Monsoon Cup 2009 Qualifiers open for teams registration

The registration for the Monsoon Cup Qualifiers are now open, both the Asian qualifiers and Malaysian Qualifier.
You can read the news at the Monsoon Cup site.

Having being part of the winning team for the 2006 and 2007 Malaysian qualifier, and after missing out the 2008 Malaysian qualifier, I am more than keen to participate in this year's Malaysian qualifier.

In 2006

We have Tiffany (skipper), Rolf (Mainsail) , Jeremy(Pit Man), Yew(Trimer), and me on bow.

It was the first year the Malaysian Qualifier was held and we were proud to be the first Malaysian team to be involve in the World Match Racing Tour.




In 2007 , we have Chris with us instead of Rolf, we were better prepared than 2006 and won the Malaysian Qualifier again.





In 2008, the main Monsoon Cup event clashes with Phuket's King's Cup, in which some of us was committed to it, therefore we had to give 2008's qualifier a miss.

This year 2009. We hope to be part of it again, and hopefully win the Malaysian qualifier again.

This year's challenge will be lead by Jeremy Koo.




Sean

Platu 25: The Spinnaker pole

Initially I have wanted to write this post together with the post on Spinnaker Hoisting, but I decided not to, to avoid the post being too long, and also I want this post to focus on the setting of the spinnaker pole.

While I was in Thailand Platu open, I notice some of the platu boats have a very creative way of storing/ setting up the spinnaker pole. Their system are very similar to those use in a Laser2, where they store/launch the pole from the boom. So imagine this the pole stored beside the boom with the topping lift and also the down haul still attach. I see this as a, another way to take some strain of the bowman. With the pole now located on the boom, bowman will not be the nearest to it anymore, will the Pitman help?, or the pole is meant to sprung out of the boom by itself when the topping lift and down haul, are pulled, but both of the topping lift and down hauls are loose in the first place to put the pole beside the boom, so does that mean 2 lines have to be pulled? either ways this gives us an interesting thoughts to ponder. My first thought, this system could end up creating more work than the standard system, maybe not for the bowman, perhaps for the pitman.

I also notice that most of the platu boats have a fixed down haul. I can understand this given the design of the boat, but its still a big no no to me.

Why not a fixed down haul and also on why I understand them having the down haul fixed.
If you have sailed a few one design boat before you will notice not all have the same system. In a platu, the topping lift, the down haul, the spinnaker pole are set/hoist outside the front sail. While on some other boat ( lets call it boat B) the, the topping lift, the down haul, the spinnaker pole is set/hoist in between the 2 front sail sheet.

Lets imagine a scene, a typical one , windward mark port rounding, bear a way set, downwind, a jibe, a windward drop, and then to leeward mark port rounding.

With the above scene, Boat B would have change the down haul before the drop, so that the front sail is clear to be hoist. For more elaboration, after we hoist the spin, we drop the front sail on the port side, after a jibe, we will need the front sail to be hoist on starboard side en route to a port rounding, to do that, we will realize that the down haul is in the way, therefore we will need to un-clip the down haul, move the front sail to start board side and clip the down haul back, now the front sail is clear to be hoist. During the drop , we can hoist the front sail first, then drop the pole and drop the spinnaker.

On a platu if we did it the exact way on a boat B, we will find the topping lift inside the front sail, which is wrong.

So in a platu we normally do not change the down haul, instead during the drop we utilize a crew to act as a man pole, while we lower the pole 1st before hoisting the front sail, and dropping the spinnaker. This very much justify the fixed down haul, but in racing shits happens, in times we may be under pressure by another boat, and we will find the down haul getting in to our way at times, so in times, in those time we may find the needs un clip the down haul.

But sometimes, I do use the boat B way, on a platu; especially when we are under crew and do not have a Man pole. How do i deal with the topping lift inside the front sail? I un-clip it, and bring it outside during upwind, you may think tacking after mark rounding may be a problem before i sort out the topping lift, I overcome this by making sure the topping lift have enough slack and not lock, therefore when the boat tack, the front sail will be able to change side without the interference of the topping lift. It will just drag the slack of the topping lift aside.

Sean

Platu 25: Hoisting the Spinnaker.

With the last Platu Regatta still fresh in my mind, I am going to do some posting on hoisting and dropping techniques.

Its always good to be out racing; as the exposure will enables us to acquire new techniques.

Hoisting the spinnaker always seems relatively easy, and because of such view Bowman are expected to do it right and fast.

Where do we Hoist the chute from?

In Ocean Marina Yacht Club, Pattaya the Platu racer there seem to favor a hoist from the Cockpit, while I always hoist from the hatch; unless I did some improvisation on the last drop , Perhaps later I will do a post later on how Bowman improvise in different scenario.

