Skippering My First Race, Zero to Hero!

Sailboat racing has been a new experience for me and quite a steep learning curve. Lately, I have been racing with Chris Bunge aboard his Windmill Class boat. On this Sunday the winds were light and variable out of the south-west. Chris asked me if I wanted, to skipper for the day as we started taking the covers off the boat. I told him he could skipper the first race, but if it was ok, I would be happy to skipper the next two.

The windmill is a two man sailing dingy consisting of a mainsail and jib with a boom adjacent system that allows rapid whisker pole deployment for wing-on-wing downwind sailing. The Hull design itself is pretty simple and there is not a lot of room on board, which makes ducking around the boom, dagger-board, and lines a bit tricky, but in general the controls are very smooth and the boat sails well.

Before describing my first experiences with skippering in a race, I should probably explain a few things about how sail-boat races work. The race course is customized each day depending on wind conditions and sea state. The course is determined by the committee, whose membership is made up by a rotating sampling of all the skippers. The committee sits aboard to committee boat which makes up one end of the start line, and a buoy makes up the other end.

The coarse itself is usually a triangle or strait line with buoys called marks making the ends or corners. The buoys are kept in position by anchors and repositioned if wind conditions change in between races. Most courses consist of at least a windward mark and a leeward mark. The windward marks requires you to tack upwind to reach while the leeward mark is downwind.

As everything on the water is in constant motion, sailboats can't simply line up on the start and wait for the starters gun to raise their sails and start moving. Thus, sailboats are allowed to be anywhere and moving in any direction so long as they stay being the start line until the starters gun is heard. The goal of any skipper is to hit the start line just as the gun goes off and in the most advantageous position and fasted speed possible. Starting too early results in a penalty. This means the race starts long before the actually start of the race. There is a complicated count-down sequence signaled by various horns and flags during which boats jockey to be in the best position when the final starting gun is sounded. The tight clustering of boats around the start-line makes for some of the most exciting moments of the whole race. A set of complicated "right of way" rules choreographs the boats darting back and forth in their pre-race ballet.

Once the start gun sounds the boats dash across the start line and follow the sequence of marks around the race course. The number of laps required is dependent on the conditions with most committees aiming for a 30 min race. Again, a complex set of rules governs right of way on the race course with skilled skippers findings ways to eek out slight advantages by forcing other boats to sail around or behind them. Infractions to these rules are called out and implicated boats are forced to do penalty 360 degree turns sapping precious time and momentum.

On this Sunday there were two other windmills sailing and they provided our competition. We came in second place during the first race with good performance in the downwind sections but poor tacks causing our competitors to win by a wide margin. Then I was up. We were in poor position at the starters gun and to make up time I tried to cut the inside corner tight. Unfortunately, I cut it too close hitting the starting line marker buoy and dragging it two to three meters before disentangling it from the shroud. To add insult to injury we incurred a penalty for hitting the buoy and were forced to 360 before resuming the race in a distant last place. In spite of this we regained some ground in the down-wind legs but this was too little too late and we were finished while still on the course.

With only one race left I had to make up for my prior poor helmsmanship. We got back up to the committee boat and then back out-down the coarse to start preparing for our pre-start run up to the line. By this point one of the other two boats has retired leaving just our boat and yellow in the race. Then, with 4 minutes to the start gun, the wind died to a near standstill. We sat helplessly as the two minute mark passed, the yellow boat sitting pretty on the start line, and we more then 20 boat-lengths away barely making any progress in the light air. It was nearly two minutes after the start gun sounded that we even crossed the starting line, but fortunately we caught a breeze coming out of the north-west which lifted us before our competition and by the first mark we were right on the heals of the yellow boat.

As we rounded the windward mark we started the downwind portion of the race. Downwind sailing is the slowest part of sail-boat racing as you can only move as fast as the wind pushing you and every unintentional boat motion induces drag and slows you down further. We opted to head south looking for better wind and were rewarded with a puff from the southwest pushing our boat into the lead as we rounded the gybe mark, a point in the course where the sails need to be switched to the other-side of the boat to allow a change in direction. On the second downwind leg, the yellow boat, which had situated itself right up our aft hole, was steeling our wind and kept trying to come up over the top of us, but the wind shifted further west to north west which put us in a position known as the safe leeward boat keeping us out in front as we turned round the leeward mark.

We then headed further north looking for better air while the yellow boat turned hard making a bee-line for the finish. At first their decision looked to have been the winning move as they quickly gained 10 boat lengths on us. However, the wind gods took pity on me and my crew as the wind shifted from a north-westerly direction to due west, heading the yellow boat and forcing it to tack away from the finish line. We took advantage of the shift and tacked right onto a great layline. By the time yellow was able to tack back, we were both heading for the exact same point on the finish line. Fortunately we were on starboard tack giving us right of way and forcing the yellow boat to sail behind us. Thus, we crossed the line 4 seconds sooner and clenched sweet sweet victory. Thanks wind gods!