2008 J-22 Midwinters.....Lesson Learned

The 2008 J-22 Mid Winter’s: Lessons Learned

Recently, I had the chance to compete in the 2008 J-22 Mid-Winters held at Rush Creek Yacht Club on Lake Ray Hubbard outside of Dallas. After having a chance to reflect on my experience at this regatta, I realized there might be a few “lessons learned” that I could pass on.

The essence of this article is really based on the reality that you don’t really learn anything that will benefit you in the long run without making mistakes. Sometimes…really big ones! I have never really learned anything that was a particularly impressionable without messing up. So, here is a run down on some of the mistakes that I made at the J-22 Mid-Winters….that in retrospect, cost us a victory.

We went into the event not really thinking we would have a chance to win. We had no preparation of any kind leading up to the regatta and had I had not been on a J-22 for over 2 years. Mark Salih was kind enough to loan me his boat when it was determined that he would not be sufficiently recovered from contracting a water-borne amoeba that significantly damaged the cornea’s in both eyes while windsurfing in Australia. Fortunately, Mark is well on the mend is expected to make a full recovery.

Since we weren’t sure about Mark’s condition and whether he would be sailing the boat until a few days before the regatta, there was really no opportunity to practice or even sail the boat.

As is usually the case, I was lucky enough to be able to sail with Matt Romberg and John Morran. With such a great team, I knew we would be competitive, with a realistic goal of the top 10 and maybe we could flirt with the top 5.

John and I were able to get out for a brief practice session the day before the regatta with a pick up 3rd crew off of the dock since Matt was tied up being a dad and doctor on the day before. We seemed to have decent speed and in our practice session and I felt like the boat was moving pretty well. I just tried to follow the Quantum tuning guide and it seemed like we would have enough speed to be competitive.

The forecast for the regatta called for big breeze from the South on Friday, a front with a strong northerly on Saturday and back to the South with strong breeze on Sunday. I tend to have more confidence in stronger breeze so I was excited about the forecast.

The weather forecast however was a little off. We started off with a pretty light easterly breeze. East or Northeast breeze tends to favor hitting the edges of the race course as I was rudely reminded again. I generally don’t like this direction because the middle is often death and I tend to like the middle of the course. What was throwing me off was that the hour-by-hour prediction showed the wind moving to the right (south) as the day went on. Consequently, we were constantly watching the right, waiting for the breeze to start working that direction. Lesson learned….focus on what you have and not want you might get. Watch the trends, keep track of the persistent shifts but sail what you have!

Race 1. We had a pretty good start near the upper middle of the line and tacked to the right when Kelson Elam cleared out. The boats low and to the right of us were able to squirt out on us a bit we played a few shifts and managed to round the weather mark 2nd behind Kelson. Kelson opened up his lead and we actually felt like the fleet was compressing on us. I kept protecting the right side of the course (left side going downwind) and realized that the puffs and streaks of wind were really favoring the left or easterly side of the course. So, instead of going right as the weatherman predicted, it would show a little bit of shift to the right and then come back in from the left.

What this meant for the ensuing upwind legs was that you really had to dig into the left and get into the breeze. This strategy is very counter-intuitive for me as I tend to think that eventually the wind will come back from the right so I never allowed us to get far enough into the easterly shift and velocity. I think coastal sailors tend to be a little more disciplined when it comes to digging in far enough to make sure that they are in the breeze. I just really hate sailing headers and tend to never go far enough.

The end result is that we took a very strong second at the first weather mark and turned it into a 7th….simply by not protecting the left where the wind was consistently stronger.

Lesson learned….pay attention and learn to deal with reality!!

Race 2. We were in pretty decent shape at the first windward mark and were approaching from the port tack lay-line…which is always risky! We had a small gap that we thought we could shoot through and just barely crossed Kelson Elam who was on starboard. The mistake I made was that instinctively, I tacked just as I crossed him to go for the mark. That tack created a protest opportunity for Kelson. All I needed to do was concede the mark to him by going an extra boat length on port tack before tacking. I would have over-stood the mark slightly but I wouldn’t have fouled him.

It was a pretty marginal foul, but the burden of proof was on us so we did our 720 and promptly lost about 20 boats. The good news was that we rallied back and worked our way back to 9th at the finish and in fact even caught Kelson on the last beat. Still…..we gave up probably 5 points in that race….points that always matter at the end.

Lesson learned….even what seems like an inconsequential point early in the regatta always comes back to haunt you at the end. Much like missing free throws in basketball!

Race 3. The wind finally shifted more to the south and began to build. In fact, it looked like the right side of the course maybe favored as the clouds had burned off and the atmosphere was noticeably drier which is typical for a southwesterly wind direction. We played the shifts nicely up the middle right and rounded the weather mark in the top two or three boats. During the course of the race, we worked out to a pretty nice lead. On the last run, the breeze started to die and we felt like we were doing a good job of sailing in the breeze that we had, but one of our chief rivals, former J-22 World Champ Terry Flynn was working a puff down the other side of the lake.

Early in the leg, he looked like he was in pretty bad shape and was probably in 5th place and losing ground. We made the decision to sail the best course to the leeward mark with the wind that we had and to stay with our nearest competitors in that race. As luck would NOT have it, Terry got a 50 degree wind shift and a wind line that carried him all the way to the mark as he erased about a ¼ mile deficit and rounded the leeward gate ahead of us. The wind then stabilized and he held us off on the last beat to win the race.

