–FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—
By Chris Love – – The West Coast contingent of the American 505 Class showed off its big guns as well as its infantry this past weekend at the Pacific Coast Championship, hosted by Santa Barbara Yacht Club May 15-17. Though the 505 is a dinghy, the boat’s technical prowess and penchant for speed apparently qualified the fleet of 17 for entry to SBYC’s yearly Santa Barbara Skiff Festival, sharing the water with slightly smaller fleets of International 14’s and 29ers.
Even in the boat park, the favorites were known to all. Perhaps the most notable this spring is Santa Cruz, Cal. skipper Mike Holt who successfully defended his world championship in South Africa in April, and his crew Rob Woelfel, who was also in the front of the boat when Holt won worlds the first time around in 2014. Howie Hamlin, who sailed with his regular crew Andy Zinn, has been the driving force of the class since the 1970’s, and has won several major trophies along the way including the 1999 505 Worlds in Quiberon, France and the 2002 JJ Giltinan Championship, known as the world’s championship of 18ft Skiff Racing. Mike Martin of San Francisco won his first world championship crewing for Hamlin in 1999, then claimed the title again as helmsman in 2009. Martin and his crew, Adam Lowry, had planned to challenge Holt at the 2015 worlds, but were unable to get there due to unforeseen shipping complications. Another San Franciscan, Ted Conrads, who finished third at the recent Worlds, arrived with fill-in crew David Kenny, an accomplished part-time 505’er. Needless to say, these teams are intimately familiar with each other.
Friday’s racing kicked off in a spirited 10-12 knots and the veterans Hamlin/Zinn got off to a quick start with two bullets. The breeze dropped throughout the afternoon, culminating in a floater for part of race three, and a tough race for both Hamlin and Holt’s boats. Martin/Lowery took the win and the lead. With expectations high for more breeze, Saturday delivered a somewhat disappointing 6-8 knot choppy race course, but it was enough for Hamlin/Zinn to get back on track with two more first place finishes and top the leaderboard going into the final day. Sunday morning didn’t look promising, but after an onshore postponement, the fleet went out for what turned out to be another two good, closely fought light air races.
Besides the roster full of sailing rock stars duking it out in the front, this regatta offered plenty of memorable moments for the entire fleet. SBYC’s deck was the perfect location for post-racing debriefs along with good beer, classic margaritas and even a stiff martini served under the guise of a “Cold Remedy,” loosening tongues and making for fun conversations between competitors. Sailors reported sightings and close calls with gray whales each day. In one instance, the local whales looked to be ducking the fleet on port tack. “In hindsight we should have lee-bowed them and lead them over to the right instead of crossing through to the left. Clearly whales are smarter than we are!” says Richard Mundell of Royal Victoria Yacht Club in British Columbia, Canada.
One boat served as the fleet’s recruiter, unexpectedly bringing on new sailor’s each day. On Friday Jeff Sharp jumped in to crew for Bob Tennant while crew Richard Mundell desperately sought some back therapy in downtown Santa Barbara. Then on Saturday and Sunday local youth sailing rock star and current 49er campaigner Dane Wilson gave 505s a try for the first time, driving for Rich (Bob had to fly home). Four people in one boat in one weekend!
When it was all said and done, it was the veterans Hamlin and Zinn who stood atop the podium with an impressive four race wins in seven total races. Next were Holt and Woelfel, edging out Martin and Lowery by a single point when factoring in the drop of their worst race. Not far behind in 4th were Kevin Taugher of Alamitos Bay, Cal. and local Don Smith, considered by the fleet to be an SBYC “founder” on account that he can remember when the current clubhouse was built, back in 1966. Their only race win came on the final race, putting the pair ahead of Ventura Yacht Club’s Ryan Cox and Garrett Baum on the tiebreaker.
Impressive distances traveled by sailors hailing from San Diego, Seattle, and even Hawaii made this a strong showing for the west coast fleet.Their ability to mix it up with the reigning world champion and have a great time doing it bodes well for the group as they look ahead to the North American Championship on the other coast, to be hosted by Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, Maryland, September 16-20, 2015.
