Mother Nature chose not to cooperate with the final day of the J-22 North American Championship held at Rush Creek Yacht Club outside of Dallas, Texas. After two almost perfect days of racing, the cold front that came through on Thursday night quickly fizzled and Friday morning greeted the fleet with sunny skies but little breeze.
After several hours of postponement, the race committee went out and attempted to get off a start in a light northerly but after several large wind shifts, the breeze died once again and the committee cancelled the race and the regatta was over.
This outcome was somewhat reminiscent of the Laser Master's North Americans back in May where I was tied for the lead going into the last day (but losing on a tie-breaker), and the weather gods decided that 2nd place was going to have to be good enough.
Naturally, we were disappointed that we didn't get a chance to see if we could make up the 1 point deficit to Flip Wehrmeir and his excellent crew of Max Skelly and Greg Koski. We felt like the momentum was on our side as our last 5 race results were 1-4-3-2-1 following our initial finishes of 5th and 8th.
Our disappointment was short lived though as we reflected on what had been an excellent regatta and we were very pleased with our hard fought 2nd in a very tough fleet. As I hope will always be the case, win or lose, I always try and come away with at least a few lessons learned.
1) Always sail with people you enjoy. Life is too short to not enjoy the people you race with. John Morran and Mark Salih are a couple of my oldest and best friends. I haven't laughed so hard in a long, long time! Sailboat racing is a game. Have fun and enjoy it with people you like.
2) The numbers don't lie! Even though the wind was quite shifty, there was usually an oscillating pattern to the shifts. Get your headings figured out and sail the lifted tack. Don't panic and chase shifts on the other side of the lake. Sail what you have and be patient. Usually, if you stay on the lifted tack, it will take you to the next shift. Never try and cross the lake looking for a shift. Sail YOUR breeze at all times and don't worry about what you can't control.
3) Re-emphasis on PATIENCE! There were many times in the this regatta where we were not in great shape on the first weather leg. We just kept working the breeze we had and staying in phase. It was remarkable how much ground we were able to make up as a result of my less than stellar starting.
4) When I am rusty, usually the areas that I am weakest are starting and sailing downwind. Starting well is a function of confidence and time in the boat. Downwind sailing is function of feel and practice. I hadn't steered a boat in a competitive race since May and the lay-off definitely affected me in the first couple of races. Eventually we got it sorted out and felt we were getting better every race.
5) In a J-22, we learned that light to medium wind, you have to stay with the pack downwind and not risk trying to soak too low on the run and take the risk of having the parade of the fleet sail over you. There seemed to be a "cone" of disturbed air created by the fleet and you had to be careful not to jibe away from the fleet unless you had a very, very compelling reason to. There was just too much risk of losing your wind and getting sailed around by the fleet. It seemed better to try and hold your position and wait until later in the downwind leg to worry about positioning for the leeward gate rounding. Contrary to the way I usually like to sail, being extremely aggressive downwind was not always a good thing.
6) In a J-22, changing gears upwind is the key to good boat speed. I tried to keep the boom at or on center-line at all times with traveler usually pulled to windward. Once I had trouble keeping the boat flat, I would start easing the traveler down but never below center-line. Once the traveler was just above center-line, I would start aggressively playing the back stay to keep the boat on its feet. If I felt the puff that I was in was going to last a while, every time I had the back stay on hard, I would always try and cheat the mainsheet in a little tighter to keep some leach tension and to add tension to the head stay. Once the puff dies, I ease the back stay immediately and try to simultaneously ease the mainsheet off a bit to keep the leach at its optimum tension. If the lull is going to last a while, I will pull the traveler back up and ease the main sheet a bit for optimum twist. The mainsheet ease takes a little tension off of the headstay and serves to power up the jib as well.
Once the back stay was tensioned to a medium setting and the traveler was down to center-line, we would start pulling the boom vang on to help lock in the leach of the main. As the back stay approached maximum tension, the vang would continue to get tighter. As soon as the wind eases, the backstay, boom vang and mainsheet need to be eased in unison. It is very important not to let the top of the main significantly stall for a long period of time.
7) The jib lead position doesn't seem like it needs to change. We used the latest design from Quantum Sails (which were really excellent!!) and it seems that the trend is towards a more powerful jib. The foot of the jib seemed to trim best at just inside the toe rail which seemed much more outboard and eased than I remember in the past. We never moved our jib lead during the entire regatta and we sailed in a wide spectrum of wind. We also used a 2:1 jib sheeting system for the first time and are now convinced that it absolutely the way to go. The ability to fine tune the jib sheet and quickly ease and trim for chop and puffs was key.
8) As a rule of thumb we set our rig tension so that our leeward upper and lower shrouds were always slightly dangling. If the leeward shrouds are tight when sailing upwind, there is a good chance that your rig is too tight. Once you get a base setting, usually an adjustment of 2:1 (double the turns for the uppers vs. the lowers) when tightening or loosening the rig would keep the tension about where it needed to be. If in doubt, it is better to be a little too loose than too tight on the rig. This seems to be a universal truth for most one design keel boats that I have raced. I am not sure why but it seems to work.
The Rush Creek Yacht Club should be congratulated for running an excellent event. They routinely do as fine a job as any yacht club in the country in hosting major events. The J-22 is a great class and the people are fantastic. The boat is relatively easy to get up to speed and you don't have to spend a lot of money to be competitive. I hope to be able to sail many more J-22 events in the coming years.
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