Race Reports

March 12, 2023
Race report by Gregg Takata

Last Sunday (3/12) featured very light and oscillating [but fairly consistently blowing] SSE breeze and flat water. It was a day to stick to basics; in my order of importance; avoid bad starts, boat speed, shifts,  …current.

The start and the first-third of the leg was probably 80% of the race! In light air, it’s harder to work up from behind [going upwind] because dirty air stretches much farther, reducing the availability of "clear lanes". Secondly, in flat water, it’s easier for all to see where the pressure is, so the strategy of "splitting tacks" will probably steer you away from the pressure. Avoiding bad starts today generally meant NOT trying to "win" the favored end as the congestion makes dirty air (and a resultant "bad lane").  Secondly, with the pin end often favored (the wind being in a left phase), tacking back to port (when you wanted to) was more challenging the more you "won the pin". A strategy of starting in mid-third of line (closer to favored end when possible), but prioritizing a clear lane consistently got my bow out and freedom to tack when I wanted.

Boat trim specific to light air, gradual oscillations and flat water:

• Forestay to set mast plumb fore/aft, side shrouds max loose (bottom hole) to allow mast to fall to leeward without more heel and (as always) to allow the boom to go out farther (and mast lean forward) downwind.

• Trim: Outhaul set for flat water, i.e. not too loose (draft ~10" from boom) and a little tighter, ~9" when the air was very light to help maintain flow across the sail.

• Vang: there was not enough wind today for the vang to have tension. Any tension would tend to close the leech, in conditions where letting it open was needed.

• Related tip: because of the stiff headboard, the leech will not open freely if the halyard is too tight.

• Cunningham: increasing luff tension moves the draft forward, so it’s generally less in light air; BUT as the sail ages, the draft naturally moves aft. Most older sails in the fleet will need moderate luff tension to get the draft correct even for very light air. [Simply put, all but new sails need a fair bit of luff tension, visibly pulling out the horizontal wrinkles near the mast]

• Centerboard: normal (my normal upwind, 10° aft of plumb)

• Weight Balance: upwind, centered a little forward of thwart. At least both legs in front of thwart, to prevent stern drag. Downwind, extreme weight forward reduces wetted surface, and some windward heel to keep the boat moving straight without rudder correction. 

• Downwind sailing angle: the shrouds, even max loose, prevents the boom going out to 90°. In light air, the sail can’t push much ahead of the boom; therefore, the main is naturally over-trimmed for dead-downwind, even worse if sailing by-the-lee. Trying to avoid DDW (and gybing if by-the-lee) is critical. Having a masthead wind indicator is very helpful. One can be attached with Gorilla tape!

• Related tip: a wind indicator is even more helpful when its blowing!

• Point: once moving, pointing was reasonably high because of the flat water, tacking angle seemed to be <95° (after recovering the 5° to reaccelerate); rarely did I need to foot for speed. 

Conditions:

• Clear air can’t be overemphasized. Wind shadows in light air extend much farther than in heavier air, and upwind, "dirty air" extends more laterally as well.

• Pressure could be seen by the "cat’s paws" on the water; was generally better on the left side of the course. 

• Wind oscillation, maybe 10-15° made it important to play shifts to keep you sailing toward the mark. Important only in the gross sense, I never looked at my compass during the day.

• Current flow down the course seemed stronger on the right, especially earlier. Probably made the right slower upwind, but helped me on an early Course #2 race downwind when most of the fleet went to the start side of the closed line. Beyond that it didn’t seem to have much affect.

• "Crabbing" downwind due to current (or sideslip), making the boat deviate from rhumb line is more influential the slower we’re going. If not already doing so, spotting the next mark against a point on land is how you compensate. 

Founder's Regatta - February 19 & 20, 2023
Race report by John Field

Our mid-season trophy event is in remembrance of our Founders from 1958 - those with names like Mosbacher, McMichaels, Wilcox, Engle, Derektor, Legler and Waters. Since that time there have been and still are so many others that keep us strong and it's a good time for us to thank everyone that makes MFA such a long lived and robust fleet! 

Sunday on the water started light with a breeze from the south as forecast, which brought lumpy seas and we sailed with large sails. The sky was gray, and the weather was cool with puffs at times and holes on the course. Slowly the breeze built as forecast and the rollers grew. RC Kara and Melissa ran 7 races, and had set up a no-gybe for the final race but had to cancel before the start as the gusts exceeded our guideline with the sea state growing. Everyone sailed home, which was a "thrilling" reach with "monster" waves - 22 sailors were on the water in a single fleet and everyone stayed upright. Those that were successful for the day kept their boats moving through the chop and were able to shift gears as the wind lightened or built.  

