Grosse Pointe Yacht Club Regatta

W/L Race cancelled because of no wind. We got however a chance to practice our halyard jumping.

Delivery to Detroit

This is not a race entry but I wanted to post the photos of delivery stop made with Merlin and Jayhawker at Thunder Bay Island. It was just like a stop in the North Channel.

Little Traverse Regatta Day 3 - Schizophrenia!

The start of this race was delayed until we had adequate wind. In this race I wanted to get to the right side of the line since it was favored. I had to tack when Bounder tacked to starboard and I did not see any holes behind him. This race finally had some heavier air from 16 to 20 knots. We managed to put away Ihnsanity and Jayhawker from leeward. Merlin and Perseverence tacked in front of us but we hung in there. I went to a #3 on the second upwind leg but it turned out to be the wrong choice. We seemed to be doing well with the other J120's with #3's but could not keep up with the ones with #1's upwind. We switched back to the #1 on the next upwind leg while doing well with Perseverence and Merlin. We passed Merlin while even with her on port on the downwind leg and Merlin came over on starboard to take us out to the corner for the pin. When they jibed back they put an hourglass in their chute and we passed in front of them. On the same leg we passed Perserverence because they had already blown their .6 oz spinnaker and were flying their .75 oz chute. At that point we stayed in front on the next upwind leg and overstood a little the mark in order to control P and not make an extra tack. On the next downwind leg Merlin was right behind us and we did a leeward takedown early to stay conservative. I figured if Merlin pulled down their chute well we would still be on the inside of the mark. Merlin had trouble pulling it down so we left them in the dust. At that point we just covered to finish first. We took our spinnaker down early and overstood the windward mark a little bit. I figured in both cases if the boat behind us caught up they would still have to go through our air. This race was won by near perfect crew work and the good advise of Art Le Vasseur. We managed to finish dead *ss first in PHRF D and the entire fleet. Totally opposite of yesterday. Like I said it was Schizophrenia!

After all was done we found out by this race if we beat Hot Ticket we would win the J120 Great Lakes Trophy. Unfortunately they had the forestay seperate and lost their rig. Not the way to win it but this was a wonderful race for us.

Result: 1st of 7 J120's, 1st of 16 PHRF D, 1st of 43 in entire fleet
Link: http://www.ltyc.org/regatta_results/2005/2005Fleet.HTM

Little Traverse Regatta Day 2 - Ugh!

We started this race in about 3 knots of air. We started towards the left side of the line. I had a couple of boats that were over early so they managed to gas us at the start. Hot Ticket was on our left so that forced us into Hot Tickets lane. From there it went from bad to really bad. We could not seem to catch the whiffs of air in any of the bay. We kept trying different lanes from the boats in front of
us and it just put us further and further back. In any case they pulled the finish line right after we finished. I think it was the worst race of the entire year.

Result: dead *ss last in the PHRF D

Little Traverse Regatta Day 1

This was a series of three races. The wind most of the time except the last one was under 2 knots.

The first race I tacked the boat to starboard soon before the start and it put us behind the line. I saw Perseverance tacked to port to get the left side of the line and he put him self way ahead of the fleet. We managed to get only a 6 out of 7th because we could not just get the wind.

The second race we were over early. I should of jibed the boat when over early to come back on port to go in the other direction. By dipping and staying on starboard all we did was kept us under 2 other boats. The only uplifting part of the race was on the last downwind leg we kept way to the lake side of the course were there was more wind and we managed to carry it in a half circle course to finish ahead of Jayhawker who was stuck in a hole in the middle of the course.

The third race we had a reasonably good start on the committee boat side of the line. We had agreed before hand that we would go to the right side of the course to get lift off the shore. We tacked under two boats to our right and went up that side. When all the other boats tacked back on port we were ahead of all of them. We should of covered Perseverance since he was the lead boat but did not because it was decided that we would cover the left boats. When we tacked back Perseverance managed to tack ahead of us where we were the second to round. Capers tacked back on starboard with us but we managed to get a little ahead of them to force them back. The next two legs we kept our position behind the red boat. On the last downwind leg we got behind Perseverence maybe a 1000 yards before the finish. He came up in anticipation of us rolling him. I saw that he was nearly parallel to the line and I ducked him and we jibed the main. We managed to finish in first by a few feet.

Results: 1st race 6 out of 7
2nd race 6 out of 7
3rd race 1 out of 7

Bayview Mackinaw Race - ver.21.6!

