Slalom object lessons

Go ahead, watch that video - it's good stuff. What you're seeing there is a fairly ho-hum PWA slalom race, right? Relatively big gear, and the camera being way up and away from the action, together with the distortion that and the long lens produce, makes it look less than exciting (side note - when will the PWA actually figure out that for less than a couple grand, they can put gopro cams on the buoys and a bunch of the boards and really produce some awesome content that shows why slalom racing gets your pulse to race at 180+? Oh well, I digress...)

While it's less than compelling viewing for the non-racing public, for racers, this thing is gold. Let's take it in order:

The Start
Albeau and Angulo near the pin, Dunkerbeck and Dagan closer to the boat, but all are hitting the line at speed. Angulo is just a wee bit ahead of Albeau, actually looks like he might have been the first to have crossed the line; he's fast, so he should be able to completely control Albeau - luff him up a bit, get to the mark ahead of him. Dunkerbeck takes advantage of the fact he's not fighting anyone (Dagan is not a threat to him), so he rolls them both. As they're coming into the first mark, he's basically won the race - proving again that a good start is crucial. There's a bit of a gamble - his line was a bit longer (the pin is usually a bit closer to the first mark, otherwise everyone would bunch up at the boat). It wasn't super windy, so he could translate the little bit of upwind advantage into speed (that, and as mentioned he didn't have to worry about a competitor close by, just focusing on going fast - which he did very well, to no one's surprise...)

First Jibe
Dunkerbeck reaps the rewards of being first at the mark - he picks a clean line, has undisturbed air and water, and gets to exit at speed, consolidating his lead. Look at Albeau and Angulo jibing behind him - these guys are world class, but their exits aren't anywhere near as fast. That's because they have to deal with disturbed air and water, as well as having to pick a line not optimized for acceleration after the transition but for competitive positioning. Albeau looks almost like he's going to roll Angulo - but he doesn't; instead, he pushes up on Dagan, takes a higher line, and gets the inside on the jibe. That positioning, along with a cleaner exit and somewhat more effective pumping allows him to roll Angulo after the jibe. Yes, there's a bunch more reaching and jibing - but at this point, the top 2 are decided.

Jibe 2 & 3
Second jibe shows again that winners make their own luck - Dunkerbeck is way ahead, gets to jibe without pressure, and consolidates his lead. Albeau is behind him, but solidly ahead of the three sailors duking it out behind him. He, too, gets to jibe free of pressure, which keeps him close to Dunkerbeck. Notice, however, that the three guys behind them are jockeying for position - look at Angulo weaving and getting off the gas a bit coming into the jibe. Not sure if that's a bobble (maybe induced by some stray chop) or an attempt to close the door on the guys behind, but that puts him and the other two even further behind. At this point, the guy who led at the start is a distant third. Look at the separation between the top 2 and the next three going into the third jibe - they're practically in a different race now. Even though Albeau hits a lull on exit, he has plenty of time to pump out of it keep way ahead of the pursuers (whilst Dunkerbeck again reaps the rewards of leadership in clean air way ahead - on entry into jibe 3, Albeau was in striking distance; upon exit, Dunkerbeck has just gotten himself the heat as long as he makes no mistakes).

Reach to Jibe 4 through Finish
It looks like the drama is over - Dunkerbeck and Albeau consolidate their 1-2 finish positions with flawless (and somewhat conservative) sailing - Albeau is too far off to challenge, so he's smart, not charging too hard. If Dunkerbeck falls, he'll get him; if not, he'll stay well ahead of the pursuers. Dunkerbeck knows that, so he just brings it home (look at his stance - he's not riding it on the ragged edge any longer).

Among the pursuers, though, the reach into jibe 4 is full of drama. Dagan attacks Angulo; Angulo takes him up, then dives down for speed to get some separation, then really takes him up going before going into the jibe. So Dagan is forced into a higher line, which he translates into an inside position at the mark. Given that the final reach is pretty far off the breeze, that shouldn't matter too much - except that Angulo isn't getting going very quickly.

At this point, though, the camera leaves these two to follow the leaders, missing something interesting. Only once the first two have finished does it pan back - revealing that Dagan has rolled Angulo. How the hell did that happen? Did Dagan capitalize on his lower weight to get going faster out of the lull at the mark? Did Angulo make some sort of mistake? Whatever it was - the guy who led off the line is now in fourth, and Dagan, who looked like despite a brilliant start he just didn't have the speed to hang with those three, just got himself a notch in his belt with a top three finish.

