"We must participate in as many regattas as possible in a 49er season!" This is the lesson we learned from the regatta that took place in Palma, Spain from March 31 to April 8, 2023.
It is just over a year before the Olympic Games, and the level of competition becomes very high. The qualifying regattas are coming up soon for all nations, and crews are bringing their A-game.
The few major World or European Championships before the Olympics are often the regattas chosen by sports federations to qualify their athletes. However, the specific selection criteria are always confidential. Regarding the qualifications for athletes at the 2024 Olympics, this information will be given in the next six months to French sailors who have registered, including us 😉.
During qualifying regattas, crews from the same country become direct competitors. The confidentiality of the qualification details helps to avoid tactical alliances aimed at eliminating a higher-ranked competitor.
For example, during a qualifying regatta for France, the highest-ranked French crew (let's call them A) could be targeted by another less successful French crew (B), who would team up with a foreign crew (E) to hinder Crew A. In this scenario, E's attacks on A would deteriorate A's performance during the regatta, increase B's chances of finishing ahead of A in the overall ranking, and therefore increase B's chances of qualifying instead of A. B could then return the favor by helping E during its own qualifying regatta...
This would be far from the normal ethics of a fleet regatta, which is supposed to be run in "every man for himself" mode!
The Trofeo Princesa Sofia is undoubtedly not a qualifying regatta for many countries, but it still has a major stake, almost as important. It is the qualifying regatta for the Test Event, a simulation of the Olympic regatta. The latter takes place in conditions as close as possible to those of the Olympics and serves as a training regatta. In addition, it is essential to emphasize that a good performance at the Test Event is highly regarded by the selection committee and increases the chances of qualifying for the Olympic Games. What could be better to spice things up!
Suffice it to say that the Trofeo Princesa Sofia was a major event for all crews daring to compete in the 2024 Olympics.
This annual regatta is part of the World Cup Series. As its name suggests, it is one of three international regattas of the season along with Almer, Netherlands and Kiel, Germany. It takes place over five days: two days of qualifiers, two days of finals, and one day for the Medal Race, which only runs the top 10 crews, with points counting double.
After this long context setting, we will now tell you about the course of this regatta, our performances and shortcomings, as well as the analyses and lessons we have drawn from it.
As usual, whenever a technical term is used, you will find its meaning in the glossary at the bottom.
DAY 1 - Q1
Conditions: thermal wind* of 10 to 15 knots, irregular in strength and direction due to cloud passages and squalls that disrupt the warming of the coast.
The race committee sends us on the water with a slight delay due to the unstable wind. We arrive on the course for a first start at 12:45 p.m.
As we start a good race with a clean start, in the middle of the line, we find ourselves in an almost catastrophic situation a few tens of meters before the first windward mark. Having sailed on the left side of the course, in a fresh and undisturbed wind, we arrive, on port, towards the right side of the course. It is then that we see Lucas Rual and Emile Amoros coming from afar, on starboard, on the right side of the course (a crew that participated in the Tokyo Olympics, with whom we organized a promotion evening at ECE, for those who may have forgotten 😉).
We estimate that we have time to pass in front of them and that we have no collision to avoid. But as time passes, we realize that they have a better speed and that they will probably have to avoid us. However, in a port-starboard situation, starboard has priority and inflicts a penalty on port if starboard had to modify its trajectory to avoid it.
We realize too late that we will not pass. In reaction, we tack. But in the rush, we miss our tack and narrowly avoid capsizing. Quickly, we get back on course and start again, having lost a few places.
Beautiful turns at the marks and gates allow us to regain these places. We finish 15th out of a qualifying fleet of 33 boats. Frustrating...
Second race of the day: almost the same as the first. We take a good start, play the paying left side, and reach the top 10 approaching the windward mark. This time, our former colleagues from Hong Kong, Akira Sakai and Russell Aylsworth, arrive on starboard. We estimate again that we can pass in front of them. But we realize once again that they are coming in with speed. We clench our teeth! After the crossing, we have a doubt about whether they had to avoid us or not. We hear a slight "Protest" from them, confirming that we were indeed at fault.
