The signal for our second race was Course 2 with a north start (see chart above). With the fast-fading wind still blowing from the north, Dan and I decided we would play the eastern shore where the wind appeared to be holding up a bit better as near as we could judge. Since port tack would let us come to within 15° of laying the windward mark, we were determined to sail port tack as early and as often as we could. We thus decided to give away distance by starting at the unfavoured end of the line, right next to the Bentley pontoon boat where we would likely be able to tack to port as soon as the start cannon had stopped ringing in our ears. We managed to execute our plan fairly well and were soon off on port tack, switching to starboard only when we were sure we were about to run aground (a couple of times we did, in fact!). Our tacks to starboard were always less than 100 yards, just enough to give us a bit of "sea" room. It was rather nerve-wracking to see virtually the whole fleet sailing on starboard to the far side of the lake, but the good news was that defending National champion, Dave Nickels, began to follow us. He was outpointing us but we footed for speed and on balance, gained a fair bit.


The "you can blame Bill Selick for this because he wants some educational stuff department": Strategically speaking, the main body of the fleet was making a low percentage move by going across the lake first (see black lines in the simplified diagram above). Unless you are virtually certain that you will get better wind strength by sailing the shorter tack first (in this case starboard was much the shorter tack to be sailed in going to the windward mark), you should always sail the longer tack first. This is especially true in shifty conditions such as those that one typically finds on small lakes. In this instance, Dan and I (green line) hugged the east shore on the port tack that let us sail far, far closer to laying the mark than starboard which was mostly across the lake and did very little to move people up the rhumb line (straight line from mark to mark). The only way we could lose was if the other side got better pressure or a port-tack lift that we never saw. Given fairly equal winds across the course on the other hand, we could expect three possible wind direction scenarios, two of which would let us gain while the third would see no one gain or lose.

Picture the boats at points C above where they are still even. If the direction remains constant, no boats will gain or lose. However, if there was a shift, Nickels, Mark Q and Hockenberry sailing the green course along the east shore were bound to gain by having sailed the long tack first. A knock would let us tack and cross the fleet by a ton (given the vast amount of separation between us on the east shore and the fleet on the other side of the lake). Meanwhile, a lift would let us come (even) closer to laying the mark while that same lift would be useless to boats that were already across the lake and laying the mark even before the port-tack lift came along.

One fear we did have was that the wind would veer significantly towards the east and leave us with our breeze partially blocked by the near-by east shore. But if this happened, we were very ready to tack out immediately onto a radically lifted starboard tack which would take us out of the wind shadow of that shore. And even if we did spend a few moments with very little wind, such a shift would spell far more complete disaster for the guys on the west shore who would have reached the port layline (at point C for the black line) and would now find themselves with breeze but facing a dead upwind beat to the windward mark.

Corollaries: We used to have a Wayfarer long-distance race on a long narrow lake that runs more or less east-west and where on summer days we would typically get a SW breeze that angled across the right-hand shore and veered or backed perhaps 15° from its usual direction for brief periods of time. Very much like in the race described above, we could sail port tack at about a 20° angle to the shore along our 5-mile beat to the windward mark. Most of the guys, when they ran out of sea room, would tack and go a long way across the lake, whereas we would tack out 100 yards and go back onto port as often as was necessary. There was relatively very little time that could be usefully spent on starboard tack, so we hoarded that time and were very miserly about spending it. Avoiding the rocky shore was one of those times. But the other, the time that we totally lived for throughout the long, long beat, was the brief port-tack knocks that were sure to come along every few minutes, knocks that could be turned into great starboard-tack lifts with a quick tack. Almost invariably, we nibbled the competition to death with this very simple strategy. In other words, avoid using up your precious shorter-tack time unless there is a very good reason to do so - be it rocks, a good shift or visibly better breeze.

I still recall like it was yesterday, my first long-distance race on that lake - in 1966 - where I experienced something that changed my sailing life. I had of course read about tacking on headers, etc. but this day brought its potential significance home to me in a way I have never forgotten. Again, the wind was much like in the second race of the Nationals. We rounded a leeward mark (an island, actually) near the north shore of the lake in an ignominious 8th place and began what would be a three-mile beat, west up the lake to the finish. This being times where Wayfarer racers were less educated, the top seven boats all held starboard around the mark and mostly across the lake. For no other reason than to be different, I decided to tack immediately to port. As luck would have it, the leader (John Green, W745), who was a good mile ahead of us, tacked at the same instant. Now we were bow to bow, but of course, John was a mile to windward of us. Only about a minute later, there was a very substantial port-tack knock that caused both of us to tack instantly - just like the books recommend. Now we were still sailing nearly straight west along the long axis of the lake but the was one little difference: I was now a mile to windward of John! I had gained nearly two miles in two seconds!! I have learned two things from this: 1. when defending a lead, I stay as much as possible between the main threat(s) and the next mark, and 2. when trying to catch up, I try to get into a position where I can benefit from the next expected shift - and that brings me back to our second Nationals race in which most of the fleet let us get into a position where we were very likely to benefit from any expected shift.