This race started to weather coming out of the Northeast at about 8 knots after a 40 minute delay. At the beginning we got a reasonable start. I went in on port at about 4 minute before the start and turned to starboard when the boats turned to starboard. I managed to get the favored right side of the line and was about 10 boat lengths at the gun half a boat length behind it. This allowed Flyin Irish and some other J120s to go to weather of us. This allowed Capers to get up to our windward side. We stayed a little to left of rhumb to stay away from the Canadian shore a little later on. Unfortunately some in our class stayed a little to left of us before Southhampton and we rounded in 5th with Hot Ticket 15 minutes ahead. After we rounded we went to .75 oz and code 0. We were averaging 11 knots when the wind picked up. About 25 miles out from Spectacle Reef we got gusts up to 26 knots. I was down sleeping when I heard a bang that did not sound good. Our 3/4 oz. chute blew and the crew was beginning to gather it up. Once cleaned up we went to our code 0 again. The wind picked up even more. When I was driving we got Carinthia up to 18 knots and I was estatic. Mike took over and we then did 21.6 for at least for a minute and a half. Previous to this the fastest I ever had the boat was 16! I guess after 21.6 that just does not seem as fast. 15 minutes later our halyard blew so I dialed the boat down to a headsail. When the wind slowed down a bit we went back to the code 0 where at this point we could see Hot Ticket to leeward. This reinvigorated us to really work on boat speed.
We stayed even with Ticket for a time but the loss of our 3/4 hurt us and they pulled slowly ahead. At that point the wind came out of 260 degrees and we were tacking with for miles and miles. Finally about 8 miles out we tacked towards Canada and Ticket did not cover. I knew that the wind coming our of the west the best place to approach the island would be from the north. Ticket chose to tack along Boblo. We kept waiting for HT to announce their finish but it did not happen right to our finish. Some one looked behind and saw Merlin finishing just ahead of Ticket. Apparently Ticket thought Merlin was Carinthia. This lucky break allowed us to sneak in.

One thing of note. The entire crew stayed up the last fifteen hours and did all that was neccessary to keep the boat moving including huddling on the windward rear quarter to keep the boat upright. Great job guys!

Crew: Rod Weston, Colleen Scoville, Lynn Kotwicki, Baker Keeler, John Harvey, Mike Badendiek, Nancy Caldwell, Ben Thorsen, Nathan Caspers

Result: 2nd out of 9 boats
Link:
http://www.byc.com/mack05/results-south.cfm?Class=J120&Class2=OD

Runup to Bayview Mackinaw

Rodney sent me an email regarding Robs Amsler's comments in the freep. I guess you can't win anything in the paper. Its got to be on the water!

"Merlin, owned by Robert Amsler of Clinton Township, won the J-120 class last year and will be a contender this year. But it will have some tough competition. "Our standard best competition has been Hot Ticket up through the years, but this year, there are two big guns that are coming on strong, Carinthia and Night Moves," Amsler said. "If I weren't betting on me, I'd be betting on the two of them and probably Carinthia, because they are both doing great jobs." "All are Detroit-area boats."

Here is an excerpt from the Detroit News -

"Lynn Kotwicki of Royal Oak will crew on the 40-foot Carnithia, which will sail on the Southampton Course. She said the women who sail the Mackinac race make their teams stronger. "You'll find that the boats that have women perform better, in my opinion," Kotwicki said. "I think there is a better chemistry on those boats. The women help level out the macho-ness of the guys. And plus, people don't realize what a deep experience this is. You're with a group of people, racing in sometimes tough conditions, night and day. You really get to know people, and I think that's a very special experience. "It's like going away to adult summer camp. The sailing is great, the people are even better."

Grosse Pointe Sail Club Regatta

This was a series of 2 windward/leeward races. The first race was started with the wind only blowing maybe 3.5 to 4 knots. It was apparent that the committee boat side was heavily favored. On top of that the top pin placement boat said on the the radio that the wind was already at 90 degrees even though the course had been setup at 70 degrees. It was real important that we get on the committee boat (right) side of the course. There was a large opening on the committee boat side of the course but Night Moves also saw it and turned on our leeward side and filled the hole. I immediately put our boat to windward to slow us down so I would not be caught barging. This was enough for NM to get a boat length ahead of us on boat lane below us. Fortunately most of fleet was spread out on the line so they were already behind at the start. NM was eventually able to drive up into our lane so we had to tack. From this point on they covered us the rest of the race to win and we took second by 44 seconds.