Dagan's performance in all of this is probably the most impressive - he's way lighter than the other three, and he looks like he's not quite as fast in a straight line (probably because of that). So he can't start at the pin - he'd get rolled by the big boys for sure. But starting higher up is not great for him either - being light, it's hard to translate that extra bit of angle into extra speed, so he's not likely to roll any of the big guys. If there'd been a big gust coming through on the first reach, the other three would have probably just put lots of distance on him; instead, he was able to hang with them. And then he just sailed a really nice, flawless, technically and tactically strong race. He kept pushing Angulo, putting on pressure, provoking mistakes, all the while staying clean himself. And at the end, he was rewarded for his persistence with an opening and took advantage of the opportunity.

Windsurfing is not a great spectator sport - it's too far away, it's hard to tell what's happening. This race is a perfect example of that - it's just not very compelling footage unless you are a racer and know what's going on. Imagine, however, that we had a video feed consisting not just of the camera high up on shore for the overall view, but also the above mentioned gopros, or perhaps handhelds on jet skis near the jibe marks, or panorama cams mounted on the marks. A few grand of equipment, two hours of editing (smells like a job for a windsurfing-addicted communications/broadcast student needing an internship project), and a bit of commentary by the sailors collected over a beer while watching the footage along the lines of "check out how he's pushing me up right there..." - presto, content compelling enough for prime time.

Too bad that the excess luggage charges apparently don't leave the PWA enough cash flow to make that investment. Perhaps a bake sale? Meanwhile, I'm getting amped to go racing next month.

Nationals Debrief - Slalom

And finally some notes on slalom. First off - we were lucky with the conditions, as they were pretty consistent for Crissy Field standards. I was able to be competitive for the whole series of races on a 24" Roberts with a 7.2 Sailworks NXsl. Others did switch around their gear a bit; I don't know if it's because their stuff isn't as rangy, or whether they just wanted to optimize; my setup felt right the whole time, though.

Usually, slalom starts are biased towards the pin a little bit; that's supposed to reduce congestion at the boat (as people would try to be above others and roll over them on the way to the first mark). Since the first leg was a bit of a tight reach (especially in the finals when the ebb had slacked and it was starting to flood a little), it seems like the best starts were to be had in the middle of the line (with a bit of upwind advantage over the people at the pin, but with enough distance to the boat to avoid its windshadow and to avoid being pushed up by leeward boards with right of way).

The second reach, however, was *very* deep. So taking the first mark high was not necessarily a winning strategy, especially at the beginning when it was pretty light and you couldn't really get enough power to really fly that deep off the breeze. In the finals series, the first mark was moved down a bit - which was very welcome because it (a) reduced the too-deep angle for the second reach and (b) made up for the flood making the first leg even more of a squeeze.

In the qualifying heats, I had no problems getting pretty good starts; in the finals, with more people pushing hard and 13 boards in the race, the rather short start line made starting a bit more precarious. Add to that the fact that at the first mark it was flooding a bit now, and you really didn't want to be stuck to leeward of the line, pinching to make the mark and getting rolled by those above you.

The course was pretty short; each heat took between 2 and 3 minutes for the leaders, and the reaches were too short to do a lot of passing. Good starts and aggressive jibes, as well as fast acceleration out of the jibes, were thus the critical success factors (more so than big time straight-line speed on the reaches). This favored lighter, nimble sailors (like David Wells and Jason Voss), as well as really solid and aggressive jibers like Bill Weir. Seth, while not exactly a fly-weight, is certainly nimble and aggressive, plus he tended to run bigger boards than most to optimize acceleration out of the jibes, and that certainly paid off for him.

Waterstate was interesting, too. In the qualifying series, the first mark was right at an eddy line, so there was a bit of cross chop right in the jibe zone. Add to that the disturbance in the water from the press boat maneuvering to stay just to windward of the mark, and you had some 'interesting' water to jibe in. The second and fourth marks had typical Crissy ebb chop, while the third jibe was in pretty smooth water. In the finals, the picture changed a bit with the tide changing over; the first mark was now pretty flat (plus speeds were lower as we were pinching a bit with the flood pushing us down), but the second mark was all of a sudden experiencing some really strange cross chop with an eddy line close by (I stuffed the nose of my board into that in the last heat when I was trying to squeeze by David Wells on the inside of the jibe, resulting in a tremendous wipeout for me).

