J World Annapolis’ Thursday Night Racing Series is back!  Join us nearly every Thursday from May 9 to August 29 for the best one design weeknight racing in the world!  Four one design classes, including J/22’s, J/24’s, J/80’s and the hot new J/70’s,  will clash on the waters of the Annapolis Harbor and Chesapeake Bay.

Thursday Night Racing is open to all J World Alumni aboard our five J/80’s.  The boats are skippered by our highly skilled coaching staff and alumni crew.  No racing experience necessary!  Also joining us on the water are privately owned J/22’s, J/24’s, J/80’s and J/70’s.  To registered your boat please complete and email the Thursday Night Registration Form.  You can also download the  2013 THURSDAY NIGHT RACING NOTICE OF RACE.  Soon you will find all race documents including the NOR, sailing instructions (released May 1, 2013), amendments, course diagrams and RESULTS  available in the Thursday Night Racing section of the J World Annapolis website.

Last year saw nearly 60 boats battling for position on any given Thursday.  This year we hope to see more than 80 boats racing each and every week and making Thursday Night Racing the best weeknight one design racing around.  Stay tuned for more information about Thursday Night Racing including fleet and racing circle assignments, sailing instructions and more!

We initially conceived our Thursday Night series to provide a fun and low pressure racing environment suitable for all level of racers. Although we keep scores on a weekly basis, the only awards are at the end of the season. As such, it’s an ideal format for you to bring along friends or new recruits and introduce them to your passion.

We are looking forward to another fantastic racing season and hope you and your team will be able to join us. It is our goal to hold as many as three races per class each evening weather/wind permitting.

Entry is open to any member of the J/22, J/24, J/70 or J/80 U.S. Class Associations who is also a member of their respective Annapolis area fleet. No fleet membership is required for J/80 participants.

The 2013 season will be divided into two separate series; the first series starts May 9 and ends June 27.   The second series will begin July 11 and ends August 29. There are a total of eight evenings of racing scheduled for each series.

The warning signal for the first race each week will be no earlier than 1830 hrs. The race committee will attempt to run as many races as allowable by daylight and/or weather conditions. Races will be held in the Severn River in the vicinity of the entrance to Back Creek.  Race results will be posted on the website by Friday morning.

Ed Note – A very special thanks to everyone who commented on the Facebook posts at the JWorld Annapolis Facebook page during my recent delivery from Annapolis to Amelia Island, Florida.  Randy Gray and Bill McGraw inspired the following post and puzzler, ripped from my notes from the trip.  Everyone who posts a comment will be eligible for a free J World t-shirt.  The drawing for the shirt will be Monday morning at 1100.  Leaving a comment is easy.  Just click comment at the bottom of the post and write away!

It was almost 0000 and the start of my fifth day out of Annapolis.  The rhythm of sea life had set in and my body was getting used to the four hours on four hours off tempo that my delivery mate and I had set.  I was aboard a 50′ catamaran that had sailed thousands of open ocean and Caribbean miles.  We were headed to Amelia Island, Florida where the boat would hang for the winter, possibly making a jaunt or two over to the Bahamas and back.

Due in part to our December departure we had seen very little traffic.  As I stepped onto the bridge deck to take my watch, the radar had two targets within four miles, both with intercepting course vectors and Bill was obviously hand steering – a rarity on this trip.

We were 30 miles east of the entrance to the river system that leads to Savannah, GA and as I zoomed out the screen the AIS showed that there were nearly a dozen fast moving freighters within 20 miles.  A busy night at the helm and radar scope.

Shortly after Bill slipped off watch a freighter leaving via the Savannah Traffic Separation Scheme showed up on a crossing situation.  It was an old friend.  The freighter had passed us in the Chesapeake nearly five days before – the Atlantic Impala – confirmed by radar and AIS was still more than 16 miles out, but her course and speed had our Closest Point of Approach (CPA) within a mile of one another.

While the night was clear and the sea state relatively calm, I could not see the Atlantic Impala.  But with radar I did start a record of the time, range, bearing and occasionally the CPA.  Our courses were at nearly right angles to one another and neither of us seemed interested in slowing down or altering course – I was sure he wasn’t.

Here is what I wrote in my notebook during the crossing:

So… what do you think?  In an effort to save space I haven’t shared the entire situation (e.g. proximity of other vessels, shoals, etc.) Based upon the information available:

1. According to the COLREGS who was the stand on vessel and who was the give way vessel?  Why?
2. What was I required to do according to the COLREGS?  In the event that I was unsure or thought a collision was imminent, what was I required to do.  What was the Atlantic Impala required to do in this situation?
3. What sound signals would I have offered the Atlantic Impala if we had been within range of one another?
4. What sound signals would the Atlantic Impala have made if she didn’t understand my intentions or didn’t think, based on her information, that I was crossing?
5. Did I do the right thing by holding my course based on the radar information available to me?
6. What were some of my available options and when would you have exercised the option?

Over the coming weeks I will be writing about racing strategy and tactics in preparation for our December 1, 2012 Strategy and Tactics Seminar that I’ll be giving here in Annapolis.  Our day long seminars explore the basics and advanced concepts that help racers better understand racing and improve.  There are still a few seats available for this informative, interactive and fun seminar that I guarantee is well worth the cost and the day.  Call the office to join us!

