With Rome Kirby at the helm in his second regatta in the Melges 24 and a young but talented crew (I think our average age was 23), we managed to earn marked improvement during each race of the regatta. For instance, in the first race of the regatta, we were in the teens going up the second beat when the main halyard knot slipped and down came our mainsail. After sending Nick our bow guy up the mast to fix the issue, we managed to re-hoist and pass a couple boats to get a 44th. So we had our throw-out firmly established from the get-go. Every race was a battle from start to finish. Rome finally started to get more comfortable with the furled jib pre-start style that the 24s use and our starting culminated with a race on Friday where we started bow out on the group, and went tack for tack with the best in the world to round the windward mark in 1st place. After a wacky windshift (50 degree righty) put us on the ropes again, we made a mini-comeback for a regatta-best 3rd place in the race. Going into the last day we had the potential to pass a couple of boats, and break out of the teens. We managed two good races and finished 12th overall just behind Alan Field, Bill Hardesty and Terry Hutchinson. There’s some pretty good company for young Rome Kirby to be on the scoresheet with.

The week was a lesson in patience for all of us. To start the week in the high twenties, there were some dark personalities on board. I pressed on Rome to stay focused and all of our guys to stay upbeat, confident that we could chip our way up the scoresheet and into the top 20. We managed to do more than that, fighting for some good races and improving in leaps and bounds against sailors that have been racing 24s for a long time. I’m excited to continue in the class in the future. To have the opportunity to race with some young guys who managed to have fun even in the light air and brain-thumping conditions was a reminder of the reason we’re all out there doing it. Lots of sailors were about fed up with the long grinding motor out to and in from the race course, the cold and dreary weather, and shifty light air, but while other teams were imploding into screaming brawls at leeward marks, we calmly continued on our mission up the scoresheet. Mission accomplished: 12th.

http://www.melges24worlds2009.com/results/Sheehey_Lexus_of_Annapolis_Melges_24_World_Championship.html

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/1101/index2.asp

This past week has been quite a week of sailing. Lots of firsts. It was my first time to Bermuda. It was my first time racing the IODs. It was my first Grade 1 match race. It was my first time racing as a bowman. It was the first time I’d seen a judge boat sunk by a competitor. And it was the first time I’d commuted to a regatta by scooter. The regatta is a rare glimpse for amateur match racers into the World Match Race Tour as more than 20 teams compete with the best in the world for $100,000 prize purse. From my perch up on the bow, I was calling tactics and struggling with the spinnaker pole for Dave Perry, along with Doug Clark on the mainsheet, and IOD whiz Jonathan Farrar on the jib and spinnaker trim. Making it out of the opening round was the first major task of the week, and one not easily accomplished considering that names like Sebastian Col and Peter Gilmour were eliminated from the event after the first round. With major victories in big breeze on Wednesday and Thursday, we almost qualified for an automatic quarterfinal berth as one of the top two in our group, but readied ourselves for the repechage. In the repechage we struggled to get off the starting line and were only able to snag one win from Damien Iehl (pictured in the link).

There were some major lessons learned from the experience though:

1. Wins are hard to come by at Grade 1 events. Take them when you can get them. We took three critical wins against Col, Hansen, and Marinho that made the difference in getting into the second round of the event. Minor mistakes against Ainslie, Minoprio, and Viltoft cost us a spot in the quarterfinals. The good teams really know how to pick up your misakes and make you pay for them. There are no bad teams…
2. We watched more than a half-dozen people get black flag penalties (which means DSQ in match racing… don’t be confused with teamracing!!!). So do your turns as soon as you can, because the jury was out for blood if you waited too long.
3. We watched some gnarly wipeouts on the windy days (check out the video to come later this week). I learned that nothing can prepare you for heavy air in funky boats like the IODs. We sailed more than one race in non-spinnaker conditions. There were other races with full spinnaker-up broaches as well as chinese gybes. Sometimes you just had to go for it, and other times a little conservatism went a long way. Knowing when to apply each plan was paramount.
4. We watched some seriously close-to-the-wall-action that made for some very non-traditional racing situations. Great teams made grave mistakes and mediocre teams looked like heroes because of weird boathandling mistakes in close quarters with the seawall and heavy air. Having a go-to plan as well as a back up plan in case of a boathandling mistake was always a good idea, and control was not always a luxury you could count on.
5. Remember the dress code for Bermuda (as confirmed by Jonathan): shorts, blazer, straw hat, sunscreen, and leathers so you don’t get scooter rash like a couple of other guys in the regatta.

Next regatta on the docket is the Melges 24 Worlds coming up next week in Annapolis. Video and photos from the Gold Cup are coming up later this week!

