The Madness in the Middle
The second regatta of the Midwinter circuit, is called Midweek Madness. It's a two-day event held on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the week between the Florida Masters and the Midwinters.
This year, I couldn't be at the second day, as I had work to do in Orlando, so day one became a day for experimenting. The challenge was what experiment did I want to conduct?
I settled on sailing without my compass. I've had it since the first time I came down to the Masters Midwinters four years ago, and have developed a love/hate relationship with it. I believe it becomes very useful for a few things, but a distraction when it is not. I love using it when there are no shore transits available for the start line. It's great when you can't see the windward mark but the committee boat is posting the heading of the first windward leg. The real downside is that, when I have it, I don't look at my position relative to other boats to determine my course of action. I loose the intuition I need to feel the right directions for the upwind legs, preferring to stare at the compass and wait for it to indicate a knock.
We ran three races and it was a Radial day again for the little guys. The shore was close, and my experience from the last time I was here with the wind from the same direction was that you had to go to the shore and work you way up the beat on the left side. For me, that meant starting at the pin and powering out there as soon as possible. I got great transits, and nice spacing on the line in all three races and was fighting among the top five boats in every race on the first beats, even when the wind lightened and made it look like the Radial was the worst possible choice. On the triangles, however, the reaches proved the Radials slow, and at one point in the first race on the reach, the wind died completely, and we radials were sucking wind terribly.
But upwind, we Radials were competitive and I ended up with a 6 and a 7 in two of three races. In the other one, I still had speed, but crashed when my foot got wrapped by the mainsheet and ended up 21, I think.
And I loved not having the compass. As I peeled away from the line on starboard going left, I watched the fleet over my shoulder and it was simply a matter of waiting till I could cross them then tacking. It almost always happened that the fleet would tack to port under me, and go for about five minutes, and then the next knock we would all tack again and put me to leeward and ahead on starboard. It worked that the guy who rounded first was the guy that the last lift put on the mark without overstanding.
Not having the compass made the decision making easier and the racing much more fun. And with the shore so close, I never needed the compass to identify the line for me. I have not made the final decision yet, but I think I am leaning toward not using the compass for the upcoming Mids.
The day ended abruptly when lightening appeared to windward, and before the race committee could cancel the day, all 43 of us pointed our bows toward home. It's called voted with your tillers.
Compatriot Joe Van Rossem sailed both days, and though I did not see him before I had to leave for Orlando, the results are now up on line at http://www.usscmc.org and it looks like he had a decent run. He ended up 11th overall, despite some tough going on the finish line in race three on day one. I finished and turned around to see him trying to squeeze between a boat and the pin end of the finish line on port. He auto tacked around the pin, and then landed on top of it. Not pretty.
Off, now to the Midwinters. The big one. The one we have all been waiting for. About 60 boats are expected, with breezes that will allow us all to run full rigs and with warm weather and water to sail in. It doesn't get much better than this.