Melges 24 Croatia Cup Trogir Race 1

06.05.2023.

Start

The main point of race 1 was the start of the race. With the wind at the start being around 242 degrees, the line was biased by 16 degrees, making it 64 meters of upwind distance better at the Pin end. The fact that the left side paid just increased the importance of starting at the pin. 64m of upwind distance is almost impossible to get back, knowing that we fight for a single boat length for hundreds of meters of sailing.

The lesson to be learned is that if there is enough bias that sailors are absolutely sure that there is bias, that is the only place to start unless there is the extreme benefit of going to the other side of the course. Even the bad start at the favored end, or bailout and gybe before the start, and starting on the port tack is still better.

Multiple boats were extremely close to the start line, with AmorWave being over and went back. Even though Mataran was very close to the line, still they were 40m behind the leader at the gun, just by being closer to the RC boat. Having a bad start on the unfavored start line, like Blue Label, Zen, and Razjaren, puts you in the place of being over 60m behind the leader already at the start of the race.

1st upwind

Looking at the beginning and the end of the upwind, the wind at the start, as suggested by the tracks of the boats sailing was at 242 degrees, while at the end of the upwind the wind direction was at 228 degrees. This is 14 degrees of difference which created even bigger gap between the boats that went left to the rest of the fleet.

The wind was highly affected by the geographical features and was coming with left puffs over the land. In the channel it was more right direction with even a bit of right bend on the right side of the course. That bend was dangerous since by going right it would keep you in a permanent lift that would keep you going right and never able to cross back to the left side again.

1st Downwind

1st downind gave gains by delaying the gybe till the layline. All the boats that were gybing early were losing some meters, not using the left direction wind properly.

2nd upwind

Probably due to the left boats winning a lot in the first upwind, most of the boats rounded the same gate mark and went to the left. However, the gate marks were not biased as the starting line and the boats rounding and keeping going only left in disturbed air suffered the loss. Also, there was a left shift arriving after the rounding with boats using it clearly gaining. It also allowed them to pick a nice lane to the left side. Rounding the other gate mark was also a good option, allowing the boat to choose the clean lane to the left.

2nd Downwind

Not much happened on the 2nd downwind. with boats more/less keeping their positions and holding to their positions. 2nd group of boats rounded in less wind and were forced to go quite higher, creating even more gap between them and the leading group.