Lesson learned….Sometimes in sailboat racing, bad luck happens. We did the best we could with what we had and sometimes you have to just live with that. The thing that can affect your psyche if you start to believe your competitor is having a string of good luck and deep down inside you start to question whether winning the regatta is meant to be. You have to try and put those thoughts aside and get ready for the next race.

After the first day, we had a 7-9-2 and were in 3rd or 4th place but definitely in the hunt. We had the best day of anyone without a throw-out.

Lesson learned….always keep yourself in striking distance of the lead and consistency will almost always be rewarded. Stay patient and keep trying to sail better each race.

Saturday dawned with a brisk northerly with winds in the 15-20 mph range with nice oscillating shifts. We had two excellent starts in the first two races of the day and ended up with a 2nd and a 1st. Many of our nearest rivals in the standing faltered in the big breeze. We put the hammer down and felt like we were starting to get control of the regatta.

The last race on Saturday presented a challenge because the northerly had started to die and clock around to the east. We had a not so great start but sailed a great first beat to round 4th. At the spinnaker set, I didn’t do a very good job of listening to my crew who were both telling me to stay up to protect our wind. It hadn’t really registered with me that the wind was significantly less and that a straight bear-away spinnaker set would be harder to do in less wind. Due to my lack of attention to this fact, Eric Faust rolled us quickly after the spinnaker set and we were forced to jibe to clear our air.

At first we looked good but as the wind continued to shift to the east on the run, we found ourselves having to sail a terrible starboard tack angle to get back to the leeward mark and in the process, lost about 5 boats and a lot of distance on the leaders. With the wind becoming easterly, again, you had to get up in the wind and we could never recover, resulting in a disappointing 9th. Even worse, Terry Flynn made a good rally and won the race which immediately put him back within close striking distance. Even though we were disappointed with the 9th, we had the best day of anyone and would go into the final day in the lead with a narrow margin over Terry with several other boats within striking distance.

Sunday’s forecast was for the wind to quickly swing back around to the south and blow 15-25 mph. Even though we had a 3 point lead, we decided to sail aggressively and go out and try and sail as if we were behind. We got a good start and rounded the weather mark in 3rd, just behind Terry Flynn. On the downwind leg we managed to pass Flynn and the boat that was in the lead. We sailed well and went on to win the race fairly easily.

Now…with the last race to go, we held a 4 point lead. The wind was starting to die and instead of shifting to the right (south) as the forecast called for, the wind actually shifted back slightly to the east. Our pre-race strategy called for staying aggressive and trying to start near Terry Flynn, preferably underneath him so that we could force him to the right. We set ourselves up pretty well with about 30 seconds to go but as usually happens when you are worrying about one boat a little too much, another boat comes into the picture and totally hoses you. A boat got underneath us and squeezed us up almost head to wind. We were stuck…and Terry Flynn seeing our predicament was able to bear off and go below both of us and get a fairly decent start. We were forced to tack to the right.

As had been the case throughout the regatta, whenever the wind shifted back to the east, the left was paying and if you weren’t up in the wind lanes, you were in trouble. Unfortunately for us, we kept getting ping-ponged right and could never get back to the favored side. Fortunately, when we rounded the first windward mark, even though we were in the mid-20’s, Terry was only about 5 places ahead of us. There were several different combination's in which we could win. We already had 2nd locked up no matter how we finished. If Terry finished below his worst race of the series, no matter how we finished, we would win.

As good sailors and former World Champions do, we knew Terry was going to move up in the race. As we approached the first leeward gate, the fleet had compressed and we were right back in the thick of things. However, we made a critical mistake at this point in the race. Terry made the last minute decision to go around what seemed like at the time, the un-favored mark. He clearly wanted to get back to the left side of the beat. We almost made the decision to follow him but saw that there were 5 boats between us and thought we would have too much bad air. We elected instead to round the left gate which took us to the right side of the course (I know….again) while Terry went left. He quickly picked up a big shift and a puff and was suddenly in the top 5 in the race. We, on the other hand were languishing in the high teens and could never recover to a higher finish and had to use the race as our throw-out. Terry rallied back to 3rd in the race giving him the championship.

The big lesson learned on this one was, first, confidence is a funny and often wavering thing. I think if we had spent more time in the boat and consequently had more confidence in our all-around speed and tactics, we wouldn’t been so aggressive in trying to out-start Terry and I think we would have been more satisfied in getting a good, safe, mid-line start. I think my mindset had slipped to the subconscious level of believing that Terry was getting a lot of good breaks….breaks that we weren’t getting and maybe it was his destiny to win.

Where I am going with this is that if we had of just gotten a decent start, we were good enough to have gotten a 5th in the race which would have been good enough to win, no matter what Terry did. Our aggression really hid an underlying lack of confidence. Secondly, when we had the opportunity to follow Terry to the right gate, even though we were only 5 boats behind, we didn’t do it. Our mindset was that we had to split with him to catch up. The reality was that if we had of stayed on the same side of the course with him, the odds are that we could have passed the boats necessary to win the regatta.

Don’t get me wrong….we sailed an excellent regatta and I am proud of our effort. What I would like you to take away from this is that preparation is the surest way to be consistently successful in sailboat racing. Preparation gives you the mental edge to not make critical mistakes at critical junctures. If you don’t prepare adequately, you may get lucky and win a big regatta occasionally, but usually, the lack of preparation will ultimately lead to the need to write an article about “Lessons Learned”.