Chillin'at the pool.... not really! Capsize drill at the YMCA

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Today was the day for our Capsize Drill!
Thanks to the Twin Rivers YMCA, we can practice in a calm & controlled environment.

Here, our Cadet Sailing Team Commander is still holding the hiking stick properly, but he's wondering if his crew is going to be OK


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 Here's a link to the lesson on Capsize... we all need to know & practice this!
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These two cadets are already wet! Did they fall in by accident? No, this is actually their 2nd attempt at capsizing.

Part of the fun is that the advanced cadets get in the pool to handle the boat and help with the tipping over...  yeah thanks for the HELP!









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Here's the last phase of capsize recovery... getting back in. We use the "scoop" method, where the crew rolls up inside the boat as the skipper pulls it upright, but then the skipper has to climb in over the gunwhale. This is generally not a dignified procedure.

These cadets did very well, the crew helped the skipper in while balancing the boat, the skipper came up using knees and a sideways roll instead of doing a straight-in face plant.






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Coach Rezab (far right) stays out of splash range. Here is part of the group getting ready for another practice capsize... practicing getting into & out of the boat from a slippery low "dock" is a learning process too!


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Next!

Every sailing cadet, beginners and advanced, got a turn practicing the capsize drill both as skipper and as crew

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A good crew not only helps his skipper in, he is prepared to heel the boat to make it easier, to move his weight for balance... and does it with a smile too!



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Now the crew becomes skipper.

Here, his job is to hold the boat from turning "turtle." Soon the crew will be ready, and he pulls the boat upright.




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Who said we lack adult supervision?!?

Top takes this seriously, like all drills. The cadets' safety could depend on the skills they learn today. LCDR Clark is witnessing his first capsize drill.




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Hey!
CAPSIZE means the boat is supposed to tip over! Here we see two cadets who left the boat a little too early, and the boat snapped back right-side up without them. This is why we teach keeping a grip on the sheet(s) and hiking straps!


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 Here comes the "righting line." The crew takes the tail of the bow line (painter) and tosses it over the gunwhale to the skipper. Some times it is not needed, but it is always helpful and gives the skipper something to hang on to so the boat doesn't float away.










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Fun time is over! Coach Rezab, the Cadet Sailing Commander, and one of the newbies (wait, can we still call him that after today?) put away FJ#4.

You can see the pool enclosure, which is a good thing because today was cold & blustery... but it means more work because we have to break down the boat and carry it out thru the air lock.

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We give a tremendous THANK YOU to our local Y
Twin Rivers YMCA (link)

....  photos by Coach Mike Murphy
....  posted by Coach Douglas King



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Light winds ... basic practice

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Today we had some bright sunshine, nice temp... OK some clouds too but no rain... the wind was light and shifted steadily from WNW to SW. However there was enough to get the boats moving.

Rigging up... One of the basic sailors (no longer newbies, please!) has advanced to sailing in the FJs. When will the rest be ready to take that step?







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FJ sailing, another cadet coaching... in this case, an advanced "Blue Book" sailor but only her 2nd time skippering an FJ. Sails are properly set, balance is good, -but- why is the skipper sitting so far back in the boat?














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Here is one of our basic sailors, steering properly with the "hiking stick" (also called the "tiller extension" but that's too long to say).















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It's been said before, those who do not learn will hear it again.

This is the POINTS OF SAIL. In order to sail a boat, you must know them. Then you must learn the maneuvers to go from one Point Of Sail (link) to another. No cadet will pass basic sailing without knowing this (plus the knots, plus the terminology (link), plus Right of Way rules (link), plus the Capsize Drill (link) ).





There is a BIG difference between being a SAILOR and being just a passenger!

Coach Murphy's Javelin sailing wing-and-wing in light wind. This can be frustrating but the cadets did get the boat moving.









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... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King.

Underway! ... 1st sailing day spring 2013

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This afternoon was the first day of real sailing. Most of the class had never been out on the river before, much less under sail, but fortunately the coaches and the "old salt" experienced cadets were there to make it go smoothly. The weather was bit grey but the cold of winter has lost it's grip, there was a nice breeze, and the boats were REALLY SAILING !!


Coach Gormley on the tiller, steering the boat out of Bridgeton Harbor. With new (fall 2012) sails, the Javelins have good power and hustle right along... when the sailors knows how!


The advanced cadets set out in the Flying Juniors, carrying out a variation of the Clock Drill (link) and refreshing their skills. Most have not sailed for a couple of months, even though the sailing clubs on the Neuse River are active thru the winter, our sailing program stands down to give the students time to study for exams.

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Wind from the SSW makes the river a bit choppy and makes the railroad bridge into a potentially disastrous "lee shore."


Coach Hittner and his crew of newbies just getting out into the river.



If a cadet was sailing this close to the bridge, the coaches would be very unhappy. Coach Hittner sails this Javelin close-hauled and tacks to get the boat a safe distance upwind of the RR bridge.


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Coach Jackson and two cadets in our third Javelin. The sails are eased out and the boat in on a BEAM REACH point of sail.
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For today's sailing exercise, Coach Murphy brought his own boat. At 15 ft it is only slightly longer than the 14' Javelins, but obviously with a ballasted keel, a cabin, and motor, it is a much bigger boat in other respects.












