Wow -I,ll never forget the stay snapping and mast falling over while we were on the Cape Hatterous leg of the W -1000--MILE RACE --talk about tidal currents WHEWW ! The Gulf Stream and Labadore currents colliding at the Cape.
Racing in Charleston harbor -Long Island Sound --Newport harbor -Corpus Cristi TX -the huge tidal currents along the N Carolina Virginia coast --or Tybee Island -etc --just like San Fran all have similar tidal currents. Most of us have sailed in something similar and can relate to it--Sarnia -Port Huron MI --Great Lakes where Lk Huron flows into the St Clair River at the Blue Water bridge --lots of frieghter traffic too--has a 5 mph current --it is brutal--you have to hug the shore.
Let me put the importance of a loose cover another way ---If you were on the last race of a major regatta and had to beat one boat to win the regatta --would you split tacks and sides of the course on the last upwind beat providing the only possible means of that one boat passing you --a fluke windshift ie , --or would you loosely cover the one boat staying between him and the finish ?
The only gain made by team N during the entire race yesterday -race 12 --was when they split tacks and sides of the course --lETS HOPE THEY DON'T OPEN THE DOOR WHEN AHEAD AGAIN .
Jake made a good point of how readily the boat behind splits and often goes to the less favored side instead of trying to mix it up and grind the other boat down to close the gap.
good observation and spot on .
I completely understand the validity of a cover in match racing, but the gains are relative to the losses and if you are skipping a 3 knot current in a boat doing 30 knots just to cover, then you are not taking advantage of the gains you earned as a lead boat. Alot of folks criticizing these tactics forget that the exceptional boatspeed moves this into a new realm. Your thought process works great at 1/3 the speed, but if you use it at this speed ,you better sail flawlessly i.e. never come off the foils because that alone will cost you 3 to 4 boat lengths. If you do cover and make a small mistake you just lost your lead, and will most definitely have the peanut gallery as well as your boss questioning why you didn't split and take advantage of the 3 knot current boost. If you use the "triple the wind speed" formula for the current, that's a 9 knot speed advantage over the boat on the other side of the course. That's huge. They've got the patterns there covered and have weighed the loss vs. gain scenarios. Not to say they can't be caught out, but this isn't club racing. In the same vein, you better get your current call right and get the advantage or the cover is the safe bet. TNZ should be playing it safe and Oracle should be all in, "safe" hasn't seemed to work so well for them.
"I said, now, I said ,pay attention boy!"
The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea Isak Dinesen If a man is to be obsessed by something.... I suppose a boat is as good as anything... perhaps a bit better than most. E. B. White