Monday looked to be gray day with light breeze - and 18 sailors ventured out for what turned into an unforecast amazing sunny and warm day on the water. The wind oscillated through 30 degrees throughout the afternoon, making courses and line sets challenging but a variety of windward - leeward gate open courses again with large sails were fun for everyone. Keeping in phase with clear starts and open lanes seemed to work best, there were ups and downs for everyone.  The predominantly SW breeze kept the water flat, but at the start of the last race the wind went west and built - for an exciting twice around drag race followed by a long beat home in waves and current. Our crashboat team kept busy with mark sets, breakdowns that got back on the water and one of our sailors in a drysuit decided to take advantage of the weather and swim but then went back out to continue racing. 

Next weekend on Sunday is day 3 of the regatta - lets hope the weather will be as beautiful as it was today! 

After bouncing up and down in the chop last week, falling off the seat in my boat, stalling out for the full two-minute starting sequence in one race, and my worst nightmare, hearing, “Your position has been established,” I hurriedly jumped on the volunteer spreadsheet to sign up for race committee. I knew that 7 days would not be enough to recover from my bruised ego and butt. I want to keep showing up, be involved, and learn from all you great sailors, and what better place to do some recon than from the flybridge of Lucky?

Tracy, Melissa, and I set out on Lucky with hopes of creating a great day of racing for the 26 sailors who threw off the bowlines and sailed away from the safe harbor. With the exception of that race in the middle, where the wind threatened to poop out on us, we had enough wind to race all day, fitting in 7 races for the A Division and 5 for the B Division.

My strategy of spying on Gregg Takata created more questions than answers. When everyone keeps barking at me to keep my boat flat, why is Gregg’s boat so heeled over during the starting sequence? Why does he pull the main in by manually pulling on the boom instead of pulling in the mainsheet? And how is he so fast??!? One answer that came easy was finding the sum of his scores at the end of the day. With six bullets and a third, calculating his score for the day could be done on two hands. Congrats to Gregg for taking first place in A Division, followed by Kevin Sailor in second, and Paul Beaudin in third. A shout out to Fred Trefeissen in fourth, as these top finishers kept their total points for the seven races under 28! And despite John Field’s modesty at the debrief, he captured a third in the fourth race.

I overheard some sailors talking about the B Fleet while we all enjoyed Sam’s incredible “Lasagna Chili.” They were remarking on how much more competitive this large division has been compared to just a few years ago. New-ish members are sailing consistently (with one notable exception. oops…) and they are improving quickly. And brand new members, like Felix Host, are taking the field by storm. People are watching this young sailor, whose starts today were en pointe. With three bullets, Felix amassed just 18 points to take first in B Division, followed closely by Marc Berkowitz, who had 20 points. Zach Wininger came in third, with 22 points. The competition was indeed intense, with the first six finishers all coming in under 29 points.

At the debrief, we talked about the chop, which was brutal on starboard tack. The rockstars all gave tips on how to handle it. I was busy eating Sam’s ginger bars, so I can’t tell you what to do next time we encounter this sea state. Paul Beaudin, who is also our Doyle rep, gave us a talk on sail trim, reinforcing the tip we all received a few weeks ago, which is to use the telltales on the shrouds and try to keep them pointing at a 45 degree angle, aiming right for the middle of the seat. Paul relies on these telltales more than the ones on the sail. Not looking up means you can keep looking out. Let’s all try that tip next week. Paul also talked about adjusting the vang and outhaul to help with the chop downwind (maybe? Next time, I’ll take notes…) Finally, Scott Guerin invented a new word. He stressed the importance of getting your top batten parallel to the boom. I didn’t hear why this is important. My inner editor was laughing too hard at “parallelicity.” Maybe he’ll talk more about it at next week’s debrief. I hope to see you all there! If I’m actually out there in a Dyer, let’s consider that progress…

Thank you to RC Melissa Bontemps and PRO Tracy Kingsley. Thank you also to Tim Baron, Nick Waters, Avi, and Peter Winder on the crash boats, who put lots of marks IN the water and didn’t take any people OUT of it.

Please keep an eye out for an announcement about a coaching day this coming Saturday. We need volunteers!

Also, I took a lot of photos today! Please be sure to follow @mamaroneck_frostbite on Instagram to see your beautiful smiles out there on the water today!

January 7, 2023
Coaching report by Erica Conway

I arrived in Mamaroneck on Saturday morning at 10, ready to lend a hand as a crash boat operator for the coaching session. I loved working on the crash boat last week with Henry. It was my first week back this season and it was a great way to ease back into it while mustering up some courage (I got overwhelmed last year and didn't make it through the whole season, though I eventually returned for the last two weeks in April.)  I felt proud of myself yesterday for finding such an amazing excuse to procrastinate getting on a Dyer again. I mean, who is going to judge me for VOLUNTEERING, right?