We decide to do our penalty turn and once again lose a lot of places... The decision to do this 360° penalty turn is the right one because we know not to risk being disqualified and ruining a race when it is only the first day. However, it's very annoying to make the same mistake twice in one day.
By analyzing the GPS tracks afterwards, we realized that the boats on port were going slower than the boats on starboard. This explains why our judgment seemed good at the beginning of the situation but turned out to be wrong in the last few seconds.
Analyzing these situations seems simple at first glance: it is better to tack early or bear off behind and lose one or two places rather than losing ten by making a 360° penalty or making a catastrophic tack.
But from my humble experience, it's a bit more complicated than that for the following reasons:
When you're not among the front runners, you have to make dozens of close crossings, so it's difficult to make a perfect judgment every time.
Taking no risk in each situation would mean tacking at every crossing. However, this would involve maneuvering (thus losing speed) and losing all control over our positioning in the course, with a high chance of ending up in the middle, where the wind is weakest due to the leeward effect of the fleet.
Bearing away seems to be the most judicious decision because it avoids making an additional maneuver and allows us to head towards the side of the course that initially interests us.
In the majority of cases, bearing away is indeed the safest and least costly decision. However, there are situations where bearing away can be very costly, such as approaching the windward mark. For example, approaching the windward mark, the fleet becomes denser to pass the mark one after the other. Let's say we are coming from the left side of the course, on port tack, and we want to reach the right layline* to tack onto starboard before rounding the mark. Due to the density of the fleet and the increasing number of starboard tack boats, we are highly likely to find ourselves in a collision course where we do not have priority. Moreover, a starboard tack boat can hide a larger group of boats behind it, also on starboard tack. A bear away under one boat can quickly turn into a bear away under a group of boats. In this situation, it would be better to tack before the group. But tacking is no longer an option because we will have to cross the layline anyway to round the mark on starboard. Therefore, tacking would only delay the problem.
As you can see, often, we have to find the right balance in taking risks and have the most lucid reading of the situation to make the best decision, all in a matter of seconds because we have to react quickly.
At the end of this first day and our debrief with the coach, we decided to establish a more methodical, clearer, and continuous communication loop as soon as we estimate there is a crossing situation.
This communication between us consists of starting by naming the boat arriving on starboard and potentially dangerous in a crossing. Then, if we see that there is a real risk of a collision course, we signal to the other crew member out loud what we believe to be the preferred decision: "favorable tack" or "favorable bearing away." This allows us to remain perfectly synchronized on the imminent decision to be made and on the maneuver that will result from that decision.
This communication loop was implemented the next day and seems to be paying off. The proof is that we did not encounter this problem again in the same crossing situation in the following days.
DAY 2 - Q2
Conditions: Slightly weaker but more stable thermal breeze. 12 knots.
Three races were held during this day. We noticed, after the first race, that the wind was difficult to grasp. Sometimes the left side worked, and sometimes the right side did. We couldn't find a regular pattern. As a result, we had trouble rounding the windward mark in the top pack.
We also spent too much time in the wind shadow of other boats, which severely impacted our race results. For example, in the second race of the day, we had a good start on the right-hand side in a small pack. Emile and Lucas arrived with speed to windward of us and passed us. Instead of quickly tacking to clear our wind, we chose to continue going to the left side of the course. Our reasoning was that the left side had paid off in the first race and we needed to search for the effect of the coast on the wind. However, the plan did not go as expected. Firstly, we realized too late that we were losing many places while sailing in the wind shadow of Emile and Lucas compared to the rest of the fleet. And secondly, the left side did not pay off during this upwind leg.
Two elements are important to note here:
1. When sailing in a wind shadow, we lose some speed and height. Our speed relative to the mark is reduced. Every second spent in a wind shadow is time lost compared to the rest of the fleet, which generally sails in fresh air. It is therefore obvious to always want to sail out of the wind shadow to be as fast as possible. However, we can easily find ourselves in situations where we prefer not to react to a wind shadow rather than tack. We may have the impression that we are not losing so many places compared to the boats in our pack and we may think that it is preferable to continue on the same tack rather than waste time maneuvering. Each situation is different, and there are cases where it is better to stay in the wind shadow to get a better positioning rather than tacking immediately. Ultimately, it's a bit like the reasons for crossing. With a poor start, we cross many wind shadows, and tacking each time can cost us dearly in time and compromise our entire race strategy. We therefore imposed a new rule on board: if more than one boat is in our wind shadow, we tack!