With an OCS in the first finals heat, and a big wipeout in the last, there are certainly some lessons to be learned from this one. Given how I was set up, and how the course worked, however, I don't think I'd change anything about my approach. While I had great straight-line speed on just about anyone in the fleet, the short reaches didn't really afford me an opportunity to take full advantage of that. My jibe exits tend to be a little slower than those of lighter sailors (or sailors who ran bigger boards). That left starts and aggressive positioning in the jibes as the key factors, and I tried to maximize those. In that first heat, I hit the line 1 second prematurely - so it was a matter of relative positioning (as I had left myself not quite enough room to maneuver in this first heat with the top of the fleet), but the general approach of pushing hard at the start was certainly valid.

Similarly, I was able to hold off a number of lighter sailors in several heats by positioning my jibes to close the door on them, protecting my position, and was able to pick up several positions by attacking those in front of me who left the door open. The fact that in that last heat I crashed while attacking is the risk you take trying to win a heat as opposed to just placing.
While you could argue that sometimes you just have to be conservative to protect your position, I've found that when I try to jibe conservatively, it often results in being too tentative - which often leads if not to outright crashes than at least baubled jibes that allow others to pass.

One thing for me to change, however (other than continuing to work on my jibes) would be to go with a slightly larger slalom board. While this would marginally decrease straight line speed, it should do a lot for acceleration on jibe exit, as well as make me more impervious to holes and adverse current (very important for a heavier sailor).

Racing downwind slalom is a blast. While the heats are short, they're definitely intense. The round robin fleet format allowed everyone a fair amount of racing - definitely an improvement from double-eliminations, which tend to result in the majority of sailors being eliminated early and getting very little racing in. For downwind slalom to be fun, though, the conditions have to be right. We were lucky to get enough breeze to have fun, exciting races.

The pros race slalom on large gear in light air these days, as a way to guarantee a contest. While I get their motivation (it's much easier to sell a slalom contest to spectators and sponsors, since it's easy to follow what's going on and you don't have to worry about setting different courses when it's getting light), as a competitor, I'd have to say that the prospect of racing slalom in 12-14 knots is just not very exciting. Sure, you're still going pretty fast, but the raw adrenaline rush of 'real' slalom (i.e., high wind slalom in 20+ knots) is just not there. As a racer, you're then stuck with moderately exciting sailing, but without the tactical challenge you can have in course racing in those conditions.

I'm curious to see how this will develop at the amateur level; in the Gorge, we're all basically racing 2 boards and 4 sails, just like the pros - it's just that we distribute that over one Formula and one Slalom setup, as opposed to two sets of slalom gear, giving us more range and variety for only marginally more money (as the large slalom stuff isn't really that much cheaper than formula gear).

Nationals Debrief - Formula

Some notes on the course at the Nationals, and what that meant for tactics given the conditions on the different days. The diagram to the left roughly shows how things were laid out, with the course set off Crissy Field (the start line was just above the St. Francis, and the WW mark outside and upwind from Anita Rock). We ran the same configuration for all course races - Start, A to port, B to port, A to port, B to port, A to port, downwind finish; that's a LONG course - it took the leaders anywhere from 25 to 30 or so minutes per heat.

Generally, the outside (i.e., North side) of the course was favored going upwind; when it was ebbing, you got both the current and the extra breeze working in your favor; when it was flooding, you got the breeze outside, as well as a bit of a lift. Since that's a well-known bias at Crissy, PRO John Craig set the start with a fair bit of starboard bias and made it fairly short to discourage port starting. I did a few port starts, and had to pretty much duck the whole fleet, working to clear the boat end of the start line - it still was worth it for me, though, to get over to the right faster, and to get clear air (more on that later).

