… a little explanation of what will be happening

It’s come to our attention that we have some folks following our adventures who aren’t yachtie folk. So to make it a more exciting to follow we thought we’d explain a little bit about what is going to happen this week, and share some jargon terms that we might use in the upcoming posts.

So what is it we are doing out at sea? We will be doing races around inflatable marks. We have a maximum of 3 races scheduled per day for 5 days. A minimum of four and maximum of 15 races will constitute our regatta. 

After every 5th race, we will get one discard. A discard allows you to exclude your worst race in the regatta.

All the boats of the same make (fleet) will start together with a 5 minute countdown. If you have a premature start you will be scored an OCS (on course side) or UDF (U-flag Disqualification). Depending on the flags at the start, you can return to the start and correct your mistake and then play catch up, this doesn’t work on the U-flag and you will carry a UDF penalty (which you can discard). An OCS and UDF penalty carries maximum points plus one. If you Did Not Sail (DNS) a race or Did Not Finish (DNF) you also carry maximum points plus one. You earn the points by your finish place in each race. The goal is to stack up as few points as possible i.e. winning the race to get 1 point only. 

The race consists of 3 laps of a windward leeward course with an offset. What does that mean??? So we will start in the middle of the course, sail into the wind with the sails (mainsail – big one at the back, and jib- little one in front) pulled tightly to the boat. There are a lot of zigzags (making tacks – turning with the wind in front of you) involved here and each boat changes as they need to according to the wind shift and other boats. When we reach the mark closest to the wind (topmark) we will pass with the mark on our left hand side to the offset mark. The offset mark helps to give you space from boats approaching the mark, and gives to time to prepare to turn and head downwind (with the wind behind you) to the bottom mark. At the offset mark we will pull up the spinnaker/bag/spi/kite (the big colourful sail). Sailing with the wind is still a tactical leg of the course and a lot of positions can be gained or lost here. Gybes are common tactical moves on the downwind leg. A gybe is to switch sail sides of the boat when the wind is behind you. 

At the bottom mark, the spinnaker is packed away and we turn back towards the wind. Things are busy at the bottom mark with a lot of potential for crashing.

Sometimes the race committee will shorten the course so that on lap 1 or 2 you will round the bottom mark and head for the finish. Here’s hoping you enjoy following along!