Event Website: http://sbycracing.org/2015-skiff-festival/
Full results: http://sbycracing.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Skiff_Fest_2015D32.htm
Top ten:
1 Howard Hamlin, Andy Zinn, 1, 1, (7), 1, 1, 5, 2, 11
2 Mike Holt, Rob Woelfel, 3, 2, (5), 2, 3, 1, 3, 14
3 Mike Martin, Adam Lowery, 2, 3, 1, 3, 4, 2, (6),15
4 Kevin Taugher, Don Smith, 6, (7), 2, 4, 5, 4, 1, 22
5 Ryan Cox, Garrett Baum, 4, 5, 4, (6), 2, 3, 4, 22
6 Jeff Miller, Pat Diola, 5, 4, 3, 5, 6, (12), 5, 28
7 Douglas Hagan, Paul Von Grey, 7, 6, 11, 7, (18 OCS), 6, 8, 45
8 Robert Tennant, Rich Mundell, 9, (15), 12, 9, 11, 7, 7, 55
9 Pierre Jeangirard, Antoine Laussu, (14), 9, 9, 12, 12, 8, 10, 60
Blog
Coaches Locker Room: Game Plan for Summer Sailing
By Airwaves Writer Tyler Colvin
As we transition back into the junior sailing mode, many of us will be shaking off the cobwebs and cringing every time someone mentions that white four letter word that falls from the sky. It’s been a long hard winter here in the Northeast and mentally getting back in the game can be a tough time. Whether you’re coming off your college or high school spring season, or you haven’t stepped in a boat since last August, we all could use some help. Today we talk about planning; summer, session, weekly and daily plans. When utilized, they are an instructor’s best friend and help a summer go smoothly.
Summer Plan- Sitting down at the beginning of the season with the whole staff and talking about the summer is a good place to start. As a group, discussing ideas, goals, plans, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, anything you can think of, is a great way to begin this planning process. What do you want to get out of the summer? What are your personal and professional goals? How can we make this the best summer on the water possible? Answering these, and other questions, provides a foundation for how the plan can be formulated.
Splitting off into smaller groups by classes and age groups (assuming your program director/head instructor has designated who is going where) you can start to have the discussion about where you want your classes to be at the end of the summer. What do you want them to ultimately be able to do by the time they leave the yacht club? Here we are generating a general idea or set of skills that we absolutely want the kids to know.
Session Plan- This can be similar to the summer plan if your club runs an 8 week program, or it can be a smaller sub set of the summer plan if you are on any other variation of 1-4 weeks. Because many clubs have a 2-4 week session with only some of the sailors returning for a second session, it can be beneficial to establish session goals as well. How much do we think we can teach them in a 2-4 week span? Depending on the age group and ability level this can vary. How can our 2-4 week goals help achieve our full summer goals? Once we have this established we can work backwards into our weekly plans.
Weekly Plan- Weekly plans are effective when they focus around a skill set that helps to work towards the session goal. An example could be Week 1: Sailing upwind towards a destination. These weekly mini-goals will then help you structure your daily lesson plans, as well as give the kids a theme for the week so they know what to expect. Working backwards off the weekly plan, if I know that by the end of the week I need to have my advanced beginner class sailing upwind to a mark, I can plan my 4 classes out for the whole week.
Daily Plan- Breaking down your weekly plan even further, your daily plan should have an end goal or theme. With beginner Optis it could be as simple as to get everyone some tiller time, or with your intermediate class it could be to get everyone sailing around a course. Either way, the goal for the day should be a step towards your weekly plan, as well as provide a good reference for the drills you plan on using to accomplish the goal. Having a plan, or an outline of a plan, before going out on the water saves you from having to deal with 15 rowdy middle school kids with nothing for them to do. A tip with daily plans, always plan more drills than you think you have time. Having to cut something off the back end of practice because you run out of time is better than running out of ideas with 45 minutes left.
Plan, plan, plan- Making all of these outlines and plans takes time. It takes time at the beginning of the summer, the session, the week, the day. You may feel in the first couple weeks of summer that it’s useless and you know exactly what you want to do. But as soon as August rolls around and you have the phrase “Tiller towards trouble!” forever engrained in your head, you’ll be thankful for that piece of paper in your binder with a lesson plan ready to go.