I am fond of telling my racing students that the least experienced racer should be the “tactician” onboard the boat.  If there is a clearly defined, strategy driven decision making matrix; then anyone can make the right tactical call.  In order for this untraditional thinking to work on the boat, we have to first have a common language that we are all using, agree upon a strategy, monitor the strategic elements that create the material of success and then stick to the game plan that is developed.

Let’s begin by looking at the race course and develop a language to understand the “anatomy” of the sailing race course.  While there are dozens of course configurations for most racing, we sail on a “drop buoy” windward/leeward course.  All this means is that a group of volunteers drop floating buoys, called marks, in the water.  The buoys are arranged so that they are almost perfectly aligned with the direction of the wind.  The result is that we have an upwind or “windward” mark and a downwind or “leeward” mark.  While other marks may be included, for the sake of this post we will keep it simple and only discuss windward and leeward  courses.

Races have beginnings and endings, therefore we need a start and finish line.  To make it easy on the race committee (and to keep it simple for competitors) the start and finish line is often the same.    One end of the line is often indicated by an orange flag on an anchored committee boat, and the other end is typically a floating buoy that is a different color or shape than the windward and leewards marks.  There are many nicknames for the ends of the starting line, but I prefer to call the starboard end of the line (look upwind) the committee boat end or just “boat end” and the other end of the line the “pin end.”  Other names for the committee boat end of the line include windward, starboard or right and are derived from the fact that most sailors think of the race course in “plan view” looking down on it from above with the wind coming from the top of the page.  Therefore the “pin end” of the line is sometimes called the leeward, port or left end.

The course itself has many parts, each with distinct names that help clarify our discussions.  Thinking in the “plan view” discussed above we can divide the space between the windward and leeward marks both laterally and longitudinally.  For instance if we divide the course into thirds there are left, middle and right sections – or sides – of the race course.  Moving from the leeward mark or start line to the windward mark we have the bottom, middle and upper thirds of the course.  These sections of the courses are important to know and understand because each dictates certain strategic and tactical considerations.  Simply put you need to know where you are and were you are going in order to make a smart choice about how to do it.  Moreover, each section of the course has some pitfalls and opportunities.

To new sailors, this might leave them a little dumbfounded at the multitude of  options a boat could take to get to the windward mark.  But if we think about how boats sail, some invisible boundaries begin to form on our course that make it a little easier to see what is in play and what isn’t.  First, and easiest to understand is the RHUMBLINE.  A rhumbline is simply a straight line between two points.  For instance the line between the windward and leeward marks is a rhumbline.  While no sailboat can sail directly into the wind, most boats including dinghies, keelboats, catamarans, cruisers and racers sail upwind, close-hauled at about 35-45 degrees “off the wind.”  This means that at some point, we can tack and sail our close hauled angle and “fetch” or arrive at a certain point – such as the windward mark.  If we take these courses we would sail to fetch the marks we create another component of the race course – the layline.  These imaginary lines create the “out of bounds” lines for our race course, because any boat that is sailing to a windward mark that sails beyond the lay line is sailing unnecessary extra distance.  Each boat has its own unique tacking angle – or angle between laylines – that will shift the laylines for individual boats.  For instance, an Etchells has a different tacking angle than a Beetle Cat and therefore they have slightly different race courses.  It is important to mention that tacking angles for every boat change with wind velocity and sea state too!

If we turn the course on its head – or round the windward mark and head for the leeward mark – then another set of laylines are formed by the angle between our two optimal gybes.  Because different boats have different optimal gybing angles and because the optimal gybing angle changes radically depending on windspeed the downwind laylines are very fluid.

Now that you have some understanding of the different parts of the race course and the language we use to define it we can begin to discuss how we build a strategic plan that leads to success.  More on the difference between strategy and tactics in my next post.

While frostbite racing isn’t for everyone, the winter is no time to stop thinking about sailing.  For racers, the cold months are a great time to join J World for one of our winter lectures include Strategy and Tactics.  J World Annapolis will be presenting our unique and engaging Strategy and Tactics Seminar December 1, 2012 from 0900 to 1600.

New and old sailors, high school racers, casual beer can PHRF warriors and one design champions can all benefit from a day of discussing the difference between strategy and tactics, ladder rung theory, five elements of a perfect start, the zen of winning downwind and much more.   In this seminar we’ll discuss how wind velocity and angle along with waves and current make up the strategic “toolbox” that separate the winners from the trailing pack. Space is limited for the December 1st class.  Contact the office today to register.

Consider these three questions:

1. The wind is blowing 5kts across the left side of the course and slightly stronger on the right – maybe 8kts.  On the left, we’ve discovered a slight 5 degree shift about half way up the course.  Which way should we sail upwind (left/right/middle) in order to get to the windward mark first?
2. You are sailing on port tack, about 5 boat lengths from the starboard tack lay line, with about 70 boat lengths to go to the windward mark.  A boat tacks directly upwind of you, giving you dirty air.  According to your observations, the wind is shifting into a left phase and a 10 degree left hand shift is eminent – what should you do?
3. In your pre-start data collection you’ve identified that the 200 meter long starting line has a 5 degree port end bias.  You win the pin, while your closest rival has won the boat end.  How far ahead are you at the start?