New England gave us the full variety of late summer weather this weekend during the 2009 Hinman Trophy. In a lot of ways it reminded us of the week we just spent in “old” England with more than enough wind, chilly temperatures, and rain all day on Sunday.

Conditions yesterday were at the high-end of just about any race we do seeing 3-4 foot waves in Buzzard’s Bay and easily 30 knot puffs at times. Lots of boats being pushed to their limits. We sailed our way back into the quarter finals on Saturday afternoon and turned up Sunday morning to race against the “One man Wolfpack” team of Caleb Silsby, Michael Menninger and Charlie Buckingham. We won two races against them and were set against the regatta’s top seed, Silver Panda in the semi-final round. We quickly won two races against Silver Panda. We lost the third race in a tough race and a couple of tough calls that went against us:

Off the starting line we were ahead of our opponent sailing on close-hauled course. Our opponent sailed into an overlap with his bow “one foot” according to the umpire after the race from our leeward transom. Seeing how close we were I was reluctant to cause contact by putting my tiller down and trying to keep clear that way. Instead I continued straight for a few seconds hailing protest, citing rule 15. As we were protesting, our boats hit, thanks to the 25+ knots of breeze and hefty chop. We were given a penalty for not trying to take any avoiding action, even though my conscious inaction was the only reason we didn’t immediately collide. We were happy to know that the interpretation was that 1 foot was enough distance, even in that much wind. Unfortunately in the same race and same conditions, Adam and Nick had an incident with another opponent where they took almost a boatlength of extra room while gybing around a leeward mark, and were given a green flag because the interpretation was the the conditions allowed for more leeway than normal. At another weather mark, Adam and Nick hit a mark while rafted up with a team that ultimately received a penalty. Another protest was filed by the other team later down the leg as they sailed away from the mark and Adam and Nick were penalized for hitting the mark during the incident, even though rule 18.5 states otherwise. This penalty was ultimately apologized for by the invovled parties, but nonetheless cost us significantly. Rolling with the punches is something that you learn to do in teamracing, and we were still leading the best of 5 series 2-1.

In the fourth race we were leading the race in a 1, 2 around the windward marks. Adam sailed around the leeward mark first, and we were sailing down the leeward leg ahead of our opponent. We hailed “no room” and sailed to where I thought the edge of the two boat length circle was to ensure we had enough space to finish our gybe and sail down the reach. As we gybed our opponent saw the only opening we gave them in race and sailed straight into our path. They made no attempt to round the mark legally behind us or illegally inside of us. We had a heavy collision and hailed protest, but the time that the raft-up was over, they had let one of their teammates sail past. We were still rafted up when the first red flag came from the umpires some 10 boat lengths away. I knew in my mind we were right, but our opponents were convinced they were right as a team on the ropes of elimination has to. If they were receiving the flag, then rafting up with us instead of sailing clear to take penalty turns was a violation of rule 21.2. We protested again and jostled clear.

Both boats screamed down the reach overlapped and heard another whistle and red-flag from the umpires, but couldn’t hear the numbers. Neither boat could sort out who the penalty was for, and all four sailors were generally confused by the calls. One in shock at what was happening and the other disrupting a race that was all but over. When we finally rounded the second leeward mark and headed up with the judge boat came very close to Nick and I hailed our number and pointed both the black and red flags. At that point, I was in complete disbelief and my mind was in a bit of chaos. Black flags in teamracing mean that there will be a hearing after the race, but I confused that with a black flag in match racing which means that you are disqualified.

Ironically another black flag had occurred during the incident we were in with a situation with our teammates Tyler and Briana. They had apparently been given a red-flag penalty in the 5, 6 pair for a rule 42 kinetics violation right as they failed to avoid a luff from their opponent. During that luff the opponent hit their boat hard enough and caught their boom to the point that Tyler turned over. Apparently not that hard to do in 25 knots. As you can see, the fourth race turned into a melee of epic proportions and resulted in us effectively sailing off the course and Tyler and Briana upside down with a red-flag penalty pending. We sailed past the finish boat to ask where the black flag hearing would be, and were given a finishing position, which would come back to haunt us.

We sailed into a small cove to try and hear these protests, a rarity in fully-umpired teamracing. Meanwhile the other two teams on the water as well as our team sat sailing around in building breeze and 3-4 foot seas. Ultimately, Tyler lost what consisted of his series. And because I misunderstood the black flag situation, even though we didn’t interfere with the race after receiving it, Silver Panda was awarded a win for the race, and our team was penalized -0.5 wins from our total.

