Dear Cadets and Parents
Next Pico Race is on Saturday, 25 June
Start is at 14:20
Proposed meeting time in the dinghy park: 13:00
Report on the Pico race today: 19/06/2016
11 competitors signed up for our Pico race on the beach. A few more joined on the water. The majority were racing, some were sailing by and watching.
Initially there was hardly any wind, beautiful sunshine, warmest day of the season, probably. I thought we will have a fun day, but there will be not much of sailing. I was wrong.
Course and starting signals were published on the YouTube and on the club’s website and printed on paper on the Cadet’s board and an other copy circulated in the dinghy park / beach.
After a short briefing I attempted a short demonstration on sail setting, but this failed, as the wind was too light to move the sail.
The fleet launched and the sailors made their way towards the racing area, which was set near mark 3, to avoid the mooring boats. Nick and his crew kindly set up the course with 4 pencil marks with their RIB. We made a couple of rounds with Polly to tow some cadets out to the course. The wind caught up gradually.
We did two races, 10 and 12 minutes each. The course was beam reach each way, with two gates at each end. The East gate served as a start and finish line as well. We put Polly to a mooring nearby to show the starting signals and keep an eye on the start line.
A few boats did a cracking start, they waited close to the line, got going right on time. They finished on the podium – not surprisingly. Some tried to approach from the distance, but it was difficult to get the timing right that way, they were a little behind, but bravely caught up a bit later.
By the second race the wind shifted from South a bit to West, sailing to the west side of the course got a bit more tricky. Good close hauled technique paid off. At the start getting too close to the leeward pencil mark was a problem, some lost ground, could not cross the finish line, had to tack to gain height.
There has been some great examples of tight mark roundings, others sailed well beyond the mark, unnecessarily. There was some tight racing around the marks, this made it more interesting. One of the Pico’s with two cadets did really good speed, was about to overtake a Pico sailed by parents but then they chose to go leeward, and experienced the effect of the wind shadow, disappointingly.
Learning points:
Starting technique
Beam reach speed: sail setting, balance
Mark rounding
Wind shadow
Results will be published soon on the cadet’s board in the clubhouse.
Next Pico Race is on Saturday, 25 June
Start is at 14:20
Proposed meeting time in the dinghy park: 13:00
similar course planned
Our YouTube channel: TBYCPicofleet
See you on the water next week:
Andras
