Friday, April 16, 2010

Wrap up:

After a week of big breeze, broken masts, swimming skippers and even a few "broken" sailors, the final day served up what seemed to be a sedate 10-16 knot breeze for the final races. The change in conditions provided a challenge for all, as the winning formulas from earlier in the week did not produce the same outcomes.

The Canadian team of Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn took a commanding lead into the final day, but much was still up for grabs as the potential for 3 races existed and the drop race was bound to change up the leader board. With the new conditions the key players all stuck with the process that had seen them succeed all week, work the left side early. Clarke commented, "The final day of the championship brought a much different day and although we weren't brilliant we did more than enough to secure the title with a race to spare, but it wasn't easy." "The play book from the other days didn't work so the only thing starting down the line and heading left did was put us in the middle of the fleet, the good news was that our closest competitors were on the same page and the regatta would be decided by who could move through the fleet."

In race 5 Mendelblatt worked up to a 4th and the Clarke/Bjorn team finished 6th, Diaz had some issues and wound up 10th. Thus if only two races were held the title was within the Canadians grasp. The committee was determined to put in three races for the day and thus the Clarke/Bjorn duo needed another solid finish. A difficult first beat in race 6 saw the Canadians in the teens with their immediate competition in the top 4, but an incredible second beat saw the team vault up the leader board finishing 5th in the race and ultimately securing the overall title.

Silver Star, as per Star class history the winner of the Western Hemisphere Championships is awarded the right to replace the standard red Star insignia with a Silver Star in recognition of their performance. A well earned distinction for this Canadian team. The next stop on the tour for the Clarke/Bjorn team is the European Championships in Italy during June. Tune in here to continue to follow the exploits of this up and coming Star class team.

Day Three

With 4 races in the books the Canadian team of Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn have powered to a commanding lead, adding another bullet and a second to their first day total. More to come as reports arrive from Nassau.

Directly from the team in Nassau: Another good day on the water for Team Clarke/Bjorn, the forecast was for less wind but the gods have decided that this event will be one to remembered for big breeze, broken masts, swimming sailors (yes another went for a swim yesterday), holed boats, ripped sails and tired sailors. The boat park after sailing today looked like a junk yard of broken and twisted masts with skippers and crews rigging replacement masts or trying to straighten bent sections between a few trees.

First race saw the softest wind of the week and thankfully for our temperamental tiller/rudder connection the committee sent us on a windward-leeward course, reaches load up the rudder exponentially so we were quite happy not sailing more then we have to. We kept to the playbook that has given us success all week, start near the pin, send it left until all the boats tack and take the high lane across the middle- left. Unfortunately the shift went a bit further than expected and we over laid the windward mark and rounded 2nd. On the first run we experienced the slows for the first time all week, it felt like a seamonster grabbed hold of our keel and wouldn't let go. Luckily we only lost one boat and rounded the bottom mark 3rd. On the second beat and run we found the afterburners again and brought the fight back against the leaders but came up short to finish second.

Now it wouldn't be a natural day if we didn't have a little drama to make things interesting. While we lined up to start the second race the taper on our jib sheet failed and as Tyler pulled the jib in all he managed to do was milk the cover off the rope. He quickly dived down to leeward grabbed the sheet by the core and quickly wrestled it into the cleat. This was going to make it very hard to play the jib as his choices were to use the very thin core that would barely cleat and would chew up his hands or the quickly fattening cover that was like trying to pull on a snake that is shedding its skin. Time to man up and play the jib by the core. So we stick to the play book lead left off the pin wait for the fleet to tack and tack, but wait when we tack the core won't un-cleat and we flounder with the jib backed in 20+ while Tyler frantically tried to un-cleat it. Thankfully Tyler got it un-cleated quickly and the damage was not that bad. We found our jets again on the first beat and rounded 1st, extended on the reaches while trying to baby the tiller the best we could and then cruised the rest of the way to win comfortably.
 
Thanks to Richard and Tyler for providing us with the entertaining blow by blow accounts of their event. Tune in tomorrow for the final races.

Day Two

After an uneventful first day of the championships where racing was postponed due to high winds the fleet embarked on a two race day on Thursday. Although the wind had moderated from day one there was still a solid 20+ knots of breeze facing the competitors. Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn had an outstanding day putting up a 2 - 1 on the day to claim the overall lead.

The following is a brief synopsis of the days challenges as provided by the team of Richard and Tyler:

The day started off with a few nerves as the previous days challenges in the Harry Knowles event remained within the mindset of the team. The sail out proved somewhat of an adventure as an incorrectly lead mainsheet resulted in a quick re-rig on the way to the course, not an easy task in 20 knots of wind. Question for the day is what do you use in place of a sponge to dry something you are hoping to have tape adhere to? Well the creative answer was a peanut butter and jam sandwich of all things ....and yes it worked sufficiently to survive the day!

"The course for race 1 was a triangle, windward, leeward....what's up with all this reaching? All I hear is that we never reach in the Star, Tyler has reached more with me in the last 5 months than his entire 10 year career in the Star! Well, we won the pin, were 3rd to the top mark, passed 2 but lost one on the first reach to round the gybe mark 2nd and unfortunately no matter how hard we tried we couldn't move up. Good news was that we didn't hit anyone and I stayed in the boat, SUCCESS! and a solid start to the event."

"The drill was the same for race 2, we tried to get off the pin, misfired a little and hung in a poor lane pinned going left while the early leaders tacked away. Tried to dig back when things cleared out only to see the early leaders coming back on a massive righty. Man we did not look good. We tried to consolidate but eventually had to go back left when we got tired of looking at the back 1/2 of the fleet. We waited patiently until either the lay-line or a lefty came in and luckily we got both and quickly jettisoned into first place at the top mark. We extended on the first reach, lost some on the second reach but eventually lead at the bottom mark, which we hung onto to and ultimately won the second race."

With two races now in the books the Canadian team leads the way with 3 points, 4 up on 2009 World Champion George Szabo/Mark Strube (USA) and 5 up on the third place team of Mark Mendelblatt and John von Shwarz. A quality start for the team with racing continuing through April 17th. Stay tuned here for more action as it transpires at the 2009 Star Spring Western Hemispheres.

 

 

Day One

A solid group of competitors have convened in Nassau, Bahamas for the annual Western Hemisphere Spring Championships. The up and coming Canadian team of Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn is amongst this group that is enjoying solid conditions in Nassau,

The event kicked off with the Henry Knowles Series on April 13th, which saw 28 competitors brave the challenging conditions in a tune-up day to the championships. Race one kicked off in a building 16 knot breeze that topped out in the mid 20’s, the Canadian team of Clarke/Bjorn found the early going to their liking sailing to a first place finish in a tightly contested battle. Race 2 saw the breeze increase into the mid 20’s resulting in a series of adventures for all competitors including our Canadian duo, who survived a 360 degree penalty turn after hitting the windward mark, only to lose their skipper over-board later in the result and ultimately retire from racing for the day. With continued building breeze the PRO wisely sent the teams home to prepare for the start of the Championships.
Unfortunately day one of the series (April 14th) started off much as the previous day had begun with the wind blowing in excess of 20 knots by 9:00 am resulting in a postponement of all racing for the day. The championship continues through April 17th and you can follow all of the action here, with further details available at www.star2010.nassauyachtclub.org .
Photo credit: www.friedbits.com