Practice Race

It was rainning, limited visibility, building flood and 7-11 knots. We had a GREAT practice race! From the best we can tell, we finished around 15, as several boats turned around before getting near the finish line. We probably had about 60+ boat fleet. the 1st start ended in a general recall. One of the key points from our coach, Andrew Kerr, is to hit the re-set button and focus on the next start. We did that well and noticed the change in the breeze and instead of starting at the pin end, we were one of the few boats that started at the committee boat end on the 2nd start. About 20 boats were over early on the 2nd start because the PRO told us we were going to go regardless. Mike did a great job of providing good info to Michael and Lester on the downwind legs and instead of playing defense in light winds, we passed a lot of boats. We were in the top 3rd on by the 1st downwind leg and top 20 by the 2nd downwind leg and finally had a good run up the the finish on the 5th leg. We led 2 previous World champions around the race course and a left shift at the top of the last leg, they crossed us right before the finish by a small margin.

Due to the rain, the opening ceremonies were held indoors at the AYC. Unfortunately, we had very high expectations from our participation at the Mexican Worlds 2 years ago. The facilities are fantastic; the folks who participated in organizing this event are incredible, from the PRO, judging committee, boat yard, volunteers…it’s amazing how everything went so smoothly so far.

This is the 30th Worlds for the J24s. Jeff Johnstone was there and spoke about the 1st Worlds, where people camped out on the boat or in tents in people’s backyards.

As it stands, 82 boats are registered but we are aware that 2 boats have dropped out, one being Mike Ingham, who particpated in the NOODs last week. 18 countries represented everyone feels that this will be an incredibly competitive and tough event and we feel so privileged and excited to be a part of this.

The fleet includes five former J/24 World Champions together with five North American champions; a four-time European champion; two South American and five US Midwinter Champions. Chris Larsen returns to try and repeat his 1996 win in “ Writing Instruments”, while two-time World Champion, Mauricio Santa Cruz of Brazil wants the title back after losing to current World Champion, Italian Andrea Casale at Cannigione, Sardinia in 2008.

Tomorrow’s forecast is 10-20 knots out of the NE. Wish us luck and we’re ready to call it a night and rest for the start of the competition tomorrow…right after our strawberries and ice cream dessert.

The softer side of the program

As Lulu is not known for her mechanical capabilities, she has focused on ensuring that the team eats well and looks good! We’re sure that there are plenty of fantastic farmstand/organic resources in and around Annapolis but our racing schedule does not allow for this kind of frivolous explorations. So instead, Lulu cooked for 3-nights straight before the NOODs and prepared 8 meals for the NOODs and Worlds, so the team does not have to eat out everyday. Meals have included braised beef short ribs, chicken and asparagus in mustard cream sauce, chili and chicken pot pie so far.

TMC has also brought many fine wines to complement the meals.

As for the fashion side of the equation, we have added long-sleeve UV shirts and new polo shirts for the boys!

SLAM is one of the sponsor of the Worlds and I have to say, it’s the most stylin’ gear that I’ve seen on all of our travels to date. Leave it to the Italian to bring true fashion to sailing!

More soon…

The mental part of the race

From all of our travel regattas, one thing that has consistently plagued us is exhaustion before we get to the starting line. It’s a combination of travel time, boat break-down/set-up/tuning, practice that has been root causes for this. The biggest physical/emotional drain is from trying to complete 100%+ of the boat maintenance checklist.

We’ve really tried to get more rest this time so we don’t burn out before the race even begins. One of our key focus areas this upcoming week is to get enough rest so we can sustain our top performance throughout the week.

Technical Update

History: Each major regatta, J24 technical committee puts special focus on particular parts of the boat. As example, Norton, CT Worlds in 2004, the V-shape on the bottom of the keel was defined more clearly in the measurer’s handbook, which caused a large # of competitors to re-shape their keels. In Mexico, in 2007, keel shapes and stanchions were the focus with 15 Mexican boats having the re-do their keels and large # of competitors had to re-cant their stanchions inboard, as they were leaning outward. In addition to this, they forced everyone to tighten their lifelines to rule spec “taut”.

This year, the emphasis is on bows. For 2 main reasons:
1. if you use a long ruler vs. short ruler to determine the length of your J, because of the rocker (the curve in the bow), it produces 2 different measurement points
2. Because of bow damage caused by collisions, which is then repaired, changes the shape fo the bow, which then consequrently impacts the J measurements.
The technical committee is working to standardize the process and bring the fleet into compliance.

The interesting backstory of this Worlds, is the evaluation fo the Pentex vs. the Aramid fiber sails. We’ve seem multiple designs with different materials from North, Quantum, Ulman and Z sails. The top 3 boats at the NOODs, were using Aramid sails (Quantum 1st and 2nd/3rd were North. Aramid sails took 7 out of the top 10 places.

In our experience for speed testing in lighter wind ranges, Pentex had equal performance.

We’re taking our new sails out of the bag tomorrow for the Worlds practice race after using our 2-year-old sails up till now. We will be using North San Diego GP7 Genoa, KW1 Jib, AP 2 Main and our new FR2 Spinnaker.