Now back to the topic,
Putting myself in their shoes and having hoist a chute from a cockpit before, I could only see one clear advantage from hoisting from the cockpit, it put less strain on the bowman. Hoisting will be easier as there is less friction in the cockpit compares to the hatch, the chute is reachable and manageable, the Pittman will now be in charge of the drop, and there is no worries about water coming in from the hatch in choppy sea condition.

Why do i still favor a hoist from the hatch? I am going to take some of my words back, the only advantage I actually see on a cockpit hoist is that water does not comes in from the hatch. A hoist from the hatch will enables the spinnaker to fill in much faster, with the spinnaker already near the bow it will not take much time for the trimmers to brace the spin sheet and fly the chute. Strain or no strain we just have to deal with it. Flying the spin as soon as possible and getting the boat moving is our main priority. Water coming in from the hatch can be minimize by putting the spin completely inside, or a decent helm-ing .



Sean

Thailand Platu Open 2009

Last Weekend the 13th & 14th of March 2009, at Pattaya.
I joined Rolf for the Thai Platu Open.
We have with us Aili, Yew and David.

It was a rushing hectic weekend , as we flew in on a Friday Morning
and left on Sunday Evening, I got back to work on Monday morning thinking I need more weekends like this.

On Friday itself, we went on the water, to work out our crew work. After a few hoists and drops plus numerous tacking; we begins to feel more comfortable with our crew work, and were convince we are ready for race.

Like every Race day, Its always a race back to the bar; and we manage to do just that on Saturday and this is how we did it.

Day 1 , Wind speed at 7-12 knots, shifty
Race 1,
We started at the pin, with some shifts we manged to reach the windward mark 1st; we had awesome speed. But after the leeward mark, on the second upwind, we were complacent and a shift enables Scott to make ground and round the windward mark 1st on the 2nd leg.
We were tailing closely and pushing the boat hard,as we went close to the finishing line, they went for the pin while we went for the boat and we ended up losing by a whisker.

Race 2,
Rolf and Dave realize the wind shifted to the left, as we went for a port start at the pin, we were then yelled starboard by the whole fleet. we double tack twice to avoid 2 starboard boats as we stubbornly wants to stay on port. We manage to be the lowest and first boat port boat on course. Others may be too preoccupied to notice the occurring shift, avoiding starboard boats, and staying on starboard tack waiting waiting for another starboard boat to tack, they waited too long and hit the lay line. As the wind shifted more to our favor we manage a decent lead and end the race with a bullet.

Race 3,
We started on starboard . It was not one of those best start. we were late by 5 seconds, but position wise we were lucky, as some boats were OCS, and we were looking at, at least top 3 after the starting line. With some shifts and good boat speed, we manage to break from the fleet and round the windward marks 1st, On the second leg, the windward mark were moved due to the shift, and that further consolidate our position as others seems to be more content, playing safe following us, we then end the race with another bullet.

Race 4,
We started on starboard again, by now, the wind speed drop to around 7 to 8 knots; which is very good for us as our rival look more the heavier boat . We reach the windward mark 1st again commanding a decent lead, and went back 1st .

It was a great day for us, with 3 bullets out of 4 race.


Day 2,
10-17 knots ,Constant and not a single shift.

Race 5,
Call it a day, we were complacent. Scott covered us from the start. through out the race course we were basically in a tacking duel. Chris from the SMU managed a decent lead while we race it out with Scott for the second place. We lost the duel and ended up 3rd.

Race 6,
We were frustrated, again we did not manage one of those good start; and had Scott covering us closely from the start. As we play catching up, Scott managed to get a boat between us, and finish the race with the bullet; as we lost 2nd by a whisker a second time.

Race 7,
We basically blew our lead from Day 1, and are now down to the last race , as we are even on the score sheet with Scott. We thought we had a good start as we set off the start line; but were OCS, to make matter worst; we were already 7-8 boat lengths away from the line when we realize it.
We went back; and and tried to work our way up from the last place. 1st windward we were sixth, and then we push harder, hope for shifts to close up the gaps with fleet in front, by the leeward mark we were 5th; as we try to gain more boat lengths our effort were futile; as the race course ends with us finishing 5th.

Overall Results

	Sail	Boat	Skipper	Total
1	124	The Ferret	Duncanson,Scott	10
2	117	The StringRay	Heemskerk,Rolf	11
3	130	The Fox	Lim,Christopher	18
4	109	YachtPro	Razmilovic,Nils	18
5	120	The Weasel	Razali,Mohamad	33
6	103	Emma Mathilde XX	Jacobsen,Morten	36
7	125	Gulf Charters	Waldron,Ray	39
8	257	Pine Pacific	Yingsiri,Ithinai	40
9	122	Platu	Suyasin,Pote	43
10	112	Magic Dragon	Dover,Steve	58
11	114	Puma	,Kobayashi	62

Full Result @ http://www.omycsailing.com/platuopen09.shtml