Mooregasm's Huntington — Moore 24 National Association

The High Sierras provided exactly what we Moore sailors have come to expect from Huntington Lake - sunshine and dependable breeze. 15 Moores ventured to compete this year, the largest fleet in the event by quite a ways. The breeze rolled in at 8-12 knots 15 minutes before the first start on Saturday, right on schedule. Tactics were pretty straight forward - start low on the line and work the left toward the boy scout camp, then up the south shore looking for big leftys to bring you out to the mark.

Lowly Worm showed consistently good starts, excellent speed and height in the first race and led the way in that first race all the way around. The Worm, Mooregasm, Wet Spot, Watt's More, Firefly, Mooretician, and Nobody's Girl all had top 3 finishes in Day one's 3 races, with Broken Lizard pulling consistent top-5 finishes to keep things super tight. That's how tight the racing was throughout the whole event, with five boats sharing the top-3 finishes on Day 2.

On Mooregasm, after a rough start in race 1 where we just tried to hang in there, we discovered the boat felt super fast and our crew work would be fantastic. After a 3rd row start in race 1, we simply hung in bad air and made the best of things. The fleet was keying in on the point on the left, prepping to short tack the upper left shore. We got there in about 8th, so decided we couldn't play that game. We found a good puff to take us out to the middle a bit more than the leaders, and a good shift to come back on leaving us just short of the leading 5 boats at the top mark.

Our starts improved in subsequent races, but the lesson of not playing the left shore at all costs stuck with us through the weekend. While we led to the point and that left shore in races 2-5 - we still looked for pressure and shifts that begged us to step out to the middle a little on the way upwind, and this often paid dividends enabling us to stretch out on the fleet in several races. When in doubt, we committed to sailing toward and lining up for the next pressure/puff.

Downwind legs required patience and a keen eye on where puffs were landing and how they were tracking down the lake. Only in race 5 on Sunday, did the breeze go super light and try to turn the fleet inside out. But even in that race, the breeze settled back in and was super steady and consistent for the most part.

Mooregasm credits unexpectedly good team dynamics with the lion's share of our success. The cockpit work and calm demeanor set a smooth and positive tone on our boat that caused everyone to up their games. It didn't hurt that Mooregasm felt super fast and we had great height upwind. This I credit to work we've been doing with our local fleet instilling some consistency and discipline in setting up our boats. We've studied both the methods of measurement and differences in settings boat to boat. This weekend, we sailed with a rake of 364" measured with main halyard to stern, 341" jib halyard to bow. Rig tension was moderate, 400 lowers/600 uppers - though we know my gauge reads heavy so actual tension is 10-15% below those numbers. We have our jib leads well inboard, trim the #1 and #2 quite tight, managing slot with twist via lead height. From there, we play the mainsheet as needed to sail the boat as flat as possible.

One high point came on Saturday race 3, when the day's best puff on the lower part of the lake allowed us to heat it up and get her cooking at 13 knots for about 30 seconds:):) All in all, it was a great event with some great tight racing, beautiful weather, good friends and good fun. We were thrilled to win and more thrilled to have Dave Josselyn present the Verutti Trophy to Josselyn until next year.

Thanks everyone! See you at Nationals!!

Steve

Mooregasm's Huntington /July 22, 2022 by Karl Robrock