Registration and measurement

After a couple of days of coaching with John Tihansky, coach of US Naval Academy Offshore Racing Team/founder of Sobstad Sails on Monday and Tuesday, John took the team for a complete tour of the US Academy. This included the sailing center, their R/P66 footer, Farr 53 and the Offshore 44s. We also had a tour of the inter-collegiate hall-of-fame, which is hosted in the USNA Sailing Admin Center. It was a tremendous treat for the team to experience this!

At the same time, Lulu flew back to SF on Monday; took Dylan down to Houston on Tuesday for a client meeting on Wednesday, while Dylan got to hang out w/ friends of ours during the day. She flew back out to Annapolis on Friday, re-joining the team.

Registration/measurement process started on Thursday morning at 8 am. Michael was in line at 6:40 am; TMC Racing was 1st through the registration process and the measurement process. This is the onshore piece of the competition where every single one of the 82 boats, has to be completely re-measured. We finally measured in by Friday at 4:30 pm, after having to replace a main hayard, build a new deck plate (=shorten the J by 5mm) and build a new longer forestay.

Some of the trials and tribulations of measurement process are:
1. One of the boats had to add 100 lbs of lead
2. One competitor, after having their rudder/keel measured and certified, continued to sand/fill/reshape their keel and rudder. they received a special visit from a group of measurers.
3. one of the charter boats was found to have 65 lbs of loose lead that was shoved under the floorboards that had to be removed and reinstalled as corrector weights
4. one of the Italian boats was proported to have an illegal sump…no clue what this means yet but the owner was asking US boats to look at sumps

All in all, it was quite successful and relatively smooth. This has alot to do w/ the pre-prep work that Michael has done and the support from Wayne Clough having the boat measured several times in the past 2-3 years and learning about the pitfalls.

Crew weigh-in, which has usually worked against TMC Racing, went really, really well. As a matter of fact, the scale showed us to be 12 lbs light. Now we’re eating lots of carbs; drinking alcohol and enjoying the freedom from an unrestricted diet.

NOODs

After arriving in Annapolis late on Wednesday night, Thursday was set aside to put the boat back together from the roadtrip. Lester flew in on a red-eye and joined Michael and Mike to do the dirty work. Mark and Lulu got in late Wednesday night. We celebrated a successful roadtrip without drama with cheese and wine to kickoff this incredible adventure.

Annapolis NOODs was a 3-day event, with 4 races on Friday, 3 races on Saturday and 1 race on Sunday.

Here is our posting to Fleet 17 after Day 1 of NOODs

So…the start is EVERYTHING! Our finishes today were 43, 12, 26, 6 out of 52 boats. In the 1st and 3rd starts, we got hosed with boats squeezing in and stalling us. On the 2nd start, we had a good start and we held our lane and did well. the 4th start, we fought for and won the committee boat
end.

In a new venue, it takes time to figure out the tides, currents, shifts and competition. Finding a hole in the starting line was key to be out in front. We saw 4-16 knots with progressive shift to the right but mini-shifts back and forth that made big differences on the course. Big variations in wind velocity and shifts and the currents at the top and bottom ends were in opposite directions!

Our mechanics were solid; we were on the right wind shifts more often than not. We won the last start and sailing upwind in SF conditions helped! Half way up the 1st leg, we consolidated and tacked to port and cross tons of boats on the right and stayed in the top 10 boat and clear air the rest
of the race.

Onshore prep really helped us sail our game well…all of the boat prep that the guys have done are important and most importantly, we made sure we went to bed early yesterday and got rest so we all adjusted to local timeframe and were refreshed for the 4-race day.

Conditions are supposed to be much lighter tomorrow so we’ll need to shift gears and stay focused! Mike Arrajj brought a lucky charm in the form of a squeeze toy Catholic nun that was taped to the stern pulpit and we think that it worked . By having fun and treating this as a practice regatta
made the day!

Post race:
We ended up 22nd out of 52 boats for the overall regatta. Our best finishes were 6, 10 and 12. We had 2 really stinky races due to poor starts and choosing the wrong side of the course. Once you choose a side, it’s difficult to get to the other side in 5 knots of wind. We also found out after the fact, that where we were racing, the course had a “toilet bowl” or rotary current effect with the ebbs/floods. Local knowledge would definitely have helped.

All in all, it was a great experience to sail in a 52 boat fleet and on Chesapeake Bay!

On the road again….to the 2009 J24 World Championships

Michael and Mike left SF Saturday morning, April 18.  Drove 15-18 hours/day for 4 days straight – Bakersfield, CA; Flagstaff, AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; Memphis, TN; Roanoke, VA; Washington, DC (rush hour traffice); to final destination…Annapolois, MD.

In trying to find Annapolis Yacht Club at 9 pm, Michael managed to drive the truck and trailer/boat onto the US Naval Academy grounds, with the famous line “permission to turn around”.

3,014 miles; missed blizzard in Denver by going south.

Bedded the boat, found our hotel and crashed!