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Excuses
NO
EXCUSES. Bill
Symes’ interview with Jonathan McKee after the 1996 Tasar Worlds
Our speed was really only
average compared with the top boats. I don't think we had a boatspeed
advantage. But what we were able to do was, after the start, get on the right
tack, which was usually pretty obvious. Not always, but in many of the races
the wind either had a northerly or southerly component to it after the start,
so you had to just get on the tack which was favored, which I think we were
able to do. It turned out that only a handful of boats did that--both got
decent starts and got on the right tack--so half way up the first beat there
were only 10 boats that were at the front of the fleet. From then it was
mostly a matter of who was able to play the last couple of shifts coming into
the mark in most of the races. So in my mind it was primarily shift-driven
tactics. And in some cases there were also velocity gradients where there was
just more wind on one side of the course than the other, which was also
usually pretty obvious.
So getting clear of the fleet
and being able to tack and not being part of a big clump did a number of
things: it let you sail the boat normally without having to excessively pinch
or foot, and it also gave you a good clear vision of the race course and just
that feeling that you could tack when you wanted to and be on the right tack.
So you were starting close to
the middle of the line?
Yeah, or if one end was favored
we might be a ways down toward that end, but we wouldn't be right at the
end. There were only a couple of races where we started fairly close to the
end that was really favored. The main reason for that was 1) to have freedom
to tack, and 2) to make sure we didn't get stuck in some morass at the start.
Some of us who tried starting
in middle of the line didn't find the latitude to tack. How did find more room
there?
It was generally less crowded.
Sometimes if you had a good line sight you could be ahead of the boats around
you. We utilized the line sight pretty extensively. We'd go to one end of the
line and sight down it and find some sort of a landmark on the shore on the
other side. Almost always there was something good that you could use. In
fact, for a number of races the line was exactly the same, so once you had
your sight, you could use it over and over again. The other thing is we
weren't afraid to tack and take some sterns. If we wanted to go the other way,
we didn't wait until everyone else was cleared out. We'd tack and go even if
it meant we had to go behind some boats. More important to go the right way
and get in a nice wide clear lane and then we were off and running.
What about current?
Interestingly, current played a
very small part in this regatta. In many races the tactics were exactly the
opposite of what you'd do if you were thinking about the current. The current
varied quite a bit from race to race. Sometimes it was almost nothing and
sometimes there was some, but even when there was it seemed the wind was still
predominating over the current, which was a little bit different from many of
the previous regattas that we've held there.
It seemed in the westerly that
the left side was so much more favored than it ever has been before...
That was a very unusual
situation. I don't know why that occurred but clearly there was more wind to
the left and there was much more left shift to the left. In other words the
more left you went, the more lift you got on port tack--even to the point
where it paid to overstand, because you got more lift and you could reach into
the mark. The first beat of the first race of the first westerly we just got
hammered. We went out to the right where it seemed like it was going to work,
and we rounded about 40th. And there were a lot of other Northwest guys over
there too. But then we learned a lesson after that and we basically stuck to
the left.
You mentioned that in one race
you rounded the top mark in the 40s. What was your strategy for breaking out
of the pack?
That was tough. Basically in
that part of the fleet you're not going to get out of the pack. It's just a
fact; there's boats everywhere. So we tried to calm down and not go way out
of the way. Downwind you have to try to find lanes where you have decent clear
air. You're never going to have totally clear air, but you can't let that
worry you too much. We just tried to keep concentrating on sailing. Our
downwind speed was pretty reasonable and by working around some clumps of
boats we were able to pass a few. But I think our main gains were made upwind,
especially on the last beat where we went from probably 25th to 10th at the
finish just by going all the way to the left. So we just kind of learned the
lesson from the previous beat and were able to make it work.
With everybody going left, how
did you find a clear lane?
There weren't any clear lanes, really. We ultimately had a clear lane when we went further left than anyone else. So then our final tack into the mark we were able to gain a lot.
Were you overstood?
Yes, substantially. But that
was good--better than the alternative of being in that line of boats all
stacked up and everyone pinching each other off. We just went past them and
reached over them. But that's fairly unusual, not really in keeping with most
of our tactics throughout the regatta. Most of the time we would try to be
leading the other boats back in toward the mark. In a normal situation,
particularly in the easterly, we would have generally tacked to leeward of all
those boats. But that was one case where we could see that the further out
there you went, the better it got.