This was one of those rare races when everything went just the way Dan and I had mentally diagrammed it. There was in fact, little in the way of shifts, but it did seem that we got a bit better breeze near the shore, and we rounded with a ...

- click here for full-size pic   The light-weight Team Quiniff Sr. soon began to close the gap, but in the end, we held off both Mark and Dave down the two dreaded reaches where more than once, I saw the (rather strained) humour in the fact that I, at 200 lbs., was by far the "little guy" in our boat. Near the leeward mark, our strategy meeting came up with the following plan: cover the defending champion by defending the east shore against him, i.e. don't let him get closer to that shore than us, since that still seemed to be where the best pressure was. In the end, Dave made it easy for us in a number of ways: He, too, stuck to the east shore; he picked up some weeds just after rounding and by the time that situation had been addressed, we we a couple of hundred yards ahead; and we were still gaining by footing more than Dave. In winds that were now down to a knot or two, we hugged the east shore.

We were just about to tack for mark #1 where we would begin an awful drifter of a run, when two cannon blasts shattered the Greenwood Lake silence and the S-Flag was held up - a nice huge one, as I recall. With difficulty, Dan and I refrained from any display of extreme joy. We were nearly laying the RC boat which was in nearly perfect position to let us finish between them and mark #1 as mandated by the Racing Rules of Sailing. Well, perhaps the finish line - at 200 yards or so - would be a bit long by normal standards, but who were we to quibble?

But our elation was short lived. "I think they're moving the Bentley pontoon boat," said Dan (or words to that effect). Sure enough, they moved right out from under our noses, moving to a spot about 200 yards NW of mark #1. Still under the impression that the Rules required us to finish between #1 and the RC boat, we headed across to mark #1. I ended up having to beg Dan to leave #1 to starboard and shove our bow across the long line between it and the RC boat, the way the finish definition requires. We were greeted by silence from the RC boat as we did this, and retraced our steps (so to speak) and rounded #1 to port and then headed for the RC boat in fairly complete puzzlement. "Look. they're putting out a mark!" said my skipper - and indeed they were. For lack of anything else to do, we sailed across between RC boat and the newly laid mark - and finally got the gun. Unbeknownst to us, we had just met the soon-to-infamous "hippity-hop" mark, an institution unique to the Awosting Yacht Squadron as far as I know, but alas, an institution that had not been mentioned in the Sailing Instructions. "The manure will hit the fan over this," (or words to that effect) I muttered to Dan. Sure enough, some people who had played the west side of the lake sailed straight across the new finish line without going around #1, etc. etc. and it wasn't until Thursday afternoon that the last request for redress had been dealt with. Full marks to the AYS whose committees bent over backwards to try to treat us all fairly and succeeded to the extent that I heard no complaints from any of my fellow sailors about how the Protest Committee dealt with this extremely tricky issue!

- click here for full-size pic   Dan and I had been one of the few lucky boats to have wind until we finished. By the time we had sailed back across the lake to the Boat House, furled our sails and gone upstairs where I took this picture, the wind had virtually died, and over half the fleet had yet to limp across the finish line. This was to be a repeat of yesterday's weather where the wind died away completely shortly after lunch, and the RC wisely abandoned all further racing for the day and brought out the free beer!

The top 10 in the second race (race 4, officially): Dan Hockenberry and Uncle Al won this one by a wide margin over Paul and David Bryan who made a huge comeback on the final beat to take a fine 2nd, a 2nd which was subsequently shared by Dave Nickels who was given the correct redress, having been a clear runner-up until the late-race confusion set in. By adding a 3rd to his first-race 2nd, Robert Krahulik established himself as the main threat to Dave Nickels' title aspirations. Following Robert in a fine 4th-place finish, their best of the series, were the Leons, Daniel and Brennen, who edged out Neil Robb and Nick Tanis who also improved significantly over their first-race result. It wasn't until Thursday afternoon's redress hearing that Bruce and Lee Nowak were confirmed as the 6th-place finishers. Jack Schuchardt and grandson, Johnnie, played the west shore on the final beat and moved up to 7th while Mark Quiniff fell from 3rd at the leeward mark to an 8th at the finish when he had trouble keeping the wind. It was another 9th for George Vurno, while 10th remained empty due to redress considerations.