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Weather the Weather Gate

Posted 9 months ago

Weather the Weather Gate
Due to the growth of the Etchells Jaguar series—this year an average of 82 boats entered the four regattas that make up the series—the race organizers decided to try something new to alleviate some of the congestion at the windward mark. During the first three events, the windward mark featured a lot of collisions and protests as boats tried to get around the windward mark and down the offset leg. So the race committee for the Jaguar Midwinters last weekend (Feb. 29 to March 2) changed the sailing instructions to allow for a windward gate. (To see what they did, check out the SIs at www.etchellsfleet20.org.) The concept is similar to the leeward gates most racers have grown accustomed to over the past few years. Pass between them, round one of the two marks, and head downwind. America’s Cup rules advisor Dave Perry, who was racing in the event, gave a short rules seminar during the initial skippers meeting. A large group of sailors were very concerned about port-starboard situations. Dave told everyone that the rules did not change for the burdened boat. The fleet was going to have to decide on two possible marks to round. Most of the skippers at the skippers meeting were opposed to the idea but the race committee decided to still move forward with the windward gates. Picking a gate and dealing with the rules went hand in hand. Depending on which gate you picked, you could end up going downwind without rights on boats still approaching the gates. However, we found that you still had to go the favored gate. You couldn’t decide on one gate over the other because one offered an easier spinnaker set. You could lose too many places. At a normal windward mark the fleet pushes toward the left-hand side of the course. And most boats stay on the “train” to avoid all the disturbed air produced by boats approaching the windward mark on the starboard layline. With two gates the fleet did spread out more quickly, but often the initial lanes were slim and you were dodging boats that were still coming upwind. One of the mistakes initially was not having offset marks. The downwind angles after the mark put us bow-to-bow with boats still approaching the gate. The scariest time was when we rounded the right-hand gate and set on port jibe. We immediately became the burdened boat against the starboard-tack layline. We were caught off guard early because we were not able to jibe back to the middle due to the approaching traffic. During the first race with a windward gate, the lack of offset marks led to a few close calls and some collisions. The real confusion was between two boats on opposite legs on the same tack. To further separate the fleet, the race committee set up offset marks, which eliminated some of the bow-on-bow situations. The biggest complaint from the sailors involved getting away from the marks in traffic, which was very hard to do during the first 5-10 boatlengths of the run. No matter which gate you chose, you were sent right into the approaching layline traffic. With a standard windward mark, you are generally sent away from the approaching layline traffic. In one situation a boat that went around the left-hand gate and did a standard starboard bear-away set headed into the approaching port-tack layline. A boat on port was barely clearing the starboard tack boat, and the port tack boat clipped the starboard boat and ripped down its rig. No one was hurt but it showed how the fleet was being forced into each other. Spinnaker sets were a trial-by-error process. Since we never knew what mark we were going to pick until the last minute, it was hard to prepare for the set. Several boats did not clip the spin sheets into the pole and tried to free fly the kite. This can work on some boats, but an Etchells is too narrow to effectively free fly a kite during the set. During the weekend we tried a number of ideas. We tried free floating the spin pole and then setting. The pole moved around so much we were afraid the pole would go straight through the kite. Next we tried hoisting the pole and pulling it vertical alongside the mast. But the time to hook up the pole and sky it took too long on the offset leg. Our sets were very late. One boat sent the bowman forward to throw the spinnaker up in front of the boat. The skipper decided to jibe during the set and almost lost the bowman. The best method we found was to set up for a standard starboard rounding. If the left-hand gate was favored, we used the standard starboard-pole bear-away set. If the right-hand gate was favored, we had two options. The first option was to put the pole up on starboard with the guy in the jaws on the offset leg. The pole was hanging to leeward. At the offset mark we would jibe, push the pole forward, and hoist. The second option was to hoist the pole on the offset leg, again on the leeward side. We would start to feed the sheet around (having the sheet in the pole helped it around the forestay). At the offset mark we would hoist the kite. Once the kite filled we'd move the pole to the windward side. Full Story »

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