We had gone from being 2-1 before the race started to 1.5-2 after the race finished. Unfortunately we lost the fifth race in relatively quiet fashion after the hour long wait, but I’m still miffed by the decision. The team race rule book says under 3.1b that a team’s score in a given race for “any other rule (besides 28.1) broken while racing for which a penalty has not been taken” should be given 6 penalty points. The book then says that “after a hearing the protest committee [which in this case was made up by two umpires from the situation in addition to a third non-party, but in race umpire] may penalize as follows: … When a boat has broken rule 1 or 2, rule 14 when she has caused damage or injury, or a rule when not racing, it may penalize the boat’s team by half or more race wins or it may impose no penalty.”

As I am re-reading my rule book today, and as I was apologizing last night to the judges, I don’t think there was ever any discussion of us disregarding safety or not pursuing fair sailing. The entire incident is really an unfortunate one, and I feel terrible for having my team deducted a point for a win they got legitimately earlier in the series. Now that I understand the black flag complexity between teamracing and match racing, I’ve certainly learned my lesson, but am distraught by the reality that teams can only be deducted points because of breaches of safety or unsportsmanlike acts. Tim Wadlow and I both looked at each other in a bit of disbelief after getting off the protest boat. I don’t think that either of us thought that what had happened was so egregious, and the handshakes and hugs between the teams after racing show that all this is better left on the water.

We met the former Harvard sailors’ team of Tall Boyz in the Petit Final, and by that time it was gusting close to 30 knots. In the first race Kyle Kovacs lost his crew overboard and turned over, leaving us to win the 3 on 2 battle. In the next race we lost in a blow out 3 on 3, and in the final race Adam and Nick found the bottom of Buzzards Bay with a minute to go before the start and couldn’t make it back in time, so Tall Boyz won that 3 on 2 battle. We had some really fun racing against them though. Very wind. Very wavy.

We took fourth in the event, presenting a San Diego Yacht Club burgee on behalf of our supportive home club and its membership to the commodore of the Beverly Yacht Club at the evening trophy ceremony. In case you wonder whether we had any fun. Chris Love and the SailGroove.org video was great all weekend. Hopefully his camera dries out from Sunday so we can see some of the legendary racing. Congrats to the Yale team of Team Extreme for their win!

 Interview with Chris Love at SailGroove.org:

Sailing Videos on Sailgroove

Some fun footage from Sailgroove:

Here you’ll see a couple of close encounters between Pete Levesque and us during our first round-robin race against Panda. We were ducking a teammate and trying duck Pete when he tacked very close in front of us, a penalty that ultimately gets a green flag. The trouble is that before we could resolve anything in the first incident, we had already gotten ourselves into a bad spot with Tim Wadlow forcing us both to tack. We did a quick circle to exonerate ourselves from an obvious foul on our part, and ended up with an L for that race. You can see from the footage how complicated the flag-system can be, and the reason for the heated debate about how to solve the problems inherent in the system. Did we pull the flag too soon? Maybe. Did they have time to exonerate themselves? Maybe. Did the flags get in the way of the next incident? Maybe. Was there a foul? Yes. Were there two fouls? Maybe. These are the subtleties of the game we play.

Sailing Videos on Sailgroove

Results should be available through the USSailing.org website. I know there are some great videos from the last two days at SailGroove.org.

What a regatta Sail for Gold ended up being! Yikes. It didn’t seem like we were able to get any breaks throughout the event. The strong northeasterlies forced us to sit ashore for a day and a half of what could have been very good racing. When racing was possible, our course was one of the toughest and squirreliest of the lot. Mistakes seemed rampant in the fleet, but the proximity to shore really made for tricky breeze. In particular Brad and I were having a tough time getting the boat into the right spots, and even when we were in the right spots we could rarely capitalize. On the final day we made a nice comeback to round the last windward mark in the first race and were going down the run in fourth with a significant side-swell and got a rule 42 penalty from the on-the-water jury for rocking. I’ll admit that we were working as hard as anybody to stay with the pack, but having to do a 720 didn’t help our series at all at that point, we finished 12th in the race.

In the final race of the event we got off the line in great shape beside Freddie Loof and Iain Percy and held for seven minutes on their windward hip giving us great confidence that we were doing alright for pace. They eventually tacked and ducked us, we continued 10 or 12 more boatlengths further into what we thought was a left-hand shift. When we eventually came back together the fleet forced the three of us further left. The starboard tack advantage they had gained on us allowed them to squeak around the front of the major part of the pack, and we had to take a big duck behind the group going into the windward mark. The differences between a race in the top 5 and a race in the bottom 5 was often less than a boatlength on the first beat. Getting your nose out in front at all in the final approach to the first windward mark was by far the most important factor to having a good event. Anybody rounding in the body of the fleet could finish from 5th to 15th without any trouble. The fleet was absolutely top-notch and very much humbled me as much as the wind conditions.

