Lightning Southern Circuit - 2010

2010 Lightning Southern Circuit
Post-event Recap
March 25, 2010
By: Skip Dieball

Overview
Like previous years, I joined the So. Circuit already in progress with the stop in Miami.  This year I had a conflict with the Savannah weekend.  Someday I’ll be able to do the whole circuit…

Miami
I showed up Sunday evening fresh from the Copa Mexico in Puerto Vallarta.  I had a day of travel, but felt reasonable good to go sailing first thing on Monday with my team of Jody Starck and Kristin Medwid.  Jody and I have sailed together for years and simply agreed to sail in Miami without discussing which spot on board each of us would sail.  Knowing that I would be driving a lot this summer & that Jody would be crewing a lot, I felt that it would be fun for her to drive Miami.  She’s won that event a number of times and, beyond that, it was her boat that we were using. 

The wind was blowing 10-15 with some gusts in the higher teens up near Coconut Grove (westerly wind).  We got hooked up with Gary Sowden’s team and Aroldo’s team for a short sail upwind.  We had decent speed, as did the others.  For the 10-15 we were blocked at just over 1” and the lowers were probably a little softer at 200lbs.  The boat was in gear, so I didn’t feel the need to change much.  One thing to note is that we pay attention to the lowers quite a bit.  We trim for upwind and then grab an additional couple of clicks of main trim and then monitor the leeward lower.  It should just go slack.  A footnote is that many have reported great success with having lowers slightly tighter than this method.  You’ll find your sweet spot, but as a rule I tend to go softer to add some power to the sail plan.  The lightest I think I’d ever go on the lower would be 170 lbs, with 250 being the tightest.  Here’s a breakdown of our blocking/lower sequence as we set it up for Miami:

Light Winds (0-7)    1.25” blocking        170-200 lbs on the lowers
Medium Winds (7-15)    1” blocking        190-225 lbs on the lowers
Heavy Winds (15+)    .75” – 1” blocking    200-250 lbs on the lowers

The variables that I tend to look at is 1) how the main sets up; 2) how the forestay sets up.  It is tough to explain the set up of the mainsail, but more recently I’ve been mentioning to people to focus on the entry/exit of the main.  If the entry/exit is too round, you need a little more pre-bend (block forward).  If the entry/exit is too fine, you need to block aft.  It is tough to train your mind’s eye to take a quick look and make the adjustment, so having the above matrix written down somewhere on board might help.

The forestay is directly correlated to the lower tension.  If the lowers are soft, the forestay becomes too bouncy.  If the lowers are too tight, you can’t get enough sag and you’ll sacrifice some point.  Again, I’ll go back to my lowers just going slack when you give the mainsheet a good pull…

Photo: Bill Clausen

Race Day #1 – Miami
The forecast was for the wind to be out of the WNW and moving to the right as the day progressed.  The current was going out all day, so that would battle the decision to go right exclusively.  Add to that the fact that we recognized puffs coming off the land (early drainage breeze) we made sure that we had a conservative strategy of playing left center. 

We did a reasonably good job in the 1st race as we rounded the top mark in the top 10.  It was a little nerve wracking watching the edges come in hard.  We picked off some boats throughout the race, primarily playing the left side of both the beat and the run.  It could have been worse for us as we were fully levered a few times, but fortunately the gains & losses were minimal and we got away with going to the outside…at one point in the 2nd beat we looked like we might have hooked an enormous lefty and would be leading by a lot.  Alas, it came back.  That’s the beauty of the WNW on Biscayne. 
The 2nd race the wind was getting lighter.  We took a turn off the lowers and the main set up really well and the flat water had the forestay relatively stable.  We had a below average start with a huge pile up at the pin end.  After a few tacks we were in the cheap seats.  We battled back to about 10th at the top only to lose boats throughout the balance of the race.  I wish I could point to something concrete in terms of a glaring error…it was just a series of decision mishaps.  I believe that we might have been pressing too hard and trying to hit the home run.  In hindsight, many that rounded the last bottom with us ended up in the top 10 and we should have continued to grind it out rather than sending it in the last race…we simply couldn’t figure out which side was going to pay, so we made a decision and went with it…it didn’t work out.

Photo: Bill Clausen

The 3rd race was for redemption as we knew we were better than the 25th we posted.  The wind came up initially, but the forecast was for it to lighten and go right all day.  We didn’t goof around with any of the blocks or lowers and focused rather on getting off the line clean with pace.  Jody nailed the start, we were able to flop to port and we cruised in this race.  Worth noting was that on the 2nd run, the wind went HARD RIGHT, as forecasted.  It slowly died after that last wind shift…to the point where we had no racing on the 2nd day in Miami.

What we learned
Sails and set up looked great.  We were plenty fast.  Our crew weight was 450ish.  We didn’t do anything different with the rig, sails, set up that we wouldn’t normally do.  As is customary in Miami with the wind out of the western half of the bay, it got goofy and stayed goofy.  You have to trust what you see pressure-wise and what you feel angle-wise. 

Photo: Bill Clausen

St. Petersburg Winter Championship
For this event, I would be sailing my boat.  The boat is pretty standard in its set up. 
Our team for this event was myself, Tom Starck & Kristin Medwid.  Together we weighed about 520.  That is a lot these days, but not insurmountable.  Tom Starck has been racing Lightnings since the 80s and he and I have sailed together for about 10 years.  Kristin is new to the Lightning, but certainly not new to sailing.  She campaigned Thistles with me a few years ago and she did a great job adjusting to the differences in working the front of the Lightning vs. the Thistle.

