A Week at JWorld - Spring 2001

Note: Pat Dolan spent a week in JWorld's Advanced Racing Class during the spring of 2001. This is his report.

I spent the week of March 19th in JWorld's Advanced Racing Class in Key West. Lot's of wind. Excellent Instruction. Great people. Fun Place to be.

Joyce and her 12 year old son Sam were my boat mates. Joyce races an Atlantic in Maine each August. Sam has spent time in Optimists and 420s. They proved to be great boat-mates - fun, positive, eager to learn, and good skills to begin with.

We sailed J24s. This boat looks for a crew of 4 to 6, with a total crew weight limit of around 850. Tactician, Driver, Jib Trimmer, Pit, Foredeck would be a typical 5 person crew. The driver trims the mainsail. With three of us, we had a driver, jib trimmer, foredeck and our instructor usually did the pit work.

Monday saw winds in the 15 to 20 knot range. We sailed in the Atlantic with a lot of chop. This was our opportunity to learn how to sail the boat - rotating often through each position. Upwind, we worked on tacking and driving in chop. Downwind, we did a lot of spinnaker work.

As the day went on, we saw more wind. This provided an opportunity to work on broach recovery. Putting our boat into broach after broach, we developed a lot of confidence in handling those situations.

On Tuesday, the wind was a little higher, but we found a place to sail on the Carribien side in the lee of a shallow area where we didn't have much chop. Again, lots of practice on windward-leeward courses with special attention given to attacking and defending downwind.

Wednesday we had a new instrutor and spent the day practicing starts. (JWorld rotated instructors after the second day so we had the benefit of four different instructors. We thought it was very helpful to get different views - and all the instructors were top notch.) We did about 15 starts with some practice in between on special skill areas. JWorld emphasizes sailing an oval course between the starboard layline to the pin and the starboard layline to the committee boat about three boat lengths below the starting line. The oval can be shortened as necessary to get to where you want to be just before the start.

I was taking the US Sailing Basic Keelboat exam, so Thursday started out with the written test. As opportunities arose on the water, the instructors worked in the on-water side. Then, with a new instructor onboard, we set out to practice racing. We did five races - each about an hour long. Our boat won each race.

We practiced 360 and 720 penalty turns when we got too far ahead. With the spinnaker flying, a penalty turn is to lower the spinnaker, do a 360 turn and then reset the spinnaker. The technique they use here is:
* Leave the pole up.
* Drop the spinnaker to the foredeck.
* Someone lies on the spinnaker so it doesn't get caught by the wind.
* Gybe, then quickly tack.
* The spinnaker goes up again coming out of the tack.
This technique proves to be very fast.

Friday was regatta day. Lighter winds for the first time in the week - about 5 knots. Five firsts for our boat - but with several close calls. We rounded the windward mark second in one race, but were able to attack with the spinnaker and passed when we were able to drive the other boat past the layline. In another race we were third at the windward mark, but sailed well and were able to get inside the lead boat at the leeward mark when they approached too close and left us a hole.

A typical day was lecture from 9 AM to 10 AM, on the water until 4 PM, debrief at the bar and fall into bed - totally exhausted.

A lot of the JWorld students stayed at "Whispers" Bed and Breakfast. It was an old home, but very clean and furnished with beautiful antique furniture. The breakfasts were fabulous.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

Pat Dolan