Saturday, February 27, 2021

How Not To Get Beaten By A Girl

Short answer: pick the right gear! For those of you with more patience, let me give you the long story.  

Nina and I have been speedsurfing 3 out of the last 4 days, and she's beaten my top speed in 2 of the 3 sessions. Not by a small margin, either - she typically was about 2 knots faster. Nor was this the first time - she did the same thing in a couple of speed sessions in January. Sure, she is a better windsurfer than I am - but I am taller and heavier, two things that should help in speedsurfing.

The last 3 days made it clear that gear choice is a big factor on who's faster. Three days ago, Nina was on a 6.3 m sail and 89 l slalom board; I was on a 7.0 m sail and 99 l board. Her 2 second top speed was 31.6 knots, pretty decent for the conditions - and 2 knots faster than my top speed. She got her top speed at a deep downwind angle - 130 degrees of the wind. My top speed was at a lower angle, about 110 degrees off the wind. The 20 degree difference explains the speed difference: deeper is faster. But since the apparent wind goes down at deeper angles, you need enough sail to go deep. Her 6.3 was big enough, my 7.0 was too small. I weigh almost one third more than Nina, so my sail size should be about 1/3rd larger, too - not just 10 percent larger.

Yesterday, I was able to turn the tables (for once). We rigged when the wind was barely touching 20 mph. Nina very much prefers the 6.3 to the 7.0, so I suggested she should a bigger board - the Falcon 99 instead of the Falcon 89. I went with the Falcon 112 and a 7.8 m sail. The wind picked up to around 24 mph just as we started sailing, so I ended up nicely powered. Nina also had plenty of power, but had a hard time controlling the board with the 23 cm delta fin that I often use with the board. This time around, I ended up with 31.6 knots, while she could not get above 30. The difference in "feel" was similar: my setup was nicely balanced and easy to sail, which she was fighting for control. 

The first instinct was to simply blame the board - we both had been on the Falcon 99 when we were slower. But as tempting as this explanation is, it's likely to be wrong. I had used the same board and fin a few weeks earlier, and set a spot and board PB with 33.09 knots. Furthermore, I had used the Falcon 112, a board which I never liked much, and which I had never been able to push past 30 knots. I had started to think of the board as "slow", at least for me - but clearly, I was wrong.

The wind forecast for today was a couple of knots higher than for the last few days. When we left home, the sky was still cloudy, but we hoped that the sun would burn away the clouds, as it does most days. Our optimism explain why we both opted for the same sails, but smaller boards, today: Nina for the Isonic Speed W54, and I for the Falcon 99. Unfortunately, the clouds stayed, and the wind never picked up, staying around 20 mph and leaving both of us a bit underpowered. We launched from the JFK Causeway today, despite the many dead fish from last week's cold on shore: 

On the water, though, there were fewer dead fish than on previous days. I guess they all washed up onshore...

Nina got out a bit earlier, and caught a nice gust in her very first speed run that propelled her to 31.7 knots - almost 3 knots faster than I was today. Overall, she also beat my speeds in 4 of the 6 GPS categories today, even jibing the little speed board better than I jibed my "go to" board. My setup today felt unbalanced, and I was fighting the entire time to get upwind. I did a few short speed runs, but had to pay for it every time afterwards fighting back upwind. It seems I made the mistake of going down one board size, but 2 fins sizes, and the 31 cm weed fin was too small for the conditions. Never mind that Nina was on a 19 cm fin...

The cool thing about all this is that the "match racing" allows us to learn about the "right" gear for the conditions. Most of our windsurfing has been freeriding and freestyle sailing, where you often pick the smallest sail possible to get planing. A 5.6 m freestyle sail in 18 knots wind (or less), and a 5.0 in 21 mph, would be plenty of power. On slalom gear, though, the 7.8 is barely large enough to get going in 18 knots, and just right right in 21. Knowing that you need a bigger sail is one thing - but there's always a tendency to pick a smaller-than-ideal size. The other complication is that everything needs to fit together - board and especially fin need to match both sail size and conditions, and going too big can be just as bad as going too small. But with two of us on the water, chances are higher that at least one of us gets it at least half-way right, and shows what is possible under the conditions. Now I only have to convince myself to always go two sail sizes larger than Nina, no matter how windy it looks...