2009 Rolex Big Boat Series

It's hard to believe that this is Scorpio's 14th Big Boat Series, and the 12th since I've owned the boat.  This event is the highlight of our racing season.  Going in to the BBS Soozal lead in the SF Bay IRC Series Championship over Scorpio and Tupelo Honey.  This year's seven-race series hosted 99 boats, 29 of which raced in four IRC divisions.  We were placed in IRC-C competing against seven other boats of similar size and speed.  We were the lowest rated boat in the division.  As such it was difficult to find clean air and lanes.  This did not help our cause.

We scheduled a boat launch on Tuesday with a practice Wednesday afternoon followed by seven races over the next four days.  Wednesday's practice allowed us to look at our newly delivered 3Di 3+ jib, and it was a opportunity for us to determine if our latest theory on avoiding spinnaker wraps was correct.  Simply delaying our hoists until the bow is turned downwind solved the problem.  The 3Di sail was interesting.  Constructed of cuban fiber, the bow team suggested that flaking it was like flaking plywood.  It simply didn't set up well with our current rig setting.  But, Doug took in 2-1/2 turns on the headstay turnbuckle, and that seemed to remedy the problem.  The sail is unbelievably stiff and strong (and expensive).  It turns out that we noted a small stanchion-induced tear on the foot on Saturday and sent it in for repair Saturday evening.  Later than night, James Quimby of North Sails called to report that the sail had some unexplainable fractures in several places and he believed the sail was probably not repairable. 

When we used it in the right conditions it was very fast and our concern about it causing breaking of shackles, leads, and halyards never materialized.  However, we did note that the 3/16" stainless inhauler ring was distorted.  In any case we loaded up the old 3+ for Sunday.

This year Gary and Mindy Evans stayed in Tucson, but Don Radcliff came up from Santa Cruz to drive the Protector and provide some coaching.

Rather than go through race-by-race details, I'll simply summarize our experience this year.  Bottom line is, we didn't do very well.  It was our worst Big Boat Series ever from a scoring standpoint.  We struggled for pace throughout the regatta.  Part of it we believe was the result of unmatched main and jib trim.  But more importantly, Scorpio simply didn't have her conditions.  It was very light and we've never excelled in those conditions.

But the primary reason, is the improvement in our competition.  This year we sailed against four Olympic sailing medalists in our division ... and we lost to all of them.  Brian Ledbetter on TNT won a silver medal in the Finn class in 1992, Steve Benjamin on Gold Phoenix won a silver medal in the 470 in 1984, Jeff Madrigali on Resolute won a bronze meal in the Soling in 1996, and Robbie Haines on Soozal won a gold in the Soling in 1984.  So, while we were disappointed with our results, we were simply out sailed by better sailors.  That doesn't mean it will happen in the future.

Many thanks to the contributions from the crew this year.  We had a great time and hope you all did too! 

Scorpio was hauled on Monday after the mast was pulled for the winter.  The new pulpit and longer pole were a success.  Over the winter we'll replace the Kevlar backstay as a preventive measure, work on the elongated hole in the forestay stem, replace the 3+ probably with an 800L equivalent (courtesy of North Sails), probably upgrade our GPS to a newer faster technology, perhaps order a new light air asymmetrical spinnaker, and probably re-nonskid the deck.

Scorpio will be back with a vengeance.

Race Summary

Comments from Toby Cooper, 9/21/09:

Frankly I saw the outcome a little differently.  We were only 3 points out of third.  OK, Soozal has been a headliner all year, starting with Key West.  The crew is professional, the boat is tuned to perfection, plus there is the matter of electric winches.  But they sailed well and deserved to win.  But I do not believe we were out of the race for second.

Madro secured the series third place with one lucky move in Race 4, when they and Bustin took one extra tack way up to the apex of the cone, when we were already breaking for the City Front.  They both finally came across on what seemed to be a N shift that lifted them both over us and even put Madro physically ahead of Soozal for a while.   Madro’s average finish position absent that win was 4, which would tie him with us in points.    Yes this is a mindless what-if game and competitors like Madro basically manufacture their own good luck, but our racing with him was close and came down to starts and shifts, just like it should be.

If there was one general mistake it was that we got caught in our own SF wind paradigm and as a result had the wrong sail up a lot.  We never carried the 1 the whole time but we probably should have had it up for some parts of every day.  We tuned the rig for the new + and the boat was underpowered as a result when the + was not up. 

It is tough to do all the learning in regattas when you can’t experiment.  My guess at this point is, for what it is worth, that our mast plate adjustments are working.  But say hypothetically we had continuous control over mast plates and sail selection, I think we would start out in light winds with the low plate and the 1 jib, and as the wind builds we change to the 2 (M) but keep the low plate until about half way into the wind range of the 2, and then go to the big plate for the top of the 2 and into the +.  If this is right (who knows without more testing) the deal was,  we had the big plate in for the whole series until Sunday when the race was cancelled anyway.

Do you suppose it would be possible to rig the hydraulic so we sail on the hydraulic itself instead of on a plate.  Then we could potentially tune from the cockpit just like the backstay.

Comments from JAS, late 9/21/09:

Toby makes some good points.  I'll check with US SAILING to find out what penalty we'd pay to be able to adjust the mast while racing.  Another thing that hurts is is our passive hiking.  Check out this photo of Soozal - way more aggressive all the time.  Makes us look disinterested.  Marcy's the only one who hikes hard!