2. It is important to analyze the type of wind as early as possible to exploit the opportunities it offers rather than suffer its consequences. It so happens that, that day in Palma, the wind was oscillating. This means that there were significant angle variations in the wind at relatively regular time intervals. In an oscillating wind, it is therefore necessary to estimate the time between each oscillation (in direction) to be able to position oneself on the right side of the course at the right time.
We included an anemometer on the coach's Zodiac to better read the strength and direction of the wind and analyze it more precisely. This should shorten the time it takes to analyze the wind and make our assumptions more reliable.
The second day was therefore more difficult than the first, despite less obvious mistakes. It brought us down to 65th place, tied with four other teams, just outside the Silver fleet. Your mathematical mind is right: we were indeed in the second third since it should count 66 boats out of a total of 99 boats entered. However, the 49er class has the particularity of making Gold fleets of 25 boats. This means that the limit to enter the Silver fleet was at 62nd place. But since we were 5 boats tied for 65th place, we still had a chance to pass the 62nd place...
Hence the following question you might ask yourself: what is the ranking order when boats are tied as in our case? The answer is: the order is established based on the best respective races of the tied crews during the qualifying phases. The crew with the best race is first, and the one who did the worst, last.
Unfortunately, our best race was 14th, which was lower than our tied competitors.
On the eve of the final phases, some frustration stems from this qualifying phase. We said to ourselves, "If we hadn't had a catastrophic tack in the first race, or if we hadn't had to do our 360° in the second, or if we hadn't sailed for 10 minutes in a wind shadow in the fourth, etc., we would have easily made it into the Silver fleet...". This is probably one of the hardest things to accept in a regatta. As long as we don't win the regatta, we always have a regret. Whether we are at the doors of the Silver fleet, at the doors of the Gold fleet, or even second in the overall standings, we can always look back and find a mistake that prevented us from doing better. Many things happen during a regatta and it is easy to find the moments where we lacked clarity and where we made the wrong decision. This is even more true at our level and that is why we always need to analyze afterwards and understand what we could have done better.
DAY 3 - 1F
The two final days took place in very light winds, 5-10 knots. The thermal wind pump was slow to start up. Furthermore, being in the Bronze fleet, we were racing on the furthest course from the coast, which put us slightly behind the thermal wind.
Although the weather conditions were light, this day was intense. Our winter training had prepared us well for the tough and moderate conditions, but we hadn't trained for light wind sailing in a fleet race for a while. In fact, our last race in light winds was at the Junior World Championships on Lake Como in July 2022. As a result, we had lost our technical and tactical reflexes in light wind. The rest of the fleet, more experienced in these conditions, was clearly able to adapt to the "light wind mode" more quickly than we were.
So, it was another difficult day, both technically and mentally.
On board, we were struggling to find solutions to our problems. Our coach, Arnaud, couldn't help us during the races as he was required by the French Sailing Federation to coach French crews in the Gold fleet racing on different courses.
Nevertheless, it was a good exercise. It was the first time for us to sail the 49er without any external input. So, we had to analyze our races solely based on our own impressions and by studying what our competitors were able to achieve.
To help each other, we got closer to the other young French crew, Tim Dépéry and Corentin Goulon. The light wind allowed us to get closer and exchange ideas between races.
The sailing sensations were not good that day. In talking with Tim, who has more than a year of experience with carbon sails, we realized that we were probably too "full". Without going into technical details, carbon sails are stiffer and require more tension to flatten them than the transparent monofilm sails we had before. So, it is likely that our lack of speed was due to an under-tensioned mast that was not flattening the sail enough. A too-full sail in light wind generates drag and disrupts the airflow. It is important to keep a laminar flow through the sails to avoid drag that slows down the boat.
It was also one of the first times we sailed with carbon sails in light wind.
Of course, there could be many reasons, but we were undoubtedly poor that day. And we couldn't find a solution.
DAY 4 - 2F
On the final day of the competition, we raced four races in very similar conditions to the previous day. We scored results of 10, 3, 31, and 11. We approached this last day with a desire to experiment and try new things without putting too much pressure on the results. We tried port-side starts, which proved to be very effective.