So what are the major lessons from our first trip to Weymouth:

1. Settings from one tack to another often needed to be very different, due to confused seastate and proximity to the shore-line. Sometimes port would be straight into 1 meter swell, while starboard was extremely smooth with waves loading and unloading the boat to the point that the crews were in the water very often if the boat wasn’t properly powered at all times.

2. Geography has a major impact on the game. The valleys and cliffs surrounding the sailing area make enormous impact on the shifts and Portland Bill makes a huge impact on the current (it causes a 6 knot run of current at the end of the point during max ebb and max flood, thankfully we don’t have to race out there).

3. Racing inside the breakwater can be scary for the starboats in heavy air! Not having waves makes it incredible difficult to unload the main for gybes. Conclusion: I’ll probably need arms like Arnold for next year!

4. Everybody has bad races. Recovery wins regattas. This is a college sailing lesson. Chipping away when you’re up front as well as when you’re behind is the only way to win long series. When things aren’t going your way, just keep showing up until they do.

5. Bring more fleece next year and a thicker wetsuit to dive on the bottom. Sailing in England in September makes you realize why the English started sailing everywhere else in the world to find their empire (Barbados, BVI, India etc.)

So, we finished 16th this week, 7th in the World Cup standings, but are steadily climbing up the World Rankings (27th before the new rankings come out) so this season has turned out to be an incredible learning experience in the new boat.

It won’t stop here though. We will ship a boat out of Miami in two weeks to be ready for the South American Championships in November and lead-up to the 2010 Star Worlds in Rio in January. But first… the Hinman Trophy and US Teamracing Championships are this weekend at Beverly YC in Marion Mass with Team SDYC, Tyler Sinks & Briana Provancha, Adam Roberts & Nick Martin. I’m racing with former Georgetown All-American crew Nick Deane. Bermuda Gold Cup Match Race Grade 1 in three weeks. Melges 24 Worlds in Annapolis at the end of next month. Can’t wait. Stay tuned.

“If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.” That’s what my coach Bill Ward used to say about racing on the international circuit. Let me tell you, this week has been testimony to just that. Even with a smaller fleet, the quality of the Sail for Gold regatta this year is presenting a formidable obstacle to making Saturday’s medal race. After three days of racing and a handful of minor and not-so-minor mistakes on the water, I’m left 13 points out of the top-ten with three races likely tomorrow to conclude the series. Without a doubt, everybody in the fleet could win a race, and just as easily everybody could be last in any given lap around the course. There is zero tolerance for errors. The fleet will absolutely gobble you up and spit you out the back if you make any mistakes. Tougher yet, Weymouth’s uncommon offshore northeasterly breezes have wreaked havoc on the fleet keeping everybody quite honest. In a group where 1st through 19th round the first mark in less than a minute and then clamor into the first gate just about all overlapped.

Three races today turned out one good result, a 4th, in a race where we actually turned back to clear ourselves from being OCS. The 15th and the 12th were perfectly respectable races at certain points, and complete disasters at other moments. We crossed each finish line overlapped with a couple boats and couldn’t break through. Things aren’t falling our way quite yet, but we’re just going to keep showing up until they do. Tomorrow will be the true test of grit. Looking forward to the opportunity to dig ourselves out.

We’ve had better days of racing this season, but that’s how it goes after five or six events in Europe. There are bound to be tough days. With just 20 boats it would seem that the racing might be easier, but there are still five former world champions on the starting line, the top six from the 08 Olympics, and most if not all of the contenders for this year’s world cup standings. Brad and I were the first boat on the course today to try and get a flavor for what was happening on one of the closest courses to the Weymouth shoreline. Very shifty and puffy breeze blasted out of the 300-foot cliffs and headlands just a quarter mile upwind from our windward mark. With gusts around 20 knots the sailing was difficult enough, but add auto-tack windshifts and knockdown puffs and you’re going to see some entertaining racing. There were more than one bent whisker poles on the dock this afternoon from today’s racing. Luckily everybody had a mast when we got in (knock on wood). We were fifth around the first windward mark and thats about the best we saw all day. We had two nice starts but were not able to stay in clear lanes after the first beats and got forced around a little more than I would have liked. Tomorrow, thankfully is another day. I can’t wait! The wind is howling outside right now, and we’re supposed to have a bit more on. I think we’ll be looking for some more tension on the ol’ rig in the morning.