Queen Mary Sailing Club Spring Series Week 2

Queen Mary sailing Club Spring Series Week 2 © QMSC

With the QM Spring Series well under way competition is warming up as some of the fair-weather sailors rejoin the racing after their winter break. Twenty one ILCAs spent their St. Patrick's Day morning on the water at QM in great conditions. Wind was moderate 10-12 knot south easterly, and we sailed on the East side of the reservoir.

Shortly before the first start, the wind veered to the south, rendering the start line heavily starboard-biased. The bunch was at the starboard end with Orlando Gledhill, John Curran, Tom Nash, Andrew Whittaker, Marshall King and Simon Cavey all getting away cleanly. Given the very long starboard tack, it wasn't a tactical beat and the name of the game was to hike very hard, keep the boat as flat as possible and steer accurately through the gusts.

A group had tacked up to the right, but Marshall King kept on right to the port lay line and was rewarded with a very late left shift to hitch him up to the mark, thereby enabling him to tack around inside the approaching starboard tackers led by Tom and followed closely by Orlando, Simon and Andrew. The rest of the race was fairly processional although Orlando Gledhill powered through into second and challenged for the lead several times. There were a few place changes behind, but it was difficult to do anything major given the course bias, and we finished Marshall, Orlando, Tom and Andrew.

The course was relaid on the wind axis for the second race which had veered to the south southwest. The fleet was pretty evenly spaced off the line, and pressure differences seemed to give the centre of the line an advantage up the first third of the beat. Marshall had started at the pin, but halfway up the beat decided to duck the leading bunch on starboard tack and head to the right. This proved to be the right move as the wind continued to veer and he was rewarded by crossing the fleet from the right to lead at Mark 1, followed by Andrew Whittaker, Tom Nash and Orlando Gledhill.

The whole fleet was actually pretty tight down the run, and it was a case of finding a streak of wind to clear the bunch. The tendency on the second beat was to head up the right side, which had been so good before, but Commodore James Baxter, recently returned to ILCA sailing showed that armchair practice over the winter is not to be sniffed at. He rounded the leeward mark in about 8th, spotted more pressure to the middle left and swiftly took advantage of it to climb to 4th by the second windward. On the following lap he repeated this trick and crossed those of us labouring up the right in dying pressure to take the lead at the penultimate windward!

Cue considerable forehead smacking from Marshall who had enjoyed a good lead up to that point. The leading three boats of James Baxter, Marshall King and Andrew Whittaker rounded the last leeward mark bow to stern, and the final lap was a pretty even fight to the finish. James once again favoured the left, but this time the wind gods decided against him. In fact, it was Andrew who rounded the final windward first, having gone up the right, followed by Marshall and James.

On the final reaches, Marshall managed to pass Andrew, and Tom Nash came storming through with some nice ILCA downwind sailing technique to grab third. Finishing positions were Marshall, Andrew, Tom and James.

A great morning's ILCA racing, both physical and tactical. I felt the key to winning today was a clear focus on the key "gain features" relative to each race. In race one it was a boat speed race with few tactical options. I found hiking, sail trim and small details like pre-setting trim for the next leg were important for grabbing a boat length here and there and maintaining the lead. In race 2 it was more about finding the pressure streaks and using them, upwind and downwind to eke out gains where possible.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Results can be found here.