The race in which we finished third began with a port-side start on the side of the committee boat. We extended our lead and headed toward the right side of the course.
Sailing in fresh winds, on the outer edges of the course, and without constraints from surrounding boats, was the key to our success in this race. We headed towards the right side of the course without making any maneuvers, without getting into any wind shadows, and with the optimal angle to the wind. This allowed us to maintain a higher average speed and better angle than most of the rest of the fleet.
In light wind conditions, it is important to understand that the fleet has a big impact on the strength and direction of the wind. By placing ourselves on one side of the course rather than in the middle, we were able to exploit this effect to our advantage throughout the race. Here are the main impacts of the fleet on the wind:
The wind slows down when it hits the boats' rigging. Since the boats are generally located in the center of the course, the wind is weaker in the center.
At the start, the "buffer effect" modifies the strength and direction of the wind. The buffer effect is the consequence of an obstacle on the wind. On a starting line, a buffer effect appears due to the presence of the fleet. The wind tends to go around the buffer and is therefore more to the right on the left side of the line and more to the left on the right side of the line. The boats placed at the ends of the line, therefore, have a stronger wind and a more optimal direction than the boats placed in the middle of the line: they can sail at a higher angle and faster.
Furthermore, the buffer effect decreases the further away from the start line, and the wind returns to its normal direction. The boat that starts at the end of the line can benefit from this gradually decreasing angle to see the boats to its wind align behind it. It can then turn and cross in front of them.
You may be a little lost in these explanations, so here is a diagram to visualize the effects of the fleet on the wind:
Buffer effect after the start, consequence on the wind and on the fleet
On the diagrams above, the green boats at the ends have a better wind (red arrows), both in angle and strength. They can therefore either head up and sail closer to the wind or bear away and accelerate. In theory, they sail in better conditions than the rest of the fleet.
So, should you always start at the ends of the starting line?
The answer is not always positive. The ends of the line are often very crowded because they are highly contested. The risk of making a very bad start is therefore higher, especially at our level where we can easily be outmaneuvered by more experienced and technical crews.
It is also important to take into account all the other elements of the course that influence the decision on where to start, including:
- The orientation of the line. More toward the pin or the committee boat?
- The current. Strength and direction?
- The density of the fleet. More toward the pin or the committee boat?
- The favored side of the course. Right or left?
- The position of the mark relative to the wind. More to the right or the left of the wind?
- The effect of the belly.
We will conclude this summary with a brief explanation of the belly effect. A starting line often has what is called a "belly": a curvature in the fleet relative to the starting line with the boats at the ends closer to the line than those in the middle. This belly effect is amplified when the current comes from a direction close to that of the wind and when it is not possible to take a transit. A transit is a fixed visual reference on land that allows a crew to evaluate its distance from the starting line.
In short, without a transit, it is more difficult for a boat in the middle of the line to evaluate its distance from the starting line than for a boat at the end of the line. These boats in the middle, for fear of crossing the line early, tend to place themselves further back without even realizing it. This creates a curvature in the fleet's arrangement just a few seconds before the start.
Good use of the belly on a starting line by the green boat
The green boat in the diagram takes a good start in the middle of the line thanks to the transit it took before the race.
In conclusion, as you can see, we learned a lot during this Trofeo Princesa Sofia, in contact with the world's best crews. Being one of the 17 crews under 23 years old (out of 99 participants), and probably one of the youngest in this group (19 years old for Malo and 20 years old for me) and the youngest French crew competing, we had a lot to learn from our elders. That's why we said at the beginning of this summary: "We must participate in as many regattas as possible in a 49er season!"
Next step: the Olympic Week in Hyères, from April 24th to 29th. We expect the level to be just as high!
We would like to thank METEOCONSULT for their support throughout the regatta and their daily briefings of the weather forecast.
Thanks to ECE Engineering School for their continuous support. And thank YOU for having read this summary until the end!
Glossary:
Thermal wind: wind generated by a pressure difference due to uneven heating of the sea and the Earth.
Layline: imaginary line cutting the windward buoy and parallel to the close-hauled angle on starboard.
Photo credit: Sailing Energy