Battle with the J24's

[RobbieB]

We had our first battle of the year with a fleet of 6 J24's last night. Breeze was 8-12. We had our #1 up and rig tuned to the guide settings.

We got off to a slow start with an OCS along with 3 of the J24's, (yep more than half the fleet was OCS thank you Charleston current) and while we recovered quickly with a jibe and tack to clear the line we were forced to sail the first leg behind and in the dirt of 4 other J24's.

First leg was a tight reach with no passing lanes, but the second leg was a nice long beat. Once we got a clear lane we noticed we were higher and faster than the 24's in these conditions. We had 2 24's try to tack to weather in what appeared to be a safe bow out position on us. Within 5-10 minutes we had closed the weather gap without compromising boat speed and WE were bow out on THEM forcing them to tack away.

When we made the weather mark we had climbed up to 2nd and were about 5 bl's behind the 1st place J24. We got the board up to about 3/4 and sailed deeper angles. By the half way mark of the leg we had cut the lead in half. We went full board up, gybed for the inside leeward mark position and pulled right up beside them. Got the inside overlap, executed a clean gybe for the finish and pulled in the win!

Our crew work was spot on, but I was most amazed with our upwind performance. We'll go back at'em again next Wednesday night.

[RobbieB]

So yesterday morning after our killer come from behind win, (where 90% of our gains were on the upwind leg) I get an e-mail from one of the J24 owners stating, "PHRF does not allow you to raise your board on the DW leg." I went straight to our PHRF board who said they'd set our rating level with the 24's with the consideration that we ARE allowed to raise the board.

I thought we might start getting some grief if we could beat up on the 24 fleet, but after just 1 win??? Somebody call the Whaaabulance...

The funny thing is our 7.9 has been sailing with the 24's here for several years and has always raised the board with no complaints from the J24's that were always ahead. Funny how things change when the odd ball boat in the fleet starts winning....

To be continued....

[SHNOOL]

Nobody ever cares what you do as long as you are losing.

I doubt the PHRF board is going to care much about the complaint given the strong history on this very subject (search here you'll see what I mean).

[AJ Oliver]

Did you check your local PHRF rules? You really should do that ASAP.
I raced there once, and was told (never saw it in writing) that area PHRF boats
could not raise the board if it weighed more than 10% of the boat.
If that is true, the J-boys are correct.

[RobbieB]

Did you check your local PHRF rules? You really should do that ASAP.
I raced there once, and was told (never saw it in writing) that area PHRF boats
could not raise the board if it weighed more than 10% of the boat.
If that is true, the J-boys are correct.

Yes. Race was Wednesday night and on Thursday AM I ran it past our PHRF board. Our rating was established allowing us to raise our board. So, we're all good.

[Pete]

An S2 7.9, properly prepared with good sails, a clean bottom and good crew work is a tough boat. S2 built over 500 boats and the rating was based on that large number of boats all sailed with varying levels of prep and ability which is what PHRF does. I once read words from a PHRF handicapper from a very large station (Toronto, Canada) which said it wasn't uncommon for a good boat to sail 20 seconds/mile faster than a not so good boat.

[BarryE]

Very true. I usually get my hat handed to me because of mediocre boat prep and crew work. I sail against some of the most experienced and competitive S2's out there. More often than not I'm out there with a pick up crew of non-sailors who are getting there first lesson in sail handling (and staying on the boat) while we motor out to the start line. I'm extremely frugal (cheap) so I push my sails long past there useful lifespan. For me its all about having a safe fun day on the water, and if I correct well (or not) under PHRF that's OK. I also know that with good boat prep and good crew work even Noah could have could have won a race or two.

[AJ Oliver]

Thank you Mr. Robbie - That is useful all of us to know.

We have some very good J-24's in our club - very tough to beat.
They are also extremely gracious sportsmen & women.

[Tim Bosma]

Robbie,
Good to hear of your race and your success with your local PHRF. Fleet#1 sails OD on weds night - 10 S2 7.9's in our own start. The RC scores us on PHRF, but everyone is 165 so finish order it is.
True what they say about prep and boat handling. Out here, 1 mistake costs you 1 place in line, and they are hard to regain.
Cheers!

