written by Matias Collins on September 24 of 2003 and read by 881
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The Soling North Americans were held in Milwaukee, August 21-24. There were 16 boats registered, coming from as far as Seattle (Jim Medley), and the US Virgin Islands (aka Connecticut - John Morgan).
Martin Johnnson, son of last year's winner Jorgen Johnnson, won, with Joe Hoeksema second and Charlie Kamps third, (Blue Fleet). Although Charlie got three bullets in the 7-race competition, it was not enough to overcome two 7ths.
The following discussion is taken from interviews with each of these winners with the idea that their insights might be of use for the class as a whole.
What was your strategy going into the regatta?
Martin Johnnson (MJ) - From our experience in Milwaukee, the wind tended to clock, so we wanted to work to the right when possible.
Joe Hoekesema (JH) - I wanted to stay out of trouble, develop good boat speed and get good starts. When the races did not go well, we cut one of these objectives too thin or started poorly. Then it was a big comeback effort which is a lot of work.
The wind was into a weird clocking mode, so generally we wanted to protect the right. But you could not just go there, you needed to play the shifts.
Charlie Kamps (CK) - If you have good sails and decent speed, I try to go with the bulk of the fleet. In retrospect, we should have followed that strategy more. We also chose the jib for the first beat because if you get to the 1st mark in the upper bracket, you can usually hang in there. That worked for the last day when the wind piped up after the first beat and we had the V1 up. If I had the A1 up, I probably would not have done as well. (Charlie won the last race.)
This regatta was nice because of the variable wind conditions all 4 days. What were the basic variables that you adjusted when a shift in gears due to pressure is required?
MJ - In the higher winds, we kept the rake at 28', more forward than normal. We played the backstay (BS) a lot. When it was light and we needed power to get through the waves, we cracked the main sheet (MS) off 2 inches, took the main traveler (MT) up to give the give the rig more twist. Also, ease the BS and the fore stay (FS) to sage the jib. Bring the jib car up and ease the jib sheet (JS) to give more twist in the jib. We also put on a little vang to stabilize the rig in the waves. Once we got back up to speed, we would tighten back the forestay.
In a gust, the first move is to ease the BS. If you are still overpowered, drop the traveler, perhaps 2‘ to 6‘. Also ease the MS. This easing of the main sheet helped us to depower a lot. This was really important on Sunday when it was sustained 20-25.
What I found also important was to be proactive about anticipating the winds coming at you keep looking ahead for new breeze patterns in the water. Play the shifts a lot.
JH - Especially on the 2nd and 3rd days, where there were a lot of waves and variable winds, six to twelve we used a lot of twist you need to avoid a tight leech. The Soling is not fast when it hobby-horses which happens with a tight leech.
In choppy water when you need a lot of power, I adjust the way the rig is setup by bringing the jib lead down a hole. This opens the top part of the jib. I move the jib car inboard and ease the job sheet. I also take the jib tack all the way down and ease off the halyard. The foot of the jib should be inside the hump with tell-tail flowing. This puts more twist in the sail to the point the top should be pointing just at the spreaders, or even outside.
When the pressure drops, I bring the MT up, ease the MS to the point that the top batten is falling off to leeward. This was especially true on port tack when we were going directly into waves. On startboard, when we were going across the waves, we could trim for speed.
In a puff, we dropped the MT and the BS at once. Put the MT way down, don't wait to heel to react anticipate. Once the puff hits and things settle down, you can start to bring the MT backup. Just don't let he puff load up and heal the boat that is slow.
CK - In the medium winds, chop conditions, that was day 2&3, I had my traveler to weather and my MS eased to induce twist. I kept my rake at 28.5‘ and did not change it. Only in the really heavy stuff will I move it forward a half-inch or so. On the reaches (last day - high winds) I like to keep the pole off the headstay 3 feet, further back than one would think. The jib stayed up and the cunningham, outhaul and BS stayed tight. It is important to keep the vang in one's hand to let off power in the puffs.
Because the wind was coming off the shore on the 1st and 4th day, it was easy to feather up in the puffs because the water was flat. If there are more waves, it is harder to feather the boat to keep it flat.
On the downwind legs for some races, the starboard jib was nice in that you were pushed by the waves. But on port tack, the waves really caused a lot of rocking and rolling. So we opted to sail deep on starboard and come back on tighter on port for speed to drive through the waves.
What about the stays?
MJ - In the light stuff when you needed power because of the waves, I eased the lowers off till there was 2‘ of sag at the spreaders. This helped the main develop power. When you don't want the sag, such as in a gust, you just take the lowers back to straighten the mast. Take the lowers back first. On the last day in the high winds (20-28), we took the uppers back halfway and the lowers back three/fourths. This depowered the top of the mast to leeward almost to where it was inverted. We also took two turns off the uppers. We normally keep them at 600#, but dropped them to 450#, all the time trying to think about dumping the top of the mast where the pressure has a lot of leverage.
JH - No, I did not really adjust my stays much. Cars forward in light stuff, pull them back as people went over the side. We went with a V1 all weekend. But in the heavy stuff, a V1 needs a tight headstay much more than an A1.
CK - We moved the uppers back in the puffs and put on a lot of backstay to dump power.
What was a really interesting tactical situation that you got into?
MJ - Going into the last race with only two points separating Joe and us, first place was still to be determined, so we were very focused on getting ahead of him and less about everyone else. We both had horrible starts, probably because we were both nervous. We wanted to start close to Joe and stay that way. On the first beat we found ourselves ahead of him and covered him trying to keep one or two boats between us.
The lifts were about 10 minutes in duration, with the TackTic indicating plus or minus 7-8 degrees. There was also more pressure to the right. We followed Charlie on this he seems to have a good sense of the pressure patterns in Milwaukee, so with him in front, we followed. We finished 4th with Joe 5th and won the regatta. It was fun.
JH -The second race of the first day was fun. We found ourselves in ninth after a series of mistakes but got a really good puff on the last run that took us from 9th to 4th. Rounding the leeward mark, we sensed that the puffs were strong and the shifts radical 15 to 20 degrees. But the duration was very short, a minute or so. The wind had clocked around so it was really coming off the city at this point, so the buildings probably played a major role in these puff/shifts.
We wanted to beat Kent Hitzinger who was covering us with each tack. But while we were tacking on each header, Kent seemed to sail into the header a bit more than we did because he wanted to tack only when we did. He was sailing on a pure tactical basis covering us only when we tacked when he might have been better off tacking on each shift right-away instead of driving into the header. In any case, we worked up on him until we finally got him on the last tack, beating him at the finish.
CK - In one race, we were approaching the windward mark and tacked right on top of Martin, forcing him to tack onto starboard. This meant that he needed to take an extra two tacks to get to the pin, while we only had one, which helped. In the last race, we just covered Kent the whole way.
Thanks to Martin, Joe, and Charlie for their input
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