While the course was long, once you were around the first time, it wasn't super tactical. Going into shore on the upwind legs wasn't really an option, so it tended to be a parade. Usually, someone in the leader's group would get a good tight rounding at the bottom mark and grind like crazy, resulting in following sailors getting gassed, and the whole fleet getting knocked down by dirty air. As a result, the upwind legs created little opportunity for passing. Only on the ebb could you potentially foot below people and get them through raw speed; on the flood, you'd get knocked down too much. As further risk to footing, there was always the potential that you'd get too far into the shipping lane and would be made to tack by a chase boat to keep you out of the way of oncoming container ships.

Downwind presented a bit more of a tactical opportunity; you could either go for playing the inside in the hopes of a good header (since you often get southerly gusts off the shore), or you could go for more pressure on the outside. Both had their risks - you could find yourself stuck in light air near shore, or you could be forced to jibe prematurely outside to get out of the way of freighters.

The whole layout very much rewarded good angle, both upwind and down. Upwind, good angle gave you options, as you stayed clear of the obstructions (shore for the starboard starters; then the shipping lane as you were banging the corner outside). It further allowed you to sail more directly into the flood for those races where that was a factor, resulting in a more favorable composite vector. Downwind, it allowed you to take risks going inside; passing someone by rolling them was risky, as they could head you up into the light air and shallow water by the beach.

The current, of course, was a major issue. With a strong flood, laying the windward mark had a huge element of chance - if you hit a header or hole on approaching the mark, the ebb would convert what looked like a safe layline into tacking practice. And since the current wasn't uniform across the course (on a strong ebb, there's usually a bit of a flood eddie on the inside; near slack, you can find all kinds of strange currents), local knowledge payed off handsomely for the top Bay sailors who call this place home. I remembered some of the lessons learned many years ago when racing here regularly, but I also had to relearn some of them pretty painfully.

Lastly, the waterstate is a tremendous factor at this venue. Crissy Field is famous for its voodoo chop. On a strong ebb, you've got big, pitched swell (with cross-swell at the eddie lines) teaming up with the innumerable boat/ferry/freighter wakes and reverberation off the seawall down by the start. On a flood, you can have flat water and washboard chop, with sudden cross chop coming at you out of nowhere. Compared to the Gorge, for a given wind strength, that results in generally much rougher and less predictable water. As a result, it's much harder to keep your foils flying.

That was a lesson I learned the hard way on the first day of racing. I was comfortably powered on my 9.9 - in the Gorge, that translates into racing on a 68cm fin. I was on my 70, though, since I simply couldn't get enough power to point otherwise. So in the puffs, I got stood up by a too-lifty fin, and in the lulls (or when I couldn't keep things flowing b/c I was working through the voodoo chop) I'd lose the drive from the fin. On the second day, I switched from my R16 to a Finworks formula fin, and it made a huge difference; I got better angle without losing significant amounts of speed, and the fin just had more range and tracked better and more predicably - that was both a matter of the foil and the softer flex.

Ultimately, the critical success factors for the regatta were

• good angle (more so than good boat speed), which kept options open,
  
• conservative laylines,
  
• covering following sailors (critical for the leaders, as tacking off wasn't really an option for those following),
  
• a setup with a huge amount of range, especially from your fin (due to the rough water and variable wind)
• stamina

That last one deserves another look. The races were long, so 8 races plus long distance, while it doesn't sound like much, translated into a lot of sailing with the hammer down, in challenging conditions. Of course, on the last day, we were racing Formula in well over 30 knots of wind, so there was a survival element at work as well (having a 9.0 would have been very nice indeed...) While I'm in pretty good physical shape, it's hard to emulate the kind of conditioning you get from having an opportunity to reliably train on the water pretty much every day.

So for me, there are two areas of focus that I'm coming away with after this event:

• Fins - I'll be working with Dave Lassila of Finworks on rangier Formula fins. My current setup (all R16's) is very much Gorge optimized.
• Conditioning - I tend to be fine for one or two day of racing, but at some point my body runs out of steam. At the Gorge Challenge, the last few slalom heats on Saturday were pretty much just about holding on for me, and during Nationals, my body was very much feeling the strain. I don't live in the Gorge or the Bay Area, so I won't be able to simply up my amount of time on the water. That's why I decided to step up my conditioning and work with the folks at Bellingham Athletic Club; these 8 days of racing (with the only break being the long drive from the Gorge to San Francisco on Monday) clearly showed that to be the right direction.