The second race the committee boat was still favored in 6 knots of air and the rest of the fleet grasped this by coming in from the committee boat side. I decided early to stay more on the pin side on port and tacked to starboard when the first starboard tack boat reached us. This worked really well. We were on the line at the gun the left of all the boats. By doing this it also bottled up some of the boats that were coming in from the right. Starboard tack was favored by a little bit but the largest problem we had was Hot Ticket was to our right on the same step of the windward ladder. We came up to their line by alternately going a little low and fast and then punching up to get up a lane at a time. I was very concerned if they stayed there they would take us out past the layline and would make us follow them in to the windward pin. We managed enough to start back winding their sails and they were forced to tack early. They went through to leeeward of the the other 3 boat fleets so when we crossed again we were able to round ahead of them. The next downward leg we had all 4 J120's on our wind so I decided to jibe to get clear air. We were able to come in hot at the leeward pin and do a Mexican takedown. At this point coming out on port we had a NA40 Montombi ahead of us slowing our acceleration. We tacked and we just started covering Night Moves who we felt was our closest competition. We were able to hold him off the rest of the race and finish 40 seconds ahead of them in 1st. I think between strategy and crew work it was nearly a perfect race. If you take our total time for both race NM beat us by 4 seconds but the rules read if you are tied in points the last race takes precedence. Next race....Mackinaw!

Result: 1st out of 5 J120's for the series
Link: http://www.drya.org/race2005/Results/gpsc.htm

Windsor Wednesday Race

Course B a downwind race with only 1 or 2 knots of air. This is race I would rather forget. We got about 100 feet past the starting line and the wind died. We were drifting toward mark D and worked on getting to the right of the mark since the current was pulling us down. We managed to maneuver between Dirty Harry and Windshadow at the mark since Windshadow was going really slow. The next leg we were ahead of HT and NM and tacked to starboard so that we would not get caught on the wrong side of DP7 with the current. HT and MV kept on the board and managed to get lifted to the mark and we rounded dead last. At this point Flyin Irish dropped out and we jibed at the mark to catch a little wind but the other boats were just too far ahead. After DP5 we practically drifted to the finish line. Sometimes I just hate Lake St. Stupid. At least James's son JD had a good time and the fireworks were good.

Result: 4 out 5 J120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%207.pdf

DBC/GPC Regatta

The first leg of this triangular course was at 67 degrees with a favored left spinnaker run. The wind conditions 6 to 7 knots were at about 280 degrees with the wind tending to go north. The starting line was the seawall of the GPC and a pin with the pin side more favored. We watched the 6 starts before us to get an idea of what was favored since it was a pretty long starting line. Somehow or another I kept asking the order of the starts in case they were off and when it came to our time I saw the code 8 flag 30 seconds before the start and we got up to the pin on port as quick as we could. Hot Ticket was there on starboard but was little slow getting its spinnaker up. So we were able to jibe and get our spinnaker up at the same time with us being a little to windward. at first Merlin seemed to be going pretty fast but up ahead I saw the boats were in a giant hole. So instead of falling down to her I decided to go up to HT on our starboard. We were almost even when I saw the boats ahead getting headed to the point of putting up their genoas. This allowed us to prepare for when we hit the header we were able to change headsails almost instantaneously. The next part of the course was just trying to keep the boat going fast. Whenever we got a header (starboard tack was favored ) we tacked the boat to get in front of HT since they were the closest competition. We paid extra attention to headsail trim. The wind was changing much faster than I could turn the boat to adjust. We came to the top mark on port to cover HT and found out the course was to shortened directly back to the finish. We tacked at the mark, did a leeward set and jibed the boat. HT did a jibe set. We threaded our way through the fleet and HT had to do an emergency jibe to miss a freighter. This kept him behind us the entire way back to the club. About 200 yards from the finish line, a quarter a mile ahead of HT, the wind died. It was like hitting a wall. We changed to a genoa and the wind then backed again. Unfortunately HT came in with the wind and beat us by 1 boat length. We led the entire race. I guess when the wind gods decide to take a dump they can do it in strange places.

