Race Area
Far from land, no geography effects
Forecast
Increasing, but keeping the same direction.
Start
Absolutely square start line. Rowdy and Tyra popped ahead at first, they had more space mid line to pin. A bit later, Patakin managed to get ahead after the tack. There is clear congestion and low speeds close to RC after the start, visible in green/red tracks picture.
- Cleaner lanes for Tyra and Rowdy
- Congestion above the RC
1st Upwind
A few shifts and puffs defining the upwind. At first, Patakin managed to get ahead by going right, followed by Yc Monaco. They both tacked to the left and got the left shift closer to the top. Rowdy has lost the lead by being a bit out of phase and late on those two. This was also defined by their start position, since you can be quite far away due to such a long line. There were more ways to end up well at the top, and many boats were close together, some coming also from the right (Cyclone). YC Monaco managed to pull ahead of all the boats around them (Jelvis, Sail Racing), even though they were not in the best position. Tyra rounded in top 3 also, keeping more on the left side of the course.
Two red and one black thick line are top three boats.
- A bit tougher congested area to sail in
Arrows show solid right wind all the way up and then some lefties at the top.
Straight line performances
SWD showing right wind going left at the end.
Top Mark
Getting crowdier than the day before with wind being more stable. Is always good to speak about it mid way up. If fleet is stretched, you can plan port tack approach that gives you benefit of not going over the layline. But if race is very close, the door there can easily get shut.
Patakin and YC Monaco clear and fast. Tyra had to do the turns and after them, boats started to luff each other, slowing themselves down.
1st Downwind
Spika went down the middle with a few gybes and had the fastest leg. They were behind, so possibly more breeze was arriving. Overall, looks like it was better to go left with the straight set. I see gybe set boats losing and Happy (blue), the one that sailed with only one gybe, gaining very well. The SWD suggests that the wind went a bit right, helping out the boats on the left side.
Looks like a touch more greens on the left side, especially at the bottom and in the left corner.
- Early gybing boats going through larger wind shadow
- Late gybing ones are more free
Leeward Rounding
13m of gate bias. Enough to create some solid gains and losses (26m more upwind sailing if you go to unfavored one). Check the animation that compares Rowdy and Jelvis. Jelvis went from trailing 10m to leading 8m. Just think about how well you need to sail in straight line to gain 18m of upwind distance on another boat, yet here you lose it instantly.
I tend to say a lot about gate marks bias since I believe it is probablt the most underrated thing in racing. Simple reason for it is that you never realize your losses or gains since you are too busy. Even worse, in this case, Rowdy can think that right side is better since at the first cross they will see Jelvis ahead.
Spotting the gate bias is hard from the sailing boat. You arrive at bad angle to see it. You need to check the wind direction (I usually use very small waves), extend that line down to the marks and try to see if one mark is more windward than the other. If you can clearly see that one mark is more to windward, the bias is big enough to be taken, since it is hard to spot from where you are.
You can see clear drops in TTL graph for all the boats that went around unfavored gate.
2nd Upwind
Just a few degrees of wind shifts, pretty stable wind. Sail Racing was the fastest apart from Patakin who was well ahead and free. Good boats kept the middle left and played there.
No big differences. Looks like right boats struggled for a while after tacking back, sailing against the header.
2nd Downwind
This leg ended up skewed due to the finish line next to RC boat. It often can happen since the start line is very long and top mark gets set to ww of mid start line. Gybe set boats went better, Disco Volante had the best leg of the fleet. In the main pack, solid gains went to Noticia, Tyra and Elvis. Quite some boats ended up missing the layline. Discussion of the finish line position needs to start well before rounding the top mark.
Boats missing the layline are pretty red
