There is nothing like sailing in Toronto in the cold of March, and nothing better than being able to share it with another boat. Paul Muldoon came out on Saturday for some light wind sailing, and we confirmed what I thought I knew; Paul is very fast upwind in winds under three knots. We went to the Eastern Gap channel markers as the wind was from the south and they made a pretty good windward leeward course. On the first rabbit start, Paul went out on starboard and I had a short hitch to port before following him. Though I had crossed right behind him, when I tacked, it was clear I had lost at least 10 boat lengths to him in the light air. As we continued, I could not come close to him as long as we were going upwind. Downwind was another matter. My traveling south to the Florida circuit has been good for my downwind, and I almost made up the 25 or so boat lengths he had on me.
The second time we did the course, the wind came up a bit past the three knot threshold, and I could hold him. But as soon as the wind dropped, he was faster, and it dropped enough that he rounded ahead by a boat length. We stayed on starboard as we rounded and I ended up to leeward. I could not break through, so I gybed, ducked him and gybed back on his windward quarter. At that point I was sailing faster and passed him.
The Sunday gave us more wind, and Joe V showed up as well. The windward-leeward was now between the Leslie street spit and the bay where we launch at the Water Rats. We did rabbit starts again, and there was enough wind to hike. We were in very gusty and shifty stuff, as the wind was coming off the land, so there were plenty of opportunities to pass. Paul was still getting his sea legs and was tentative, but Joe and I were hammering it tooth and nail all the way up. Great fun.
I took the opportunity to try some stuff. I know Joe is smart enough to see and tack on shifts. We were very close most of the time, so to get ahead of him, my only option was to tack on the shifts better than he did because we were essentially tacking in the same shifts. So, if he tacks on it too early, I have to carry into the header a bit longer. If he tacks too late, I'd have to tack before him. The trick was to know exactly where to tack in the shift.
In the past, I might have gone off to find my own lane, but there was not enough leg to do that. It the tight quarters we had, I might have just done the rule of thumb; tack when you can't cross the other guy, hold when you can. This time, I wanted to tack when the shifts told me to.
So we tacked and crossed each other and tacked back and then tacked underneath each other and it was all very exciting. All the while I am watching his boat to see where in the shift he is tacking and trying to feel the shifts to see if he is tacking at the right spot. My understanding is that you need to tack when the shift is at the mean of the wind direction, not at the beginning of the header or the end, so that was what I was trying to do; tack on the mean. It worked pretty well, and when Joe was ahead in the first beat, I caught up to him. On the second round, I passed him. When he was ahead of me, I watched him and used him as my wind vane. When he was behind, I felt the shift to see what kind it was (shudder shift, quick shift, gradual shift) and tried to pick the mean spot. It was awesome to have the "in phase" feel when I got it right.
We didn't race downwind, I think because we were nervous about crashing if we pushed. The gusts were tricky, and a swim would have been nasty cold. As far as I can see, these two days says it's official: the Toronto sailing season as started.
Rob Koci races in both the Laser Full-Rig and Laser Radial fleets around District 3. Currently, Rob is the District 3 secretary and maintains a frequently updated race diary on D3Laser.com. Rob's home port is St. James Town Sailing Club in Toronto, Ontario.
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