Result: 2nd out of 5 J120s

Link: http://www.drya.org/race2005/Results/gpcdbc.htm

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was a port favored tack to windward start with the committee boat at the left side of the line slightly favored. Wind was 10-12 knots out of the NW sunny conditions, course B. We worked our way up the line on starboard doing a couple of stop and goes. At the starting gun I had to punch up a little to clear the committee boat anchor line with Flyin Irish and Night Moves passing behind us at full speed on port. We continued for about 1500 yards and tacked to starboard. I saw a little more pressure on the left side of the course and I wanted to be left of the other J120's. Because Rod was constantly adjusting the main in puffs and lulls, we were able to tack before the top mark in front of FI and NM. We put up the .6 spinnaker nearly flawlessly. The next mark we needed to just turn down as we got lifted farther down the course. At the turn we did get stuck in some traffic and in particularly a green C&C35. Merlin had snuck in ahead and then he decided instead of coming up to get out of our way (we were leeward boat) he decided to come down to us. 40 boat lengths out he then started to scream at me about giving him room at the mark. I did reply that was not necessary until the 2 boat circle. I was tempted to have a crewman get the rule book and throw it to him because he just could not understand the concept. In any case Merlin managed to stay ahead of us at the next mark. It was a near fetch and we managed to stay a couple of lanes ahead of him. We almost managed to pass him but in the last quarter of the leg he came up and then dipped so we could not get an overlap with him. On the next leg Flyin Irish did manage to pass us to port and NM came screaming in from behind on our port. Past DP5 we got headed and we took our spinnaker down a little earlier than the other boats. We managed to nudge out NM and then nudged out Flyin Irish. The wind as usual was fluky and Mike and Colleen did a great job of keeping it trimmed by adjusting the headsail and lead to make our boat speed faster than NM and FI. With this 2nd and Jayhawker's 6th we are solidly in 1st place for the season.

Result: 2nd out of 6 J/120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%206.pdf

Windsor Canadian Club Long Distance Race

The start was at Canadian mark "CC" with the wind at about northeast about 10-12 knots. The pin side was heavily favored and there were 3 other J120's starting. I was a little late getting to the line and Hot Ticket was able to get to the pin to windward to us and take the lead.  The leg was a 2.5 mile port fetch so we had to follow her to mark AA. The next let was a 7.3 mile beat and we were able to round behind Ticket. The next 14.1 mile leg was a close reach at about 45 degrees apparent. About 3 miles down in the leg we put up our code 0 because of a little bit of a lift. We managed to stay to windward of Flying Irish and had decent boat speed. We caught up to HT but she tried to come up to us. We were still able to roll her. Unfortunately Flying Irish got a little ahead of us. About a mile before the Thames River mark we put up our .6 oz chute. We rounded right behind Irish, the new leader, but the lazy sheet was not released and we almost got rolled by HT it was such a bad jibe. Later on the next 20.3 mile leg the wind picked up and we got rolled by Jayhawker because they were using their reaching chute. We changed to our .75 but could not make up the difference to the finish. Although we placed 3rd we did pretty well with the entire fleet because we finished with some large boats.

Result: 3rd out of 4 J120's

Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/pdfs/WYC%20Canadian%20Club%20Race%20Results.pdf

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was a starboard tack to windward start, gust to 22 knots out of the NW with light rain showers, course C. The pin side was favored so my plan was to start there from the middle of line. When I did the initial approach I realized that we would not make the pin so 45 seconds before the gun I had to tack to port to get up the line and then get back on starboard. This unfortunately put us behind by 20 seconds and under the other boats so when we got to the windward pin we were 5th with Flying Irish on the outside. Hot Ticket left us a hole the size of a house so I was able to sneak into the inside of the mark to pass her. The next leg was a port jibe almost dead downwind. We put up the .6 oz chute so we were able to go much lower than most of the other J120s. When jibing both Flying Irish and Jayhawker blew apart their spinnakers. It was enough to allow us to jibe in front of Jayhawker. At the top of the leg Night Moves jibed to starboard and since we had an overlap we had to do the same. We had only 6 people so the jibe actually went well. With this move Night Moves was able to get the shorter distance to the mark. Night Moves tacked at the windward mark and we did the same behind them. The next two legs were fetches so although we could gain a little distance due to fast reactions of trim to gusts by the crew, we were also able to hold off the competition behind us. The last leg in the river after DP5 was a number of tacks to the finish. Because of our finish we were able to gain another 2 points up on Jayhawker in the standings for a solid first place for the spring season.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120's
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Spring%20Race%205.pdf

Irked by IRC

US Sailing just posted the IRC handicap numbers for most of the J120s participating in the Bayview Mackinaw. It was our hope that the numbers would be reasonably close but there is a 34 minute differential over 48 hours between Merlin and Night Moves. What makes it even worst is that Merlin is hull #98 and Night Moves is hull #99. Hank Mistele is pissed and I dont blame him. After 7 years of racing one design we have found absolutely no difference in boat speed with these boats. Luiz Kahl has refused to make our ratings the same so here we are stuck with this problem. The J120 owners are in this class because we wanted to race boat for boat. There has to be a better way!

