Predicted Log Cruiser Navigational Contest is way too much of a mouthful for anybody so it is readily reduced to "log Race". Much easier but much less descriptive. Sort of like trying to understand the old short hand (either Gregg or Pittman). For those of you unfamiliar with this approach to "racing", one lays out a prescribed course with many limits, and a number of legs; in our case here, 6. Each leg can have any number of sub legs. Then one "predicts" (calculates; and this is the boring part) how long in seconds it will take you to get from point A to point B. This is done for each of the 6 legs. An impartial observer on board clocks your actual time and in the end the actual and predicted times are compared. Unlike golf, errors are additive. In golf, a birdie (one under par) on one hole offsets a bogey (one over par) on another hole to yield a par for the two holes. Not so fast, Yamaguchi! This logical and delightful methodology does not apply to Joe Log Racer! Weather you are above (slow) or below (fast) for a leg, the seconds of error are additive. Par just ain't gonna happen. On the other hand, sub legs within a "leg" fit the golf analogy. Clear as mud, right? This whole calculation drill used to be a mathematical nightmare and one error in your calcs one place simply compounded your mistake elsewhere. A root canal was more pleasant! To the rescue of our disgruntled mathematician came the computer (you of course have a computer on your boat! Give me a break). Some clever fellow (in my case it was Capt. John Rosendale) came up with an Excel Spreadsheet (are you kidding me) program that to a great degree simplified all this rigorous math crap. So here comes the HW race and Jytte and I have decided to give it a try. It was very trying! I dusted off John's program which I hadn't used since 2002 and after laboriously laying out the race, entered my data. Nothing worked! Distance was too long, couldn't enter my finish time and there were goofy numbers everywhere. Fortunately, "Doctor" P/C Mike Henry makes house calls. After an hour of computer torture we figured out a few things: 1. Bob needs to learn the difference between True North and Magnetic North and 2. how to properly enter time and on what form to enter it. Struggle, struggle. Once straightened out, I confidently went to the Tuesday night (before the race) "Skull Session" where I was supposed to benefit from the "brain trust" of experience with regard to currents. Remember, tidal currents affect how long it takes to get from point A to point B! I was concerned that I was the only one who brought real paper charts and no lap top computer. The lounge looked a bit like a Combat Information Center on a Navy ship. Good grief! Undaunted, I took my precious, penciled in data home and entered it. I was ready; bring on the race! Hmmmm, not so fast. We need fuel. If my gas gages worked, I could be sure we could finish the race without being towed in. We added 150 gallons and another second mortgage to cover the cost. I knew we had enough water on board to flush the toilet and make coffee so that was good to go. The stop watch worked and we had a mechanical back up and a battery we thought would fit. We found our IPBA numbers and flag too. I had run the measured mile two years ago when I put new props on and that would have to do as there was just no time left. Hmm, the chrome looked awful so when it was polished we were ready. Race day was awful, weather-wise. Too much wind. Oh well. We had invited our friends and formed neighbors David and Diane Dahl aboard for the ride. We picked up our observer Jan Cordodor and we were off to the start line. As it turned out, David, Diane and Jan were old friends so it was catch up time for all. Excuse me, we have a race to run here. Hello. So after it was decided which store in Bremerton made the best French, Artisan, etc. bread, we started the race. Turned out to be not so bad wind wise until we headed south. That damn wind blew salt water all over my varnish and freshly polished chrome. Damn the luck! We finished the race with a 1.454 percent error over all. Pretty respectable and a personal best for Jytte and me. We had what could be called three "birdies" with three legs at 1, 3 and 5 second errors. The others we won't talk about. We turned in our race and were lucky not to be disqualified as I used the wrong form and wrote in pencil. At the awards ceremony, to our amazement, we won two legs for least error and took a trophy for Second in Class 3 (just behind National Champion Dick Timmerman in his gorgeous, 1929 Lake Union Dream Boat, Vagabond). What a race! So you see, even a blind monkey gets a peanut every now and then! Thanks for listening. P/C Bob Wheeler; MV Carousel |