Sleigh Rides and Tough Calls

by Greg Harms, June 29th, 2008

Speaking of tough calls to make, everyone is sorry to hear about Something Wicked's bummer withdrawal after she suffered steering gear failure and had to head to San Francisco. Everyone aboard is safe and they should hit San Francisco harbour late tomorrow.

The Vic-Maui is a tactical race, and the challenge is to get through the first half of the race down the coast, around the dreaded Pacific High "no wind zone" and down to the Easterly trades for a downwind surfing sleigh ride to Maui.

Strum used both her speed and smart tactics 5 days ago when she made a tough call decision to gybe hard to shore and set herself up to take advantage of strong Northerly winds off San Francisco to make the push south and around the Pacific High. The big question is, will Strum continue to sail fast enough to correct in front of the slower fleet behind her who might gain the advantage of changing weather?

The weather this year is all about tough calls. A big low pressure system in the North Pacific caused the Pacific High to be pushed way down south, but this low has been dissipating and this could mean that the High will make a move North. Passepartout, Seeker, Blackwatch and Turicum all appear to have gambled on this outcome and they will be rewarded with either the glory of a shortcut to Maui or the unpleasant option of gybing back towards the coast. Starlight Express is in this same group, but is suffering the results of her earlier (didn't- work- out) call to head west after she rounded Cape Flattery. They may be slower than they would like, but I hear the eating on Starlight is accompanied by some damned fine Kiwi wines.

Zulu has clearly had second thoughts about gambling with the high and took a hitch left in the hopes of getting around the south of the evil no wind zone where floating garbage lives forever and the crew falls into "we'll never get there" despair.

Red Heather is hot on the heels of Strum and her smartly executed track through the complex weather pattern of 2008 could prove to be dangerous to the rest of the fleet. But in 2008 nothing is certain. Even the normally reliable trade wind flow is disrupted.

How do Sailboat Ratings Work?

Each boat is "handicapped" with a rating so that boats having very different designs can compete against each other head to head, without all the glory automatically going to the biggest, most expensive boat in the fleet. The idea is very similar to a golf handicap, which allows players of differing ability to play against each other.

In the 2008 Vic Maui fleet these handicaps range from -50 to +147 seconds per mile. So the handicap difference between the theoretically fastest boat (Strum) and the slowest (Seeker) over the 2308 mile distance to Maui is 197x2308/3600 = 126.3hours = 5d 6h 17m 56s. In other words, Strum has to finish the race more than = 5d 6h 17m 56s ahead of Seeker in order to win against her.

So at the moment, handicap adjusted, Seeker is in first place. But in sailboat racing it is never over until the fat lady sings. Strum has already sailed around the deadly Pacific High and Red Heather and Zulu are turning the corner. The rest of the fleet still has to find a way around this weather system. Watching what happens will continue to keep all of us interested until the very end of the race.

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