M242's race with wind, sun and fun!! ~ Ullman Sails Newport Beach

ULLMAN SAILS Newport Beach

Ullman Sails Martin 242 NA's Start Clinic

Ullman Sails' Bruce Cooper (Newport Beach) and California Yacht Club hosted a starting clinic for the Martin 242 racers at Cal YC's 2009 North American Championships on Thursday August 6th. Starting at noon with a class room session with different strategies, racers got a good sampling of techniques and styles to get across the start line first. The start clinic fleet of 12 boats (23 entered) got to the start area just North of the MdR harbor entrance a little after 2:30 pm and were met with good conditions of 10-12 knots of wind and a slight wind chop! This was much better than the wind and swells and waves experienced the night before where the wind went from nothing to 25+ knots back to nothing!

Racing several sessions of starts using 3 minute "quick starts" Cal YC's expert race committee team had a perfect set up for about 10 practice starts before incorporating 2 practice races. Racers practiced with a short line (way too short) and a long line. Usually the fleet started at the pin end, but once or twice the committee boat end was good for a boat to start clean with speed and challenge the pin end winner!

The RC called over earlies as boats were setting up and when the gun fired, there very few starts without a boat being over early (usually 3-5 boats!). Racers were suppose to keep their radios on to channel#68 so they could hear commentary from the RC boat and my coaching boat. Some listened, so did not!The early battle for over earlies was sail#5 and sail #69053, but in the end sail#5 took the prize with 7 out of 11 start being over early!

Everyone that participated said they got a huge number of starts in a 2 hour period that equaled a whole summer’s worth of starting, the start clinic was definitely worth the time and effort! We will find out if the starting practice paid off for these racers when final results are posted on Sunday afternoon (with possibly new North American Champion!). Thank you to everyone for participating and getting good starts at the Ullman Sails Martin 242 starting Clinic!

-CLICK HERE-

to view all the action with Bruce's pictures from the Thursday starting practice and races!