As always, Coaches Corner is brought to you from the desk of Tyler Colvin. If you have any questions about topics written, or would like to see an article written, please email him at [email protected].
Club Nautique Seeks School Director
Club Nautique, one of US Sailing’s premier sail and power schools, is seeking a School Director. This is a full-time, year-around, salaried position, managing over 40 part-time and full-time US Sailing and US Powerboating professional instructors. Club Nautique has two locations on San Francisco Bay and offers the full range of US Sailing keelboat courses from Basic Keelboat through Offshore Passage Making and US Powerboating courses from Basic Powerboat Cruising through Coastal Powerboat Cruising. Learn more and apply HERE.
SINCE 1980 WE HAVE PROVIDED A UNIQUE PATHWAY INTO THE WORLD OF SAILING AND POWERBOATING WITH INSTRUCTION, A SAILBOAT AND TRAWLER CHARTER FLEET, CLUB FACILITIES AND ACTIVITIES, AND YACHT SALES. OUR MISSION IS TO HELP YOU GET ON THE WATER AND REALIZE YOUR YACHTING GOALS!
The fact that we’re not just a sailing school or rent-a-boat operation means we are committed to your long term yachting success. When you take a class at Club Nautique, rest assured our goal is to make you into the best sailor possible. After all, when you graduate, you’re going to be skippering our boats. Our courses are guaranteed exactly for that reason.
Once you’re a member of Club Nautique, we continue to meet your yachting needs, from on-going instruction to worldwide charters and maybe even boat ownership. We’re very proud of the fact that many of our members have been with us since we opened our doors back in 1980. We’re also quite proud of our members who came to us never having sailed before and with the skills learned at Club Nautique, are out cruising the world.
Perhaps you simply look forward to flying to the Caribbean with your US SAILING Bareboat Charter certification in hand and skippering a charter boat on the vacation of a lifetime. Whatever your sailing dreams, we’re here to help you realize them.
Club Nautique offers its members more yachting services than any other club in the country, all for the low price of one membership. Pay us a visit or email us to discover how we can make your yachting dreams come true. We look forward to welcoming you aboard!
All of our instructors are all US Coast Guard certified. Their commitment to proper standards indicates a level of respect and reverence for the craft of sailing and powerboating instruction. Most have boats of their own. All of our instructors are dedicated to helping you grow to love and respect the sport just as much as they do. Meet them and learn more here.
“I had been sailing with my wife for 29 years when we started the basic keel boat series in about 2002. Our experience to that point was in dinghies for fun and racing. Our training was only a Red Cross sailing and water safety course taught in Sunfish.( surfboard with a sail)….” Read More
-Jim Ellis – US SAILING Certified through Offshore Passage Making
S1D Class Profile: Farr 280 vs C&C 30
In the past 5 years there has been an explosion of small high performance keelboats. Going back to the J-70, Sailing World 2012 Boat of the Year, it was clear that there was a demand for a manageable, quick, one-design boat. People wanted an update on the Mumm 30, an older class with a slowly declining ownership and an outdated design. They may have gotten what they were looking for in not one, but two designs, Sailing World 2015 Boat of the Year Farr 280 and Sail Magazine Best Boat 2015 C&C 30.
Farr 280
The brain child of the high performance Farr Yacht Design, the Farr 280 comes from a long lineage of successful one design classes like the Mumm 30 and Farr 40, both of which are still popular today. Fat and flat, she has a wide-open cockpit and a flush mount deck in the grand-prix style. Built in Dubai with an E-Glass/M-Foam core construction, she is light, quick and ready to race with an ISO-C designation for inshore buoy racing.
At 28’7” long, she has a 26’ water line, a 9’5” beam, draws 6’11” and displaces 3600lbs. To power this hull she has 550 square feet of sail with a 990 square foot asymmetrical spinnaker (flown off a fixed sprit) and a Lombardini 20-hp diesel sail drive. The rig is adjusted hydraulically (headstay, mast butt), making it easy to see and feel the effect of tightening and loosening rig tension. All the adjustments make light air sailing a pleasure, responsive and quick. Built into the foredeck is a spinnaker sock making retrieving that massive kite quick and easy. Hull design features high freeboard and a high chine that flares out into a rounded transom, getting the corners out of the water in light air and providing stability downwind in big breeze.
