A competitor

A competitor is what you need in order to have competition.

But what is it that makes the game worth the candle? What makes competition meaningful and worthwhile?

I thought of that in the context of our state's lagging University of New Mexico football (American) team, which under its current coach is doing its best to claim uncontested occupancy of NCAA division one A's cellar. The New Mexico Lobos were shellacked by the Oregon Ducks earlier this season by what looked like a basketball score on the Duck's side. But even so, the two teams were in the same athletic division and had roughly comparable equipment, budgets, staff sizes, player weights, etc. So the Ducks could take some satisfaction in hugely defeating the hapless, poorly coached Lobos.

Even so, there is little honor in sports in "running up the score" and it's actually somewhat embarrassing to play inferior opponents. It may need to be done in order to keep ratings and ranking poll votes up, but it doesn't feel all the great. And it's certainly nothing like the satisfaction that comes from defeating an opponent who actually has a good chance to beat you. And it's nothing remotely like the exultation of defeating a stronger opponent.

Of course, there would have never been a question of the Oregon Ducks or even the poor Lobos playing some rural small high school team. Of course that would not be allowable, but it would also be incredibly unsporting even if it were.

Nor would you ever see Notre Dame playing a football game against some high school team in Ohio, or UT-El Paso playing a sandlot team from Anthony, NM. It just isn't done; it isn't sporting, right, fair, safe, or meaningful.

When the competing teams or individuals are hugely mismatched and the hapless inferiors are mercilessly ground into the dirt, that isn't real competition or sportsmanship. Such so-called victories resemble nothing so much as schoolyard bullying by immature thugs who are wholly clueless of sportsmanship and fair play.

In sailing, the meaning of competition can get interesting, given that in many regattas it's possible for rank amateurs to sail against seasoned professionals who have the resources to spend most days of the year out practicing, and who can afford the best boats and equipment. For this reason, some elite class regattas give separate trophies to amateurs, and a true amateur who does well against professionals is highly regarded.

In college sailing, fortunately, there often seems to be a high standard of sportsmanship and support for other sailors. Gerald, when his ASU sailing team visits California, has reported favorably on the hospitality, cooperation, and mutual support among Pacific Coast college sailors. Protests are rare, yelling is limited and kept to the course, sails and gear are frequently made available to others, and the members of different teams enjoy each other's company.

One-design sailing has often been touted as the solution to many of the problems of sailing competition, particularly issues with widely varying boat capabilities that bedevil handicapping systems.

Of course that only works when the boats are actually quite similar to each other. There's one-design and then there's one-design. If boats and crews are hugely divergent in their equipment and performance, then what's happening certainly isn't one-design racing. If the differences between boats are completely unbridgeable, then the one-design fleet is likely to fail as the tail-enders can never hope to make any progress against the fleet leaders. This can happen when a class is dominated by a small cadre of highly skilled professional sailors and no consideration is given to the needs and development of the mid-fleet and tail-end crews and boats.

In the best one-design fleets, this rigid stratification, fossilization, and fleet failure don't happen. That's because the best fleets provide support, advice, and coaching for all fleet members. Tuning tips, go-fast advice, tactics, equipment, and more get discussed freely. Information is readily available to help the mid-fleet and tail-end sailors upgrade their boats. Fleet and class leaders are readily accessible. Fleet and class membership are affordable and have good benefits to make joining worthwhile.

So, how does your fleet rate? Do you sail in a REAL one-design fleet?
What does competition mean to you?

Six things that went right during the Joshua Slocum race

notwithstanding the gripes below, several things did go right during our Joshua Slocum single-handed race.

(1) The powerboat was able to tow the non-motorized boats out to the race course when winds were slow to fill in.

(2) I was able to (eventually) get the spinnaker up and drawing well for the first time in 8 - 15 knots of wind.

(3) I managed to avoid spinnaker disasters and got the chute down decently.

(4) I was able to hold off a good sailor in a similar competing boat through most of the race.

(5) After the race, I had a nice solo sail in spite of building white-cap conditions.

(6) Nothing Broke! (including me) Whoopee!

Fifteen things that bugged me during last Saturday's single-hand race

Numerous dumb things bugged me during last weekend's single-handed race. Keelboat sailors don't race solo most of the time, so we're more apt to do dumb things and have weird problems when we do.

(1) I thought I'd forgotten my watch and didn't have a way to time the start and was over early by eight seconds trying to "wing it" in a sudden wind puff at the start. That night, I found the watch -- in my shirt pocket (watch band had broken). Whoops! Duh! Aaaargh!

(2) Because of wind shifts and flukiness, much of the spinnaker run wound up being a reach, instead, which is a pain when sailing a thirty-foot boat in puffy winds with a chute and no crew.

(3) The shock cord on the mast blocks has lost its stretch and needs replacing.

(4) The topping lift got caught on a button by the spinnaker pole ring and so I had to make a trip forward to free it and get the pole to lift... after figuring out what the **^%%!! was wrong.