Windsor Wednesday Race

This was course D starting at a broad reach on port. The first leg was only about a half mile but I noticed that the starting line was cocked severely to the pin side. The wind was only 10 knots when we came out but at the starting gun it go up to 18 - 20 true. We did not pull out our headsail until 2 minutes before the start gun because I was more interested in placing us to line at the pin at the gun. Jayhawker started a little right to us but a little behind so we were able to gas him after the start in spite of him trying to force us up to the other boats. That was enough to allow us to round the mark first. The next leg was also a nearly 2 mile broad reach were we were able to hold off the rest of the fleet without putting up our spinnaker. Some of the other boats had put up their spinnakers and were broaching all over the place. The next leg was a beat and I decided to split the difference between the two boats behind us. Unfortunately Jayhawk managed to round the next mark on starboard so I had to let him in. Because their trimmers were not ready they went past the mark causing more problems for us. When we went on the next reaching leg I decided to go to a #3 sail because of the appearance of thunder storms in front of us. I did not know how much wind was in them and was worried about blowing out the main by luffing it. The bare headed change caused us to lose a place to Merlin and we were not able to make it up in the rest of the race. Unfortunately the wind speed did drop after the sail change so it just hurt our chances.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120's

Detroit Noods Day 3

Today was a disappointment as well as a day of triumph. We started the day with a tie with Hot Ticket for 3rd place at 20 points with Merlin and Capers tied for first at 15 points. We had a relatively good start being maybe 8 feet off the line a little bit ahead of most of the fleet. We stayed left early and then tacked under 5 boats on the layline. Unfortunately since we were not ahead enough we got rolled so we rounded the top mark in 4th right behind HT. We managed to round the lower mark in 3rd with HT though. HT did beat us to the top mark again but stayed on the left side on the downwind leg to get an inside overlap. Bob D. went to the starboard side of the boat to point out to HT that we did have an inside overlap. We came out gassing HT to windward where we went out to the layline and HT tacked for clear air. We did overstand the layline so even though we came in hot it gave HT maybe a quarter boat length to gas us from leward to win the race by half a boat length with HT finishing 1st and Carinthia 2nd. The HT people sailed a great regatta and they beat us on the course instead of the room. The crew work today was nearly flawless and I am very proud of them. If not for either of the mark touches yesterday we could of carried the whole regatta. Damm!

Result:
1 Merlin Rob Amsler 19.00 1 1 4 1 4 4 4
2 Hot Ticket Bob Kirkman 21.00 5 7 3 2 1 2 1
3 Capers Don Hudak 21.00 3 3 1 3 2 3 6
4 Carinthia Kern 22.00 2 2 2 6 7 1 2
5 Night Moves Mistele 34.00 6 4 7 4 3 5 5
6 JHawker Sandlin 44.00 8 5 8% 7 6 7 3
7 Ihnsanity Ihnen 45.00 4 6 6 8 8 6 7
8 Flyin' Irish Bresser 49.00 7 8 8 5 5 8 8

Detroit Noods Day 1

The new Doyle D4 mainsail panels are still in New Zealand so we will be going with the old UK carbon main. If we do not get high winds we should be able to squeak by. Today started with winds at about 11 to 12 knots. We had 8 J120s including Capers from Lake Erie. We felt good about our upwind speed. We were able to at least pace with Merlin and in many cases do well against other boats. In the second race we did have port starboard incident with Hot Ticket and earlier a inside overlap disagreement at the leward mark. Fortunately we both decided to not take it to the room. In the last race we were leading at the last windward mark and decided to cover Merlin since they were leading the series. We managed to hold them and Hot Ticket at the finish but Capers did beat us by a boat length at the finish to take second. We are at present tied for first with Merlin with Capers only one point behind us. Most of the downwind legs we felt we were able to point lower and a little faster than capers. Thank goodness they had a North spinnaker. We had experienced the speed difference with other boats with North spinnakers down south so it did make the difference. We had problems with our furler but have fixed it at the dock.

Boat Name Skipper Sail     Dv Pts  1  2  3
Merlin         Amsler 15005 6.00      1 1 4 
Carinthia      Kern    25497 6.00      2 2 2 
Capers        Hudak 5455 7.00          3 3 1 
Ihnsanity      Ihnen   25329 16.00     4 6 6 
Hot Ticket Kirkman 25328 16.00    6 7 3 
Night Moves Mistele 25999 16.00   5 4 7
JHawker      Sandlin 50666  21.00   8 5 8 
Flyin' Irish     Bresser  25363 23.00  7 8 8