2025 Etchells Worlds Race 5 - IB-Sailing Software

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Race Area

Start

The defining moment of the race. The bias was huge and distances between the boats were already incredibly high. I have checked the wind in presail and it was approx 15 degrees more right than after the start. I have no way of checking the wind in the start procedure since boats are not sailing. I take some minutes of the sailing after the gun as a reference. Seems like there was a left shift swiping the course and continuing to move left after the gun. So my wind direction can be a bit more left than it was just before the gun. Also, it looks like RC was still in more right wind. It was probably a border case of postpone/abandon or not. Situations like these are part of the sport and alert sailors will spot the opportunity. Bias was to pin at all times so there was no need to be too close to RC anyway.

Rogue at 0.8m behind with their Atlas and THT at 1.1, so definitely over the line with their hull no matter the orientation of the boat.

Note that the new app update has the black dots showing the exact position of the Atlas at the gun, interpolated between pre and after the gun point. Boat shapes don’t match them yet. Will be arriving with the new update.

Looking at the black dot and adjusting the hull, Rogue was probably more over than shown.

Boats at the RC gaining on the leader. Can be they were in more wind and more right direction one at the gun.

1st Upwind

Even though the pin start was creating the big advantage, the wind was going back to the right and it looks like mid line boats tacking to right were in more wind and also more left wind after the start. Whenever the bias is created by the shift that is expected to shift back, the key is to sail on lifted tack at the gun. Left side quite struggled. With the top mark more right, they also had much more space to play and could wait for the good shifts to cross back. Mathilda did the best there and overtook even First Tracks and AMac that was far ahead of them at the gun.

Another interesting thing is that the long start line creates different amount of race area skewedness to the teams starting on two sides of the line. The shorter the 1st upwind is, the bigger the effect. Pin end boats running out of space to play very soon. Sailing high angles, Etchells comes to the layline pretty soon in skewed courses.

2:1 and 17 degrees skewed for pin boats. 1.5:1 and 10 degrees for starboard ones.

Mathilda-Red, First Tracks-Black and AMac-Olive thicker.

Red line of Matilda moving up the ladder.

Big lift for port boats after the start, especially close to RC
Left side struggling more.
Some nice righties, opportunity to cross for right side.

Top Mark

Quite some boats ended up over the layline. Offset was pretty high due to the left wind.

1st Downwind

Juicette, Tiger and RacerCC had the fastest times. They were mid fleet and stayed more on the right hand side, close to the rhumbline.

Gate Rounding

Letf wind and only one gate to be rounded. Even if under its layline, still pays to go hot and come to it than to sail a long way down and back up. You can see the distances between Tiger and Rogue and Karabos.

2nd Upwind

Common for all the best ones was short sail to left and then a long one to the right. AMac fighting with First Tracks till the end and then at the top gaining well by going to the right layline. Flirtation also very solid, a bit more left than those two.