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Start Line Guide and Disclaimer!!!!!
When getting the logs, I get all the pings from the boats. I need to decide which one to go with and use for my report. Since there are so many pairs, I choose one of them and get going with it. I do it for practical reasons of creating the reports in the quickest possible time. I aim to charge for the reports to cover the hours of work given to them. Any speed-up means that they are more affordable for people who receive them. Finding which pings would match the results and have the exact OCS called boats over is just taking a lot of time.
Also, the start time that I have can be a bit off. If you do 7 knots of speed, you travel at 3.5 meters per second. If boat’s GPS point at the gun is rounded to the next second, it can move you over the line in the report and not in reality. I don’t know when the gun was exactly given.
None of your pings are at the exact RC or pin position. I find them everywhere and have no idea where RC and pin were. So, to make the report fast, I just ignore having everything a few meters off. Perhaps we can log the pin and RC boat and then I can take their gun positions. Would be nice to compare to your pings.
Also, as an advice to all of you, you should never trust your pings 100% for multiple reasons:
- Some are taken before the preparatory signal, and RC has the right to adjust the line till 4 minutes before the gun.
- RC and pin are anchored, not fixed to the ground. They move with every shift and gust. If you add the current, which is not running with the wind, you get such a complex situation that lead us into not using the transits at the starts at the recent 49er Worlds at the strong current venue as soon as the current is not in the wind direction. Every gust or lull can cause the ends of the line to run over their anchors and move them tens of meters around.
- Most people ping their lines conservatively, so they press the button early or point into the wind and press instead of sailng at an angle. This means the actual RC and pin positions are mainly above the ones you set.
- Never rely on ping to bring you a meter or two from the start line. You can easily end up over and OCS. However, it is a great tool to prevent you from being several boat lengths under the line if you are in the middle of a long one. Close to the ends, switch more to visualizing the line. If you are close to the RC and pin, trust more what your eyes can see. The same applies for the short lines.
Race Area
The wind is coming over the land. If possible, always try to see if there can be an easier path for the wind to go over the land. What I also often use is to see how hard the land is heated compared to the air temperature. If very sunny and strong heating, expect your shifts to be wild and unpredictable. Ignore the small flicks and go for the bigger punches. If not heated, taking all the shifts as they come is a good starting strategy. Always reevaluate this after each race and try to get some sense (even knowing that wind makes no sense at all is a good starting point) while keeping in mind that during the day, things can still change, so nothing is written in stone.
Start
Some, hard to see, pin bias. Still, it can bring some solid distance. With start lines of this length, if you notice the bias, you have to go for it most of the time. Small bias is difficult to spot and, once noticed, is probably big enough that it is already significant.
1st Upwind
Some more sailing on port tack than on starboard. Still all the boats wanted to go left, which was clearly gaining. The wind also shifter left on the way to the top mark. One trap that needs to be avoided here is to end up over the left layline and not gaining anything with the favored left shift. Looks like all the boats were tacking enough under it.
Top Mark
1st Downwind
Straight set with a clear gain. The last left shift in the upwind could be a good reason not to gybe too early. Mblue and GhostRd gaining. Sentinel also seems to be the boat performing better downwind than upwind.
Gate Rounding
Left mark was a bit higher (possibly due to that left shift). It was already big enough to create some gains/loses, but probably hard to notice.
2nd Upwind
All the boats were getting headed on the way left. USMM took that shift, and by being able to use the next right one, it had the fastest upwind. Left boats had to face that header on the way to the mark. With a bit of a skewed course, you should take any lefty you can, so as not to run out of space.
2nd Downwind
It was a very tricky leg, especially for the boats in the front. Wide angles and not much speed.
Boomer taking more than a minute from all the other boats. Probably arriving with some nice pressure. Nice battle between GhostRd, MBlue and Kuai