I bounced around, feeling super important, with my VHF antenna sticking out of my life jacket, helping Tim to get the CBs in the water, starting up the outboard engines, and chatting with Bill and Catherine. I may have bragged too loudly about my iron-clad method of procrastination, because all of a sudden, my VHF was taken away and Colley was offering to let me use his boat so that I could be a coach-ee. 

“Like, right now?” I asked. I asked three times if they had enough people to run the crash boats, but they were all set. They asked if I had my drysuit with me and, damn, I had to admit that it was in my sail bag… I mustered up some “gratitude,” decided it might be better to just rip this Band-Aid off quickly, and went off to get ready.

Colley was amazing and helped me rig his boat, since I haven’t done it since last April. I felt true gratitude, because his boat looked really great and I felt lucky to start the season on it. He asked me about my trepidation. I told him about how overwhelmed I got last year. I wasn’t doing well in the races, I was worried about capsizing, and I found it too much to concentrate on what was going on INSIDE the boat as well as what was happening OUTSIDE the boat. I remember standing around at the debriefs feeling like I hadn’t been out there with the rest of the fleet. They would go on and on about shifts and favored ends and what had happened in the 5th race, while all I remembered was getting tangled in the main sheet, stalling out twelve times, and being pretty sure that there were only 4 races. But maybe, more than anything, I felt ashamed that after 50 years on the water as crew on everything from 65’ powerboats to 420’s to a Tripp 40, and after living on and operating my 47’ Beneteau, I found it really challenging to drive a single-person dinghy. I “should” be better.

Colley assured me that I was going about it all wrong. (You don’t say.) He suggested letting go of the outcome of the races, coming to grips with capsizing, and taking my time learning the boat handling before I worried about what was going on outside the boat. He also pointed out that crewing on big boats, and even operating my own boat was not the same as a Dyer Dhow. They are just a whole different animal and I shouldn’t be embarrassed. It was great advice, much like all the support I’ve gotten from the seasoned sailors at MFA. As a results-oriented person who has generally succeeded at the things I’ve set my mind to, I know this will be more than just a sailing lesson. It will be a shift in my life philosophy that will free me up to try new things and keep pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

Catherine saw my panicked look in the parking lot and gave me some encouragement. I started to feel like I could do this. It’s just like riding a bike, I convinced myself. Then they decided to switch to small sails. If there’s one thing I learned last year, these people don’t like using small sails. So if we were switching, it must be pretty damned windy out there. I decided I needed to just forget all about that and figured it was a decision made because it wasn’t a race day and most of us were pretty new.

We had our safety meeting and Carla went over the plan for the day. We would practice sailing from windward to leeward, do some practice starts, and maybe even have a practice race. Off we went. Colley’s boat was launched on the jetty side of the dock and he casually assured me that I’d be fine sailing the boat out between the dock and the rocks. I looked at him like he had three heads and asked him if he liked his boat or not. No. I would not be sailing his boat out of this narrow passage. I couldn’t even promise to bring it back in one piece. So I got in and walked myself down the dock until I felt like I had enough room to fill the sails.

Out on the water, I felt a thrill when the boat took off and heeled a little. With the wind in my face, I felt more confident than I had anticipated and tacked a few times to remember how to move from side to side on a boat that has you sitting backwards (I’ll never understand this). As soon as I realized it was time to go downwind, I felt nervous. But rather than putting off the inevitable, I jibed.  Huh. Not as bad as I remembered. (Yes, I know. We were still just off the docks, and I was protected from the full wind. But still. I felt a moment of accomplishment and let it fuel me.) My hat kept popping off my head with the boom constantly swishing past it. I finally stuffed it down my life jacket. It took me an hour to get all the knots out of my hair last night! I saw one woman with a fleece headband. I’ll try that next week.

We headed out to the harbor and started practicing sailing from windward to leeward. I remembered how many things there are to think about and tried to incorporate all the suggestions I heard from the coaches, assuming they were all for me:

“Are you reading the tell-tales?”

“You are really pinched! Come down a bit! See? Now you're moving!”

“Don’t hike by just leaning your shoulders back! Move your butt to the edge!”

“What is that weird way you are holding the tiller about?”

“You look tense! Relax a little!”

It was ALL helpful, and I appreciated every single piece of advice that the coaches gave. It was a lot of work, following us all around and figuring out how to best help each of us to move the pin forward on our progress as sailors. I can’t wait to be good enough to give back.