[AJ Oliver]

Come on Tom, there are many newer owners on this site.

Where is this "here" of which you speak with the ten 7.9's on the line?

Details please . .

[Tim Bosma]

AJ,
Fleet #1 Holland Michigan, 12 boats in fleet, but not everyone is out every week.
Details here: http://s279fleet1.com
Thanks,

[Stef]

Robbie, congrats with your win. I have been going through this nonsense for years. SHNOOL can confirm.

[SHNOOL]

I can verify what Stef says, the J/24 folks don't like people in front of them. Our season should be interesting with an M-24, another J/24, and the B-25 though. I switched to the S2 to get a better feel for how (poorly) I'm doing, also my Capri 25 wasn't a real comfortable boat for when I wasn't racing (but it sailed REAL well, just too far behind in the pack to gauge how well I was doing).

I doubt this year I'll be racing toe to toe with the J/24s just given the nature of my sails, however if both of us (better stated 4 S2 7.9s) are beating up on them with each race, things might get mighty heated.

I'll tell you if we get close enough to start screwing with the board placement I'm gonna want a bigger winch or winch handle

We use Portsmouth, and the J/24 is rated just a hair faster than the S2, base rating 80.8 for the J/24 and 81 for the S2, then things get interesting as the numbers change up in more wind.
Offshore Classes Napy D-PN Wind HC For Beaufort Number
Code 0-1 2-3 4 5-9
J/24 (Int.) J-24 80.8 83.3 81.9 80.4 78.0
S2 7.9 IB/OB S2-7.9 81.0 83.7 82.2 80.1 78.2

[RobbieB]

I can verify what Stef says, the J/24 folks don't like people in front of them. Our season should be interesting with an M-24, another J/24, and the B-25 though. I switched to the S2 to get a better feel for how (poorly) I'm doing, also my Capri 25 wasn't a real comfortable boat for when I wasn't racing (but it sailed REAL well, just too far behind in the pack to gauge how well I was doing).

I doubt this year I'll be racing toe to toe with the J/24s just given the nature of my sails, however if both of us (better stated 4 S2 7.9s) are beating up on them with each race, things might get mighty heated.

I'll tell you if we get close enough to start screwing with the board placement I'm gonna want a bigger winch or winch handle

We use Portsmouth, and the J/24 is rated just a hair faster than the S2, base rating 80.8 for the J/24 and 81 for the S2, then things get interesting as the numbers change up in more wind.
Offshore Classes Napy D-PN Wind HC For Beaufort Number
Code 0-1 2-3 4 5-9
J/24 (Int.) J-24 80.8 83.3 81.9 80.4 78.0
S2 7.9 IB/OB S2-7.9 81.0 83.7 82.2 80.1 78.2

Huh, those numbers are interesting. We too put raising/lowering the board last on our list of things to take on. Once we got our crew work down though we started playing the board and it makes a difference. We still have the original blocks, but went to a thinner line. It's 39 cranks the hard way on the 2 speed winch to get it all the way up. About 19-20 to half board. We also marked the line for 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 up.

DDW with the board all the way up the boat does roll a bit which can make it difficult for the trimmer. When sailing against a 2 knot current like we get here the board up is money! Anything hotter than DDW you need some board down for the boat to track otherwise she just slides across the top of the water.

There's a few threads about making changes to the raising blocks to make it easier and less cranks to get the board up.

[RobbieB]

Well. We did it again. Last night had pretty much the same conditions as 2 weeks ago, (racing cancelled last week/no wind). The big difference last night was we won the start and extended our lead from there, (straight out of Buddy Melges book on tactics).

I fiddled with the rig tune a little outside of the guide while leaving the headstay at max length.

The boat is still sailing higher and a touch faster than the 24's in about 8-10.

With the lead we had and the 7 24'2 behind us all bunched up and battling for clear breeze it was hard to tell if we were pulling away from speed or just because we had clear air and could sail the course we wanted as we didn't have to worry about what was happening behind us.

The course length was around 5 miles and we were a solid 30 seconds and close to a minute ahead of the 2nd place boat.