The Farr 280 is first and foremost a One-Design grand-prix design. It is most happy when raced around buoys with lots of its friends. At 3600lbs, it is easily trailered from event to event, keel on or off. Recently at Charleston Race Week, five Farr 280s raced in their own one-design class. Also on the docket in 2015 are the Annapolis NOOD, NYYC Annual, BIRW, and Martha’s Vineyard/Round the Island Race.
C&C 30
More known for their performance racer-cruisers, C&C Yachts decided to make a foray into the world of grand-prix one-design with their latest offering. C&C teamed up with Mark Mills to design this lightweight rocket ship. Also featuring a flush mount deck and a wide, flat hull, she is remarkably similar to the Farr. Built in the United States at US Watercraft where thousands of J/24s and J/22s have been built, a high level detail goes into each boat. She has an ISO-A designation and is ready to go offshore as quick as she goes around the buoys.
The C&C 30 comes in at 30’ long with a 28.7’ waterline, a 9.84’ beam, a 7.5’ draft and displaces 4000lbs. Upwind she has 640 square feet of sail with a 1,250 square foot spinnaker and a 12-hp Volvo sail drive. To support this enormous amount of sail area, the rig is a carbon double swept spreader from Hall Spars with split backstays led to stern winches. In light air, the backstays aren’t needed, but as the breeze picks up they help to depower the rig and keep it upright downwind. The massive kite is flown off a fixed sprit with a bobstay.
Set up to go as quickly offshore as she does around the buoys, the C&C 30 is in essence a Honey I Shrunk the TP52. Just as happy running the 330 miles from Chicago to Mackinac Island as she is rounding the cans, the C&C 30 is dual purpose racer. Getting from place to place is easy, the carbon finned keel lifts for trailering and the under hung rudder can be removed and stowed inside the boat. Recently at Charleston Race Week two C&C 30’s sailed in PHRF A, and a one-design start is planned for the NYYC 161st Annual. Below are some comparisons.
Hull/Deck design:
On paper these boats look very similar, both in renderings and deck plans. However North Sails Chris Larson, class sail developer for both boats, says the feel is significantly different. Larson commented that despite having nearly the same length, the higher freeboard and full lifelines of the C&C 30 make it feel like a big boat. In contrast, the Farr 280, with its lower free-board and partial lifelines, feels small. Advantage: Push
Sail Plan:
Despite having nearly 400 lbs on the Farr 280, the C&C 30 has a higher upwind SA/D ratio of 40.6 (Farr 280=37.5), and even more significant downwind power with a nearly 300 square foot advantage. Both classes will look to limit sails as the classes gain traction, with initial sail inventories at five for the Farr 280 and three for the C&C 30. Both feature flat-topped mains and 7/8 fractional headsails. Despite the small sample size, it would seem the C&C 30 has the speed advantage, rating a PHRF 30 compared to the Farr 280 PHRF 54. The C&C also has the option of an offshore reacher, useful for distance races. Advantage: C&C 30
Power plant:
It is refreshing to see two sport boats featuring diesel sail drives. Both boats have foreign diesels, the Farr 280 featuring an Italian and the C&C 30 Swedish. The Farr 280 has a powerful Lombardini diesel sail-drive, which may be overpowered for the boat, but no one’s ever complained about being first back to the dock. The C&C 30 features a 12hp Volvo Penta that will power the boat at a respectable 8 knots. As with all foreign engines, both will be expensive to fix and maintain, when/if they break. Advantage: Push
Rig:
Both boats feature carbon fiber rigs with swept spreaders and split backstays. Both backstays are run to winches aft of the skipper. The Farr 280 has a two-piece Southern Spars mast while the C&C 30 has a one-piece Hall Spars mast. In the Melges 32 vein, the Farr 280 two-piece rig breaks down for easy transportation. Coupled with hydraulic headstay and mast butt adjustment, the Farr brings a lot to the table. Advantage: Farr 280
Bottom Line:
These two 30’ are some of the most exciting new designs to hit the water. Production performance is trendy and both of these boats fit the bill perfectly. While they appear to be similar on paper, they are in fact completely different boats.
