Ian McColgin
08-13-2007, 11:49 AM
At Saturday’s Bass River catboat race I had the honor of three wonderful crewmembers each of whom knew at least a few things I had yet to learn.
My crew were: Mat Leupold, seamanship editor for the Catboat Assn Bulliten; Ted Lindberg, whose Sweethaven Boatworks did loving things to Marmalade a few owners back; and Bob Luckraft, whose eighty year old Crosby is my most meaningful competition but this year Genevieve is getting a bit more than a little nip and tuck, so Bob’s up for sharing his considerable catboat sailing skills and superb tactical sense with others. Genevieve is very similar in general heft to Marmalade.
Right up Bob knew we’d be moral winners to hang on to third of the four over 20’ wooden cats competing. He knew two of the boats were superb light air boats and he’d lost to the fourth in light air more often than not. So, no suspense, that’s how it turned out but just barely.
What a drifter at first. Many of the fleet hadn’t cleared the line 30 or more minutes after the signal. We loafed over a good 10 minutes late after, on Bob’s suggestion, I gybed away to gain momentum rather than die trying to tack right to the line.
It was like sailing with my Mother (or others sailing with me) as Bob kept muttering “bear up, bear up, bear up harder, right there, bear off, bear up . . . “ He had eyes only on the sail, not on our direction, so he could not see if I was doing anything except by the sail. It was very positive reinforcement for my catboat sense as I almost always was doing it just as he spoke. When he sailed a bit of an upwind leg, I like to think he wasn’t getting more out of Marmalade than I.
The boys noticed halfway up the first weather leg that Marmalade sails better on the starboard tack than on the port. Took another couple of tacks for them to diagnose it as the throat and peak halyard falls twisting against the gaff jaws. I can fix that.. Understand that I was thinking she might be a little faster on starboard but I was not sure, and I was clueless as to the cause.
The other big learning for me was creative topping lifting. My limited gaff experience does not include anything with such a heavy boom. I of course know how to ease or trim the luff, head and foot to bag the sail in light air but my notions of leach control were limited to vanging down to flatten and detwist to weather.
We could feel Marmalade shake off the sloth when we got the weather lift tensioned a bit and let the whole sail bag a little. Bob and Ted yanked it up till the leach was so soft that the battens’s weight caused a crease down their inside tips. Looked weird but sailed – well not like a scalded cat, given how light the day was – but at lest she broke out of a slow amble.
We had three brief adventures. Early in the race there was a tiney zepher just as Ted looked up and his untied hat – his favorite rather like a Tilley – blew off. He was sport enough that he never even dreamed that we should go back for it. But he mourned. Well, three hours later as we approached for our photo finish with our hated rival breathing down our backs, he saw the hat right ahead, about a mile from where it had been lost, and got it with the boathook.
Nest adventure: We were approaching the Rock Pile second mark when a boat sailing with us asked our draft. When I said almost 7 board down but 3-6 board up, he said to get it all the way up fast. Oh well. That heavy board slicing the sand pretty much stopped us until we got it wound up.
On the somewhat weird third leg, started as a reach, went drifter back to reach and then the wind backed and we had to beat. In the drifter part, Bob solved getting sunscreen in his eyes by hopping overboard. Being an honest sport, he dove off the bow despite my entreaties that he do a racing dive off the stern.
To our photo finish. It was down wind and quite light. As the wind filled in from astern we closed with the two ahead of us while the fourth boat closed radically with us. In the spirit of good fun, Bob kept the tactical situation freeing me to only sail. He called how we luffed them up, drove them down, and managed to cover to the line where the two beeps were right on each other – about a second between us – and we did not know who’d won till the RC told us.
Man I love sailing with good folk from whom I learn.
My crew were: Mat Leupold, seamanship editor for the Catboat Assn Bulliten; Ted Lindberg, whose Sweethaven Boatworks did loving things to Marmalade a few owners back; and Bob Luckraft, whose eighty year old Crosby is my most meaningful competition but this year Genevieve is getting a bit more than a little nip and tuck, so Bob’s up for sharing his considerable catboat sailing skills and superb tactical sense with others. Genevieve is very similar in general heft to Marmalade.
Right up Bob knew we’d be moral winners to hang on to third of the four over 20’ wooden cats competing. He knew two of the boats were superb light air boats and he’d lost to the fourth in light air more often than not. So, no suspense, that’s how it turned out but just barely.
What a drifter at first. Many of the fleet hadn’t cleared the line 30 or more minutes after the signal. We loafed over a good 10 minutes late after, on Bob’s suggestion, I gybed away to gain momentum rather than die trying to tack right to the line.
It was like sailing with my Mother (or others sailing with me) as Bob kept muttering “bear up, bear up, bear up harder, right there, bear off, bear up . . . “ He had eyes only on the sail, not on our direction, so he could not see if I was doing anything except by the sail. It was very positive reinforcement for my catboat sense as I almost always was doing it just as he spoke. When he sailed a bit of an upwind leg, I like to think he wasn’t getting more out of Marmalade than I.
The boys noticed halfway up the first weather leg that Marmalade sails better on the starboard tack than on the port. Took another couple of tacks for them to diagnose it as the throat and peak halyard falls twisting against the gaff jaws. I can fix that.. Understand that I was thinking she might be a little faster on starboard but I was not sure, and I was clueless as to the cause.
The other big learning for me was creative topping lifting. My limited gaff experience does not include anything with such a heavy boom. I of course know how to ease or trim the luff, head and foot to bag the sail in light air but my notions of leach control were limited to vanging down to flatten and detwist to weather.
We could feel Marmalade shake off the sloth when we got the weather lift tensioned a bit and let the whole sail bag a little. Bob and Ted yanked it up till the leach was so soft that the battens’s weight caused a crease down their inside tips. Looked weird but sailed – well not like a scalded cat, given how light the day was – but at lest she broke out of a slow amble.
We had three brief adventures. Early in the race there was a tiney zepher just as Ted looked up and his untied hat – his favorite rather like a Tilley – blew off. He was sport enough that he never even dreamed that we should go back for it. But he mourned. Well, three hours later as we approached for our photo finish with our hated rival breathing down our backs, he saw the hat right ahead, about a mile from where it had been lost, and got it with the boathook.
Nest adventure: We were approaching the Rock Pile second mark when a boat sailing with us asked our draft. When I said almost 7 board down but 3-6 board up, he said to get it all the way up fast. Oh well. That heavy board slicing the sand pretty much stopped us until we got it wound up.
On the somewhat weird third leg, started as a reach, went drifter back to reach and then the wind backed and we had to beat. In the drifter part, Bob solved getting sunscreen in his eyes by hopping overboard. Being an honest sport, he dove off the bow despite my entreaties that he do a racing dive off the stern.
To our photo finish. It was down wind and quite light. As the wind filled in from astern we closed with the two ahead of us while the fourth boat closed radically with us. In the spirit of good fun, Bob kept the tactical situation freeing me to only sail. He called how we luffed them up, drove them down, and managed to cover to the line where the two beeps were right on each other – about a second between us – and we did not know who’d won till the RC told us.
Man I love sailing with good folk from whom I learn.