For Saturday the 14th, I traveled to Chautauqua Lake, NY for the first leg of the NY State Championship. It is commonly called the Home & Home as it is contested between Chautauqua Lake Yacht Club and Keuka Yacht Club E-Scow racers. I volunteered to sail with William Hudson on his E-Scow as his wife and oldest son were off on a college visit. I would be the traveler guy on the upwind and run spinnaker on the downwind. I had never flown the a-symmetrical on an E-Scow before so I figured it would a challenge. We would be sailing with William’s two younger sons, Anders and Nick.
William has a 1 year old boat and has the newest modification with the spinnaker launching system in front of the mast. William has improved tremendously over the last few years. He is now a threat to finish near the top of the KYC fleet in the E-Scow and now that he has a MC-Scow he also has finished in the top of that fleet on occasion. I had not sailed with William in over 6 years and back then it was as the front man and the E-Scows were still sailing with the symmetrical spinnaker.
Saturday morning started with a light 6-8kn out of the south and supposed to be building throughout the day. William had a good, but not great, start right by the line with a boat in front of him that had to go back and restart. The first beat I concentrated on boat heal and working with Anders and Nick to balance the boat. We did ok, but there was still bit too much non-steady heal for my liking. We rounded the windward mark in 3rd behind Rick Turner and Mark Turner. Upon getting the spinnaker up, the boat really pops out. We neither gained nor lost on that downwind and were the only ones to go to the left gate, which worked out well. We worked the middle of the course if a bit to the right. We were still in 3rd, but then noticed Dave Barger coming in from the way right. He banged the corner and caught up to the leaders. My gybes weren’t the greatest as I was getting used to the amount of line to pull in and how to get the Mexican style gybe to work right. The Mexican is where you let the a-symmetrical fall into the jib upon the gybe and then let it flow and pull all the way through to the leeward side. It sounds derogatory but if I have the story correct the expression comes from the Americas Cup when they were off the coast of California and every time they gybed in that fashion they were facing Mexico. Off the last leeward rounding we went right as William saw a good puff coming from that direction. It was the correct move and it looked like we might be able to catch back up to 3rd, as the boat in 4th went up the north shore and lost, but then Chris Creighton came in and just motored upwind. 4th still felt good though.
The second race was our bad race and I got to witness the William meltdown. We had two bad sections to the race. One was the start where we got headed into the wind at the start. We originally wanted to duck below the boat, but were unable do it as the boat to leeward of us ended up stopping and getting stuck in irons. So we had to head up to avoid fouling them. William was aghast at the other boat and cursed up a storm. He let that get into his head so we were not in the game until halfway up the first beat. We still were able to catch up towards the pack but at the back. We had a decent downwind, but had an issue going into the gate. William wanted to go to the left gate. As we dropped the spinnaker William went to round the right gate to port, which would have been the wrong way. I was helping Nick drop the chute and none of us realized that William was headed up thinking that he was at the left gate. He had another tirade and again lost all his focus. William would have been correct to head to the left gate and head over on port for a bit. Unfortunately we got sucked into the north shore breeze that is deceptive. It looks and feels great, but it ends up being a long slog back on port to the windward mark. We only had one boat behind us for the rest of the race.
The third race was our redemption. The wind was starting to pick up in velocity and steady out some too. William had a great start and we played the shifts just right to be in first at the windward mark. We were slower than Rick Turner downwind but caught back up to him on the next upwind and were first around the mark again. This time we miss read a puff while we were on starboard and gybed onto port. This was the wrong move as it allowed three boats to put a lot of distance on us going to the leeward gate. We were super fast upwind in this race. The boys were hiking hard and Nick was doing a good job of using the vang, if over tightening a few times. Both Nick and Anders were quick to move around the boat and good quiet movements. I actually had to move the traveler a bit in the puffs. We caught up to the third place boat near the finish, but they got us by a ¼ boat length. If the finish line was another 100 yards farther, we probably would have beaten them.
So we ended with a 4, 9, 4 on the day. Smack dab in the middle of the pack. I had much fun sailing with William and the boys. We learned later we did not sail the boat high enough downwind and that William had the main out too far. I did my best to calm William down during his meltdowns and he did end up telling me later that he enjoyed having me on board and liked my calming influence on the boat. I would sail with him again.
I drove back Saturday night from Chautauqua so I could sail the Lightning on Sunday. I had a new crew, Sean Dempsey, that I hope will develop into a steady crew. He is available for 5 weekends this summer and is an intern at Corning. He hopes to be back next year full time with Corning and then could be one of my steady crewmates. We went up once during the week so I could show him the boat. Unfortunately there not much wind, but that also worked out well in the sense that I was able to show him the spinnaker on land.
Leon was the only other Lightning to show up for the races so we went and sailed just the two of us. The weather was threatening to rain the whole time we were setting up the boats. On the way out it started to poor. It stayed that way through most of the first race. Because of the rain, I was unable to see tell tales and then was not able to know I was pinching the boat as much as I was. Leon kicked our but in both races. I was fine with that as I was training crew. I think we could be a good crew together. We worked well and everyone executed well enough, though I was the one who was the slow driver. Sean had never flown the chute before but he did a decent job. I helped him with the gybes as much as I could. I hope we can go out during the week or on a Saturday and just practiced raising and lowering the spinnaker with many gybes as that would really help.
There was no MC sailing as the morning rain and the rest of the days forecast did not look good. No one showed up, so I just called it a day and went home.
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