The forecast for Friday and Saturday called for dying breeze both days.  Sunday a front would move in and bring some bigger winds…

Our rig tune strategy didn’t change.  The thing that was different is Tom’s discipline to addressing the rig before the 4 minute gun.  I usually make my mind up early and then move on mentally to the racing.  Tom is keen to look up the course and make the adjustments needed up to the last possible minute.  This is a good trait to have.  Tom reasons that you have to be as fast as possible on the first beat and that means studying what is coming your way (more, same or lighter winds).  Like myself and Jody, Tom is on the looser side of the house when it comes to lower tensions.  I do think that the three of us have settled in on making sure that we check all of our reference points before we lock everything in. 

Photo: Bill Clausen

Race 1 – Light winds
We had a really good race going in the first one.  The wind was 5-7 out of the Northwest, which my years of experience tells me that the middle left is the high percentage play.  We had a nice battle going with some great sailors: Eagan, MacDonald, Fisher & Starck.  We all traded positions at least 3 times and I personally felt we were going to be out in front by a lot.  A group of sailors came in from the hard right.  It was really curious to us as to why this paid so much.  In the end, we decided that the inconsistencies of the bay floor and the current had to play a part in these 4 boats coming out big.  Tampa Bay is a little goofy on the lighter wind days when the current can do different things.  Tough to predict, but these guys got it.

We held on to a top 10 finish.  Nothing really changed much after the top mark in terms of positions, wind or current.  We looked good up the middle right at times and boats would carry over lefties at times too…so really no consistency.

Race 2 – Abandoned
The wind had shifted way to the Southwest and eventually the south.  It settled in a bit and they started a race.  By the time the fleet had gotten onto the run, the wind shut down.  We knew it was going to happen, but it didn’t help that we were winning, by a lot!

We had a solid 1st beat and rounded in the top 3.  We had our new R&D spinnaker up that was designed for VMG, or tacking downwind.  It was a huge weapon!  We went from essentially tied with the top guys to winning by minutes & 100s of yards at the bottom.  I am particularly pleased with this sail and think it will round out our offering pretty nicely!

Photo: Bill Clausen

Race 2 – Day 2 (for real)
Race 2 & 3 on the 2nd day were pretty tough races.  First, we were postponed for hours on land.  It is tough to get into the mood when you are sent out mid afternoon.  We did a good job of rallying and getting things sorted as we were caught shopping in St. Pete when they took down the AP!

The RC mentioned something about the sea breeze coming in.  I’ve seen St. Pete with a good sea breeze and this wasn’t it, but it provided enough punch to get a few races off.  We posted a 11,9.  In hindsight, being 520 and having light & lump, we were ok with those scores, though at the time we were wondering if we hadn’t figured out the upwind right side…which came in ultra hard.  There were two Michigan boats that were punched coming out of the right:  Mark Allen & Jim Davis!  We had really good 1st beats.  In fact, I had a few competitors mention that they thought we were going to go 1,1 with the starts & beats we had.  Pace was good…

We were blocked on this day at 1.25” and lowers around 180.  We made sure we sailed with enough heel to get through the chop, but not so much that it was creating too much helm.

One thing to note was the current change that produced some significant chop.  It was especially tough sailing through that downwind and we found ourselves needing to heat up enough to get through it efficiently. 

Photo: Bill Clausen

Last Day – Last Race
The RC bumped up the starting time.  The wind was out of the South and breezy on the way out.  There were a number of storm systems in the area which created an unstable breeze.  When we got to the RC boat, we were postponed due to one boat being turned over and subsequently losing their mast.  It was blowing that hard, but amazingly died down to about 7 knots. 

We moved blocks and lowers quite a bit as the wind changed.  The call of the day was Tom watching the skies to the southeast.  They were getting darker and he predicted that the wind was going to come back up.  We were perplexed because we wanted to tune for the 1st beat, but didn’t want to be overpowered with the wind came in.  We picked a tune of 1” of blocking and lowers at 250. 

On the first beat, we suffered with point a little and got flushed by David Starck on the initial port tack off the line (wind went hard left).  We hooked a little lefty that got us back into the top group and the wind was slowly building at the top of the 1st beat.  We were in gear with our tune with this wind!

Downwind we connected some waves and managed to pass 4 boats on the fetch downwind.  They moved the mark a little to the left.  Our tune was still perfect and we could tell that we had pace on others…probably due to the 520, but the sails set up perfectly for the wind.

My settings on the sail controls in this breeze were traveler down ½, bridle lowered so I couldn’t 2 block, Cunningham and backstay played in the down pressure, and on in the up pressure.  Vang was on pretty hard to take the load off the mainsheet and get some added low bend out of the mast.  The most important thing was that we were quick to bump the jib for big waves and/or big winds.  There were only a few occasions that I had the main inside out and luffing.  Kristin was doing a great job keeping the jib in/out for the wind/waves.  By the last beat, Tommy went up front as the angle to constantly trim was just off enough to make Kristin’s life miserable. 

Downwind in this stuff is always exciting.  We had the leeward twing down a little, but certainly not pegged.  We were able to keep the boat on a plane and execute a gybe at the right time.  Others around us either dumped or went to jib (it was blowing plenty hard!).  Tom & Kristin did great to nail the gybe and we were off and running to a last race victory.

SUMMARY
I am very much pleased with our sail development.  The upwind sails look great and shift gears to the tuning matrix very nicely.  The new VMG spinnaker is a home run!  It’ll be perfect for inland lakes and for the W/L courses in light/moderate winds.  Our runner is plenty powerful for W/L courses in all conditions.