2nd day of racing, Charleston Race Week 2010

"Good mode Michael, we're a touch faster and higher than the boats around us. Bad set of waves coming, let's make sure we get through them with plenty of speed. Niiiiice... O.k. let's get back into our mode again, jib in and a touch higher..."
Dan and Michael had to hear a lot of that today on our boat. Luckily, they don't mind me speaking too much. Again we had pretty good boatspeed upwind and were great downwind. Our upwind boatspeed came mainly from everyone on board being focused on sailing the boat high without loosing too much speed and immediately getting the bow down with the appropriate ease on main and jib sheet in order to power up again. Settings are important but proper trim and steering are way more important in the kind of chop we had today in Charleston Harbor.
Our results were almost flawless and apart from the 2nd place in the third race we scored only bullets! Needlessly to say Michael was pretty pleased with our sailing. Our team has found a good mix of cohesion, respect for each others jobs and effective communication. Hopefully we can keep it up tomorrow (two more races left).

Our starts today were another key ingredient to being able to play with the heavy hitters. Feeling confident with our upwind speed we looked for low-density areas to start in. For every start we took transits, which allowed us to hit the line with speed and confidence. I like to take two transits. The first one I call "safe" and is about 2 - 3 boat lengths behind the actual line. The second is "on the line". This allows you to get a good idea on how fast you're approaching the line and if you need to make any adjustments in acceleration.

Time to go check out the pool...
Chris out
Results: here