to temptation and chased the next shift by not sailing as high as I might have in my local conditions. Generally this activity resulted in a loss of boats, and once in a while I ended up far back in the fleet when I did not pay attention to sail as best and high as I could in the wind I had at the time.
Having Fred Paxton as race committee chairman meant that we would have good long courses with start lines that were reasonably square. Fred chose good courses that gave us varied conditions and over the week we had a full range of sailing conditions. After the second race, when a few boats were called over (including me!), the fleet was much more careful to avoid an early start.
In the first few races the start line was relatively short. In the later races the line was much longer. The longer start lines made it much more important to choose the correct side of the line. In two of the races the port end of the line was favored about 2 minutes before the start. I sailed down the line to get to that end of the line. However by the time the race started, the starboard end was favored and I was not in a very good position and had to work very hard to get back into the race, and was not always successful. In retrospect, it is clear when the wind shifts at Pinecrest are short duration, if the port side of the line is favored at two minutes before the start, the starboard end will be the place to be at the start. I wasn't always in the right place at the start. It was important to then pay careful attention to the wind shifts and hope I got a few correctly so I could get a good finishing position.
Because of the shifty winds, sometimes the starboard end of the line became favored at the start. There were often lots of boats crowding this end of the line and Fred did a very good job in the early races of identifying early starters which made the fleet a lot more careful.
It is extremely hard to get a good start consistently in a large competitive fleet like we had at Pinecrest, and to head the correct direction on the first beat. Often, having fallen behind on the first beat, with a long course, it was possible to keep plugging away with the wind shifts and recover to finish near the top of the fleet.