The Far 280 is a performance one-design racer that by all accounts, excels around the buoys. It packs up well with the carbon two-piece rig and travels easily behind an SUV or a pickup. With one-design starts popping up at seemingly every major regatta, it shouldn’t be hard to find friends to sail against.
The C&C 30 is a mini Grand-Prix in the vein of a TP-52 or a GP 42, designed to win the Block Island Race and stick around for a class start at Block Island Race Week. Initial numbers have been low, however with a half-dozen already signed up for both BIRW and the NYYC 161st Annual Regatta, it’s only a matter of time until the class reaches critical mass.
At the end of the day, both of these boats are in the $117,000-$125,000 range ready to sail. Their specs are very similar on the surface, but serve different purposes all together. Early numbers make it difficult to determine which has more traction as a class, and numbers certainly help the case for either boat. The Farr 280 will flourish where it can find its own kind to sail against. This is a boat built specifically for one-design and so far it has been more than satisfactory. The C&C 30 can survive in an area with fewer C&C 30s because of its offshore capabilities. It can do the Ft. Lauderdale to Key West feeder race, sail the buoys at KWRW and cruise back up the coast. Pick the boat that fits your regatta schedule the best.
To learn more:
Farr 280 Class Association
C&C 30 Class Association
Use of a Time and Distance Chart for Starting and Mark Roundings
By Andrew Kerr
Recently when thinking about how racers utilize time and distance, I customized a chart to use as a reference for 1 minute of sailing from either a starting line or a mark. The purpose was to help with both starting proficiency and with estimating the length of a starting line.
It also helps coordinate boat handling for either spinnaker sets or takedowns at windward and leeward marks. When taking a closer look at the chart I included feet from the mark as well as yards to help with the estimation of distance. Granted it does not take into account bad air, current or waves versus flat water as well as wind shifts, which change the distance, but what it does do is help a team evaluate how many boat lengths they are going to travel at a certain speed.
Here is an example of usage of the chart from both a starting and boat handling standpoint:
A J 24 with 5 knots of boat speed will travel 8.4 feet per second, so the team will travel a boat length in approximately 2.9 to 3 seconds in clear air and flat water. If it is estimated they are 10 boat lengths from the starting line, then they have a minimum of 30 seconds at full speed (bad air / current/ waves notwithstanding). This knowledge will help prevent a team from sailing too far away from the line and to stay closer to help gauge their final approach.
If the you run the line while timing from the race committee (RC) end to the pin at 5 knots of boat speed and finds that it took 30 seconds, then the line is approximately 10 boat lengths or 240 feet long.
Now it can be determined by compass which end is favored and to what extent as well as the magnitude of the advantage.
Additionally you can count the number of boats in your fleet and then make an informed guess on how much space will be available on the line at the start. You can determine if it is going to be crowded or if there will be good space. If the line is quite short relative to fleet size, then you may find that a port tack approach in lighter air may be harder to execute because of limited space to tack and get up to speed. If the line suggests there will be space then all approaches are equally in play.
If you find that you are 6 boat lengths from the windward mark you are going to have about 18 seconds to set the spinnaker pole and start pre feeding the spinnaker guy ( if appropriate for the conditions). If you are 10 lengths from the leeward mark you are going to have about 30 seconds to raise the genoa, store the spinnaker pole and douse the spinnaker before the rounding. The trick is to consult the chart with your boat’s length and pick out some general boat speeds that you do around the race course. Then you can crunch the numbers to find how many boat lengths per boat speed. The results can help the team make more informed decisions on time and distance both on the starting line and at mark roundings.
Good sailing, have fun and best of luck in your next race!
2015 S1D Coach of the Year Nominations Open!!
It’s that time of year again! Sail1Design seeks your nominations for the 2015 S1D Coach of the Year. We are asking for your nominations based on a coach that embodies the qualities (and more) listed in the article below. Please send a 300-word nomination to [email protected]
This is your award! The Sail1Design staff will choose the winner only from our readers nominations! Nominations will close on 01 JUNE, and the winner will be announced before the end of that month. This is a great opportunity to recognize a coach that you feel makes a difference!
