Ocean Air Windfest 2019

During the last week of our October trip to Hatteras, we had fun at the Ocean Air Windfest, with a day of high wind racing, a day of light wind racing, and gear demos. We skipped out on a foil demo session, and the high wind freestyle competition was canceled because nobody showed up, but we got to see Mike Burns showing his freestyle skills instead, which was cool.

Ocean Air posted a video of the event on Facebook:

The event was a lot of fun. As usual in racing, there were a few things we learned, and some of that learning was less fun. On the light wind day, both Nina and I tried to copy Andy Brandt's strategy from last year's racing: going down the start line on starboard, forcing everyone on port to wait. Even last year, that cause a couple of crashes, when the port starters could not stop in time. This year, almost everyone was lined up on port. With the whole crowd moving to the start line at the same time, there was no way they would or could stop for a couple of starboard starters. The result was a rather poor start and a mediocre finish in the race. Lesson learned - in the following races, the first priority was a clean start. It helped that the wind turned a bit so that the other end of the start line became favored, and that most racers kept starting where they had started in the first race.

In the high wind racing, Nina learned another lesson the hard way: if near the front of the pack at the first mark, you need to either go wide or plane through your jibes - otherwise, chances are that someone will run into you! That happened to her in a couple of races where she was second or third at the first mark. Needless to say, she was quite unhappy about this - especially the first time, when the person who hit her was a pro racer.

I faced a different problem because I had signed up for the "Limited" class, where the sail size was restricted to 6.5 square meters. In about 20 mph wind averages, that was plenty when I was just sailing around on my own. With gusty offshore winds, though, it was not enough for flying starts: I could not get planing in the lulls, and if I approached the crowded start line semi-planing, the dirty air from the other sailors would stop me dead. So after the first race, I did standing starts, and followed the guys in the Open class who hit the start line at full speed. That meant that I'd often have to deal with someone in the water at the first mark - usually really close to the mark. Going wide while barely powered also did not work so well. Even in dry jibes, I usually lost most speed, and would have someone on the inside who'd steal the air I needed to get going.  Falling was much worse - in the last high wind race, the wind had dropped, and I watched the entire fleet pass me on the inside while I desperately tried to pump on a plane. Overall, my high wind race results were all over the place, with just a couple of first places in the Limited class when I got lucky with wind and jibes. Fortunately, the light wind races went a bit better, since I was using the same board I use for light wind freestyle - my Bic WindSUP.  Knowing the board really well was essential in one race where I had goofed off a bit at the start, and had to catch up with the guy ahead of me. I got close before the last jibe mark, which he took quite close. But I was able to turn the Bic on a dime right at the mark, and therefore got the inside position. After some furious pumping, the better board speed of my SUP allowed me to get next to him, at which point he had to deal with my dirty air. Game over!

The complete race results are below (click on the images for a larger version).

Overall race results (1-5 high wind, 6-10 light wind). Note that scoring

Scoring was done with Sailwave version 2.23.4.