By the time we got to the practice starts and races, I was feeling excited. Last season, I felt like my biggest improvement was in the starts. I had been really timid in the beginning, starting last and stalling out in practically every race. By the 4th or 5th time out, I was getting more aggressive, shoving myself into the pack, and trusting my ability to move out of the way if I got too close to another boat while on port tack. I decided to pick up where I left off last year and got a lot of advice from Bahar, who made sure I had a strategy and knew which side I wanted to start on. I practiced timing how long it would take to get to the boat end of the line so that I could start right at the boat, my favorite place to start when the line is even or favored. I got it right on one of the practice races and found myself towards the front of the fleet, with Bahar screaming encouragement at me like I was qualifying for the Olympics.

In another practice race, I got it wrong and I was facing the wrong way in the middle of the line when the gun went off. “Let it go! Let it go!” I sang to myself, even though, ironically, I wasn’t Frozen. I got right back in there and actually recognized a lift when it smacked me in the face, and rode it all the way to the layline. Thank you, Greg, for reminding me to actually LOOK at the tell tales. With Behar’s help, I approached the windward mark on port (which I don’t like doing), threaded the needle between two starboard-tack boats without fouling anyone, and nearly caught Bill on the downwind run to the finish.

It was an amazing day on the water. Here’s what I learned:

• Showing up is the only way to get better.

• MFA members are some of the most generous and supportive people I’ve ever met.

• That said, they will trick you into sailing, even when you are nervous, so consider yourself warned.

• Really overstand the upwind mark in strong current. Like, way farther than you think.

• Don’t scrunch your shoulders up for 3 hours straight because you are nervous. You’ll wake up with a massive tension headache the next day.

• When in irons, straighten out the rudder, let go of the sheet, and pull up the centerboard. It’s sooooo easy, according to one coach. #eyeroll

• Small sails are super awesome and I vote for them every time! (Sorry, A Fleet!)

• Sailing a Dyer Dhow isn’t like riding a bike. It’s more like riding a unicycle on a trampoline while juggling.

A short downwind resulted in more interactions at the leeward mark.  RC put in a gate around race four and that sorted things a bit, but there was always someone threatening from behind—even on the run to the finish.

Helen (who won the day in A) pointed out that she couldn’t just sit on the line at the start and wait to accelerate.  Thanks to the chop she had to be moving and driving forward if she wanted to separate from the pack after the start.  Carla started several times on the right (taking advantage of a skew to the right side of the course for the mark) and danced up the right side by herself.  She seemed to enjoy tacking as needed, in clear air.

First places in A were scattered among five sailors.  Two other sailors in A had seconds.  Everyone (including the leaders) had at least one seventh place.

A couple more notes for the day.  Keith Bell made his debut in A and did not finish last!  Catherine notched her first bullet ever in MFA.  There were no intra-boat protests to mediate after racing.  I can’t see the results yet for B, but I am sure there were other interesting events.

Two tips for sailing the downwind legs of course 4.  The first downwind tends to be pretty short.  It is easy to run out of time to get ready to round the leeward mark.  Start drifting early off the rhumb line in a direction opposite to the way you plan to round.  (E.g., if you are rounding to port, drift to the right.)  Jibe if you will need to do it when you round, put your board down a little, and cheat in on your sheet.  You can then put board the rest of the way down and come into the mark from the side (you won’t need to jibe as you round).  You’ll get a faster exit and a higher line out of the mark.

On the second downwind, you should head to the left (looking downwind) after the windward mark, as the finish is on the starboard side of the RC.  Stay on starboard after the rounding for a few boat lengths (so you have rights over the port boats that are still coming to the mark).  But, keep your board down and steer as far left as you can before you jibe.  If you can get to the left edge and reach a bit towards the pin, you’ll keep clear air (it will be coming over your left shoulder and boats behind won’t bother you).  If you can’t do this, bear back down and separate from the folks who are heading to the pin.  The RC boat is sometimes favored and you may have a nice run with clear air if you go towards it.  Plus, dead down can be a tiny bit shorter distance to sail.

No sailing on Christmas Eve.  Regatta the weekend after!  Hope to see 30+ boats for the Regatta days.

November 27, 2022

Canceled due to high, gusty winds

November 13, 2022

Race report by John Field

We made it off the float to a brisk westerly at the top of our wind range. It turned into a beautiful day with a more normal November frostbite feel.  Although 24 boats made it off the dock and sailed in the channel, the RC made difficult calls with gusts to 24 by Hen Island, and then tried to get a no gybe course in the harbor set but the build and shifts were excessive so racing was cancelled for the day. 

On the positive side, no one capsized and no boats are broken! We had at least 8 more new sailors who learned about the quirkiness of the Dyer in heavy air and the debrief with Bahar Greg and Rob was super helpful for small sail trim and position technique. Plenty of warm soup and beer from Rick K was enjoyed by everyone.