(5) Even with a shock cord holding the tiller down, the boat tended to round up. Darned *(&%$%&* spinnaker reaches!

(6) My take down was okay, but during it a couple of sheets, the cockpit end of the topping lift, and cockpit end of the spinny sheet decided to have a knot-tying contest that had me tied up in knots instead of paying attention to the final upwind leg.

(7) I couldn't hear voice hails from the RC, which, at the time of the start, didn't have the VHF radio working because it had gotten onto an odd setting.

(8) One of the floorboards was warped and drifting around loose, creating a footing hazard.

(9) Jibsheet cam cleats are angled for crew use, no good place to put jibsheets for single-handing.

(10) Spouse wouldn't let me use the better mainsail, maybe she was afraid I'd abuse it.

(11) Bumped my boat into the fleet captain's boat before (he was on port tack and distracted talking to people in another boat, I was on starboard reach but didn't seem him coming)

(12) I had to beg very nicely to get a tow out to the race course before the winds filled in and made life more fun

(13) I couldn't find a GPS receiver to borrow so as to be able to update buoy locations for our lake map.

(14) Turnout for the regatta was fairly low, limiting our fun.

(15) Turnout for the raft-up / floating pot luck was really horrible, forcing us to postpone until next month.

Zach Railey at the Arizona Yacht Club March 10, 2009, meeting

Finn sailor Zach Railey was one of only two American sailors to medal at the 2008 Olympics in Quingdao. Zach gave a great talk and answered audience questions with insight and enthusiasm.

Summary for the Mallory Championships at Elephant Butte

Mallory Cup Men’s Championship
Quarterfinal Eliminations for the
Sailing Association of Intermountain Lakes,
May 2–4, 2008,

Elephant Butte Lake State Park, New Mexico

Regatta results

The Mallory eliminations for SAIL were conducted on borrowed J/24 sailboats, with teams rotating among the boats between races. Winds were mostly medium in strength, typically 8–14 knots. Courses were windward-leeward with four or five legs per race, with each leg 0.4 to 1.1 nm long. Several support boats and a large cast of volunteers helped run the races. Barbara Hawn was event chair, Pat Byrnes was principal race officer, and Gary Sander chaired the protest committee.

Place Captain Points, R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, total points

1 Jessee 3 1 1 1 1 7

2 Perry 1 2 2 3 3 11

3 Meins 2 3 3 2 2 12

Regatta Summary

With four bullets out of five races, Larry Jessee, Dave Ampleford, Marty Stevenson, and Chuck Arasim won the first place and the right to advance to further levels of competition. The final race on Sunday had a spectacular finish, with the NM Tech team and helmsman Brent Meins edging out Team Perry by about a foot after four legs of racing in brisk winds.

On Friday, May 2, 2008, boats were made available for practice beginning at noon. A practice race was held at 4:00 p.m., followed at 7:00 by a competitors’ meeting, registration, weather briefing, and reception.

Races 1–4 were completed on Saturday. Race 1 was WLWLW in a modest, dying wind from the ENE. The first four legs went well enough in 2–6 knots of breeze, but partway up the final leg the wind just about vanished, leaving boats to inch their way up the last several hundred yards of course. A bare hint of breeze filled in just enough to keep the boats ghosting along, and all boats were able to finish the course within two hours. Races were postponed for boats and crews to be sent back to the marina for lunch and to await afternoon breezes.

Race 2 was WLWLW in medium winds from the SSE. Races 3 and 4 were WLWL in medium-heavy winds from the SSE to SSW. Boat swaps were held at the marina due to the heavier winds between races 2, 3, and 4, and because of an equipment breakdown that had to be repaired between races 3 and 4.

On Sunday morning, competitors were greeted by a light, variable wind of two to five knots from the north and northeast. Based on forecasts and local knowledge, the wind was expected to fail later on in the morning, then fill in from the SSE and S during the early afternoon. The drainage-type winds from the east were not forecast to hold steady, and did eventually drop away to a dead calm that lasted for about two hours. Accordingly, the race officer kept the boats in the marina, then began to sortie support boats out in the early afternoon as the first bits of breeze began to fill in from the ESE and SE. In hindsight, we probably could have squeezed in a light-air morning race, but any error in timing could have turned it into a miserable drifter without assuring fair sailing for the competitors.

The initial sailing of race 5 was abandoned at the end of the second leg because of radical wind shifts that exceeded 40 degrees. The race was re-sailed and completed with winds that ranged from 10 to 16 knots, with some stronger gusts. Gusts in excess of 30 knots were recorded at the marina, but were not so strong on the race course, where they were only about 24 knots maximum. In these heavier conditions, the lead boat was able to keep flatter and get a lot of separation. The two trailing boats, however, made a very exciting race for second place, crossing the line in a photo finish with one boat about sixteen inches ahead of the other.

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