Kip Lar Rieu Tahoe Champs report

The 2012 Kip Lar Rieu Tahoe Laser Fleet Championship was held Sept 8 & 9 on Stampede Reservoir in Tahoe National Forest. This was the first year Tahoe YC has tried a two day event. They are hoping more people will be tempted to make the drive with the longer format. I enjoyed this event a great deal and plan on returning next year.

The lake, which is a few miles north of I80 exit 194, near Truckee CA, is at an elevation of roughly 6000 feet. Besides the earthen dam, the launching ramp is the only visible man-made structure. The lake is surrounded by mountains and trees. The Tahoe fleet reserves a large group campsite close by. It is a family friendly event with camping, BBQ'ing and kids. The day time highs were in the 90s out of the shade of trees, and night time lows were in the 40s with clear star-filled skies. On shore, the breeze can be hot in the sun out of the shade. On the water, the warm puffs feel great with the cool water. I wore only a rashguard under my flotation both days, which was a little cold by the end of the day. There are volunteer inspectors attempting to prevent invasive species contaminating the reservoir.

There were 10 races, 6 on Sat and 4 on Sun. There was a weather mark, leeward mark, and a restricted start-finish between them. 9 races were once-arounds and 1 race a twice-around. The once-arounds would take 20-30 minutes. The race committee faced a challenge of anchoring boats and marks in 120' of water or so. They did a great job, and got races off quickly. There was very little waiting time between races. Other than the first race of the day, the Standard and Radial fleets rarely were at the start-finish line at the same time. They rarely crossed courses on the water too. There were no other classes racing. Just Lasers. Really nice to have the course to ourselves. One of many positive aspects of this event. There were some motorboats on the lake, but they chose to stay out of where we raced. Powerboat chop was not a factor, and I may only have seen it once. Wind waves were small compared to chop on the central SF bay, and not too much for someone comfortable at Shoreline or TI.

This is the only event the Tahoe fleet sails on Stampede Reservoir, so they are hesitant about making strong claims of local knowledge. A common pattern is for breeze from the eastern end of the lake in the morning, with breezes from the westerly end of the lake filling in as the day heats up. They say they typically get 10-15 knots when the westerly flow is established, which is one reason they choose this place at this time of year. This year was the windiest in recent recall. Both days there were times I was as fully hiked as I can get. The wind strengths were above that which the Tahoe fleet races in most of the time. The wind strength would not have been uncomfortable for people used to sailing on the central SF bay. So leaving some wiggle room the steady breeze level peaked at Force 4 on Sat and solid Force 5 by the end of racing on Sunday. Both days had puffs noticeably above those averages. I'd welcome follow-up differences of opinions on that along with anything and everything else.

On Saturday, the RC waited roughly 2 hours for a good westerly flow to establish itself. The fleet hung out on shore in the parking lot boatyard. After the 1st race, the average breeze backed off a bit for the next few races, though still with strong puffs coming through, but the steady breeze level picked up to continuous full-hike territory again for the last races.

On Sunday, with an earlier 11am scheduled start to get people home early, the RC only delayed 30 mins because the forecast for stronger wind was accurate and the westerly established itself sooner. The actual puffs probably didn't reach the predicted 30 knots, but they were solid mid 20s and significantly stronger than the steady level of breeze. It was plenty exciting. There was some excellent flat water planing downwind when you caught a puff. The last beat of the last race, all four leaders capsized going to weather due to huge puffs.

There were big shifts, and strong geographic shifts. One race about 30 secs off the start line with everyone pretty much still lined up on starboard, there was a big left shift, everyone tacks over and now it looks like a fetch to the mark for everyone. That happened several times, sometimes holding most of the way to the mark and sometimes shifting back much sooner. People seemed to think that on average the left side at the top of the beat was the place to be. Banging the left corner was dangerous though, as it could get light in there. I didn't see anyone bang the right corner and come in strong. I went up the middle and middle right sometimes, and came into the weather mark with or as one of the leaders. On the 2nd beat of the once-around course, from the leeward mark to the finish line, taking a long port tack into the shore and starboard tack back at the finish line was a pretty reliable gain, except when there was more a lot more pressure in the middle.

Shifts could be highly localized. At the last start, the port end of the line got a huge header the starboard end did not get. The port end boats tacked and crossed a few boatlengths behind the boats on the starboard end of the line, less then 15 secs off the line.

In the Standard fleet, at the end of the first day, Team Pullen (Buff sailed some of the races on Sat) had established themselves as the regatta leader. 2nd place after day 1 seemed a toss-up as some people had had some good and bad races, and some people had been consistently near the top but not breaking through. Seemed like it could be any of half-a-dozen sailors. On Sunday, Joe Denton and myself started showing more boatspeed than the fleet in the strong breeze.

I didn't sail in the Radial fleet. Please feel free to add comments on that here: http://svendsens-grand-prix.myfleet.org/msgs/?f=1

A number of sailors were really only at home in the 5-15 knot range. One sailor was competing with broken ribs, which wasn't working too well in the above average breeze. There were some equipment problems, including use of "old" rigging. So there was some attrition over the course of the regatta. Some people were able to finish all the races and got to expand their envelope a little.

There were some things about the the 6000 foot altitude and mountain environment that were different from the coastal one I normally live in. The usual 1.0L of fluids on the water was not enough. 1.5L probably would have been. The sun was stronger, it was easier to get burned. I didn't notice any "thinner air" at all while sailing.

This event is in the calendar at laser.org. Some people said they couldn't find it. There are so many events listed on laser.org's calendar that you need to use the search page to reduce the number of events that are returned, so you don't have scrolling issues. If you search 9/6/12 to 9/10/12 and select district 24, you will see the Kip Lar Rieu Tahoe Champs listed.

West Coast Sailing Grand Prix