Phil Crebbin reports from the SORC

The former Olympic 470 representative gets a taste of close racing in the 1D35 fleet in Miami

The last time I sailed the SORC was three years ago as tactician for an old friend from Canada, Dick Steffen, in his Level 30 'Zoo 2', in one of the PHRF classes. We won then, but it proved to be too long ago to provide me with any insight as to what was right this time around!
For the 2001 SORC I was pleased to be invited back by Sledd Shelhorse to sail again with his team on the 1D35 Avalanche, after a successful trip to Key West where we had come a close second. The other Brit who was with us in Key West, Ian Finlay, also came out again as bowman. So we had exactly the same team on the boat as in Key West.

Day one saw a long delay to wait for the sea breeze to get going and settle down. There was then a further delay when the Farr 40s had a general recall, but instead of sending them off again, the race committee decided to ignore the change to the sailing instructions and sent off the 1D35s instead. Confusion reigned and I informed the race committee that we would protest to seek redress.They realised they had not done it correctly, but we were told that they did not know how else to do it! Shortly afterwards, they fired three guns with the cancellation flag and proceeded with the starts in the right order.

During this time the sea breeze had shown a tendency to back while increasing slightly to 8 to 10kts. This also meant that the line was slightly port end biased. We could not see any major advantage when watching the Farr 40s, and if anything we thought there was a better line of breeze to the left. We made a perfect start at the pin end and very quickly could have tacked across the fleet. We chose to carry on a while longer, and shortly after tacking the inevitable started happening with a rapid trend towards the right, the likes of which we had not seen before or expected to happen in the way that it did.

After it had gone nearly 20 degrees, we tacked back onto starboard in the expectation that such a sudden shift would at least go back some of the way, but of course it went further right still, over 25 degrees in total, and we lost even more. So we rounded the first mark with only two boats behind us and with a big gap before the next group in front. It took us almost another full lap to catch up and get amongst the next group.

We were able to pick off two or three boats at the second windward mark and worked the lanes on the last run to get up to 8th by the finish, better than we feared it would be. This included the satisfaction of getting past Joss, our main rival who had narrowly beaten us at Key West. Loose Ruck did well to win the race, followed by Heartbreaker and Victory (with American John Bertrand on board as tactician).

Day two also saw a delay for the sea breeze to fill in, but it came in earlier than the previous day and settled more quickly. Race two saw fairly similar conditions to Race one. The wind moved right a bit before the start to create a slight starboard end bias.

With this and what had happened in Race one, we made a good start near the committee boat and, after a few had tacked off behind us, we chose to tack and protect the right. Lo and behold, the wind favoured the left this time and we ended up back in the pack, around 10th at the first mark. At least we did not have to catch up the main group this time and it was a question of working away at the speed and the windshifts to gain what we could.

The approach to the leeward gate is always a critical part of this in a tight fleet and we were again able to improve our position there. By the finish we were up to 5th and so felt we were getting back to respectability. Joss got back into the hunt with a win, followed by Heartbreaker and Victory repeating their first race results.

Race three was in a slightly better wind, 13 to 15kts. We still did not get the lanes quite right on the first leg, but there were no really major advantages. We were a bit better off at the first mark in about 6th place, but did not do as good a job as we should have done during the rest of the race.

After a good first run we were fighting for 3rd or 4th place, but a slight header combined with the short chop caused us to miss laying the second windward mark by a boat length or so. In a tight bunch this cost us a couple of places. The tactician messed up. We still had to fight hard to the finish to end up with another 5th place.

Heartbreaker won comfortably to establish a strong overall lead, as well as winning the prize for the day. Tabasco was 2nd with Joss 3rd. This brought Joss up to 2nd overall, and 2nd for the day, with Victory 3rd. We were surprised to find that Avalanche was now in equal 4th overall with Extreme, only 1 point off third and 2.25 points off second place. To be in that position after recording 8th, 5th, and 5th in the first three races really shows how tight the 1D35 fleet is and how difficult it is to be consistently at the front. Mind you, 'Heartbreaker' was proving to be the exception here with 2, 2, 1 finishes.

Day three saw a good 13 to 15kt breeze from the start which peaked at around 17kts before easing a bit later on. Race four started on another port biased line and we won the pin, went a short way before tacking and were launched over the whole fleet. A number of boats passed well behind as they tacked out further to the left, but then the whole group behind and to weather hooked into a left shift with more wind that took them all past.

Yet again we were down in about 10th at the first mark, after a start to die for. We went into good recovery mode during the rest of the race, gaining a place or two on every leg. At the finish we were able to use starboard gybe to hold Heartbreaker and Tabasco out from the line and get up to 4th place. Extreme won from Widowmaker, who were starting a very strong finish to the series, and Smiling Bulldog.