All good coaches, regardless of their chosen sport, share some important fundamental qualities that transcend technical knowledge, or specific x’s & o’s. In other words, whether it’s a basketball, tennis, hockey, football, chess, or sailing coach, there are certain key characteristics to good coaching, and none of these really requires technical knowledge of the sport they are in.
Here are some of those characteristics: logistics, organization, energy, leadership, passion, creativity, patience, dedication, motivational skill, humility.
I would bet that you could take a good coach, put him or her in a new sport, and that coach would find some success. Think about the best coach you ever had, and visualize that person in another sport, and you might see just how that person could adapt and still be a difference-maker.
However, we all know that great coaches not only possess these core qualities, but indeed they are also masters of the subtleties, rules, and technical chess moves of the sport they are involved in. Very often, great coaches are former players themselves, and often they are good, but not necessarily great players. In any event, it seems virtually certain that actually having been in the arena at some level, having been a true game player, is a necessary ingredient for a great coach.
So then, what an important advantage sailing coaches have, since the sport allows lifelong top-level competitive opportunities. While it would be impossible for a middle-aged football coach to live, first-hand, what his players go through on the gridiron, middle-aged sailors and coaches can stay current, and can compete right alongside the world’s best sailors, and even win world championships in sailing. Opportunities exist in team racing, match racing, and all types of one-design classes offer regattas, year-round. In this manner, sailing coaches have the ability to get inside the sport, at the highest levels, learn more, and feel the same things that their players go through out on the race course. The empathy gained here is a very powerful tool that great coaches employ when coaching.
Getting into the rhythm of a sailboat race, realizing first-hand the excitement and frustrations of the sport, preparing mentally for each race, “knowing when to tack”, these are all things that coaches must be able to talk to their players about, and talking to them about these things is so much more clear and present when done by someone who is actually good at them, and has done them recently at a high level.
For example, it was always easy for me to say to a team, “make sure when you are in FJ’s at the starting line to allow yourself more leeward room to accelerate since the foils are small and the boats need to go bow down first before they start lifting.” It was really easy to say. It was quite another thing to actually do it, and to go out on the starting line, in FJ’s, and practice what I preached. That was a LOT harder, and I drew a great deal of empathy with my players from that situation and recognized better ways to talk about it and to talk them through it, having been there myself. This is especially true in team racing, where coaches can see plays easily on the coach boat or on the drawing board, but it’s one thing to talk about a mark trap at Mark 1; it’s another thing altogether to go out and be able to execute it. Without being, or having been, in the arena, sailing advice and technical coaching can be somewhat hollow compared to other sailing coaches who know it first-hand and live what they coach.
So, when you look to your coaches for advice or to get to that next level, or if you are a interested in sailing in a college program, take a moment and check out the coaches resumes, just as they will most assuredly be checking yours. The list that makes coaches good coaches should be there for sure, but see if the coaches list how, or if, they stay current in their profession and have the passion to go out on the racecourse themselves. Great coaches usually always have a story, and very recent one, of a lesson learned at a regatta they sailed in themselves. They love to sail and get better, if only to become a better sailor and coach.
While there is a short list of coaches who choose to (and can) do it all, many top collegiate programs now share these coaching qualities by hiring an assistant or co-head coach, who is very often a recent college sailing alumnus and is active in dinghy racing and brings that empathy, right away, to the team. The head coach then ties everything together with experience, maturity, management, and knowledge of the game.
If you’ve ever noticed, baseball coaches actually suit up for games even though they certainly won’t be playing. This historically comes from the old “player-coach” model, and perhaps, this connects them with the game and the player more intimately. Sailing offers the unique ability for all ages to compete at the highest levels of the sport, and great sailing coaches take advantage of this, “suiting up” themselves and making themselves better at coaching by sailing competitively.
We invite you to share your thoughts about coaching using our forum below, and to nominate your coach for our second SAIL1DESIGN COACH OF THE YEAR. Please submit a nomination to:
[email protected] and explain in 300 words or less why your nomination deserves to be the S1D Coach of the Year.
Last years winner was Chris Dold. To read his nomination letter and learn more about him, go here:
https://www.sail1design.com/2014-coach-of-the-year/
The 2013 winner was Steven Hunt. To read his nomination letter and learn more about him, go here: https://www.sail1design.com/sh/
