"We learned the value of sticking close to, and at least in the range, of the numbers on the tuning guide. In St Pete, we were sailing with a bit more rake (1 1/2" back) and a little looser rig (3 numbers) than what the tuning guide called for. We felt fine both speed and height wise at the Midwinters until the breezy last day. When it was blowing 18 we developed too much helm and were way overpowered. Once we pulled the rig forward and tightened it up for the Orange Peel ( we were at 27'0" and 33) we felt much better and the boat was a lot more forgiving to steer. We also found that in the bigger breeze easing the jib sheet out a bit more, until the jib was maybe 2-3" off the spreader tip actually helped the boat point better. It was like the bow was allowed to come up and the slot was wider. Sometimes you have to relearn things the hard way!"
"The Orange peel seems to get bigger and better every year we do it. They seem to have the right combination of a nice place to sail, good sailors to race against and they know how to put on a good show. Between the clinic, the raffle, the dinner, the cruise, and the DJ they sure make us welcome.
On the water, it was tricky this year. The NW wind direction seems to have its challenges because there are major shifts, changes in velocity and current. Our goal was to manage this risk. At any one time there were boats ahead of us from one side or the other. Our hope was that those boats would be different each time and though there were always boats beating us every race, we would avoid the high scores and let our competitors collect them instead. Another way to look at it was we were not trying to win the races, we were trying to survive them. We won a couple, but we were never leading at the top mark. We were persistent and patient and we tried hard to avoid the big mistakes and would hopefully make fewer than our major competitors.
This worked well to plan-most of the time. There are a few things that went wrong. The first is that I had just driven back from the J24 worlds in Mexico, then immediately hopped on a plane to Colorado for work, then showed up Saturday at 1:00AM with the full on flu. So my head was never in the game. Not sure there is much to learn there except to stay healthy. The real bad news was not only was it painful to sail, but I missed the parties and instead had the awful chills in bed all night.
The second thing that went wrong is that playing the middle works for us when one side or the other starts to work and we can still be ahead of the side that did not work. On one of the legs the middle caved and both sides beat us. We came back ok to a 5th, but that was our worst race. Sometimes when it gets light you have to pick a side, I am never quite sure when to do so, but this was one of those times. I know that now, I still don’t know how I would know that at the time.
But there was one other good lesson. We had 8 points after 4 races and there was one race to go. Going into the last race we had a 4 point lead, so we were in good shape. The 3rd place team was many points behind (I think they had triple our score). But this was the race described above where we still played the middle and both sides caught us. All I had to do was stay close to the 2nd place overall boat to win the regatta. I could even let him beat me and I just needed to stay close enough that he did not put 3 boats between us. We were going very fast, so this should have been an easy task. It seems so obvious now that this was not the time to play the middle, but instead to just stay with our competitor for the regatta!! Maybe it was the flu, it was hard to think with the flu, but we let him get leverage, and he went off to win the race. Lesson here is in the last race keep track of exactly what you need to do mathematically to succeed. Then don’t be afraid to base your game plan on that instead of just sailing another race.
We felt like our speed was excellent, and it was a pleasure to sail with my friend Dan Fien and my wife Delia again."