Now let's see what the advanced cadets are doing. Looks like a gybing duel!

Who has Right-Of-Way here? What maneuver are they doing? How do you get your boat going a little faster, so you can pass the other boat?

By the end of the sailing semester... hopefully before then... the newbies will know these answers, and will be sailing almost this well!








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 Here's why the FJs are the sports cars of our little fleet. They are faster, can sail very close to the wind, and very responsive.

These cadets are good but not perfect: sit a little further forward in the boat, match the trim of the jib sheets to the main, and HIKE the boat flat.

Looks like a lot of fun!






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After a bit of coaching, the FJ sailors got in the groove sailing CLOSE-HAULED. Note where sails are: pulled in tight but not too tight. The mainsail in just inside the transom corner, the foot of the jib is on the foredeck.

Although it feels good & exciting to let the boats heel 'way over, it is faster & easier to control when held flat, as you see here. This photo was taken during a lull in the wind, for most of the afternoon these cadets were hiking out.


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Just after a tack... skipper is hiking out, crew is still getting organized... get those sails IN and get going, FJ#1 is getting further ahead!









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 Newbies putting their Javelin away after an excellent time sailing.





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The advanced cadets put their FJs away.

You can see that all of this; getting underway, handling the boats skillfully, and putting the boats & all gear away properly; takes a strong team effort.




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... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King

First day in the boats... what did we learn?

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This afternoon the "old salts" put in some work getting their FJs ready to sail; the newbies were introduced to Oday Javelins and continued to learn basic boat stuff.

You Gotta Know The Ropes (link) ... One of the things we learned is HALYARDS pull the sails up/down and SHEETS pull the sails side-to-side.


None of us actually went sailing today, it was planned as a ground-level lesson in the basics. Not only that, but every beginner had the chance to learn & reinforce his/her new knowledge in a calm & safe & controlled environment. It's important to become familiar with the basic actions before throwing the cadets to the lions out into the real river.




Navy sailors will be familiar with the phrase "milling about smartly." Well this mob just got off the bus, a few moments later they were turning to.

Today was a good experience of how much work it is to go sailing. Everybody had to carry sails or spars or gear, everybody had to help rig up the boats.



Every sailing session, every lesson, includes SAFETY. Almost all of our life jackets have whistles attached, today we learned why (and the coaches need to put a whistle on one more PFD). What's another safety lesson we put into practice? Think, you can probably come up with several.

Sailboats are relatively simple, but they do take some work to get ready. And everything has to be put together properly, which means you need to learn how.

Getting ready to put on the sails, but first we need to lower the centerboard and put on the rudder... better pump out the bilgewater too. So we'd better know a little about the HULL and the stuff that goes with it (link).

This is a lot of fun, but it's also a serious class. Today we gave out a written assignment (you could call it a TEST if you like, yes it will count for a grade) and the class is moving forward quickly. In fact, in two sessions we have covered the first 3 basic lessons (our sailing lessons on-line (link)).

Next week, we will get underway for the first time... really sailing!

... posted by Assistant Coach Douglas King



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Sailing Starts On MONDAY.... We're getting ready... how about you?

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It's still winter, really... a couple recent blasts of cold have probably not convinced anyone that SAILING is a good idea in the near future, but we are getting ready. Here's a pic of the 5O5 on a recent frosty morning... that white stuff is NOT dandruff!!

The #3 Javelin centerboard has been refinished and reinstalled. Unfortunately we don't have photos of this process, which involved 5 coaches and Bridgeton Harbor's 3-ton trolley lift. Why is this important? Because a FOIL works much better with a smoother surface than big pits of rust!

SCHEDULE... From now on, MONDAYs will be sailing days
Feb 25: NJROTC Sailing
Mar 4: NJROTC Sailing
Mar 11: NJROTC Sailing
Mar 18: NJROTC Sailing
Mar 25: NJROTC Sailing
School Break!
Apr 15: NJROTC Sailing
Apr 22: NJROTC Sailing
Apr 29: NJROTC Sailing
May 4, Saturday: "Open" Regatta at Bridgeton Harbour (link)
May 6: NJROTC Sailing
May 13: NJROTC Sailing
May 20: held open  
June 3: no sailing, get ready for EXAMS and then summer vacation!




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Simple Machines... what is a FOIL?

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(Sailing Lessons Table Of Contents)(link)


We are fortunate that we live in a world of very reliable, very complex machines. We take it for granted that we can travel long distances quickly, talk to people who are far away, have hot food... or a cold drink... when it is convenient to us. Humans started out naked in the woods with nothing but sticks and rocks, now many thousands of years later we have all this, plus the Mars Rover and iPods.



How did we get to this level of technology?


And what does it have to do with SAILING ?!?




Our technology depends on simple machines. The classic SIMPLE MACHINES from ancient times (link) are the lever and the inclined plane...  sometimes the WHEEL & AXLE, the WEDGE, the PULLEY, and the SCREW are included but these are all special applications of the lever and the inclined plane or a combination of the two.

Although ROPE is not classified as a simple machine, it is certainly very useful. Here we have an assembly of wheels, along with some specially-shaped wedges, that enable us to control large amounts of force on a vessel's sail.

Ancient peoples had the technology of sails; is this a simple machine?

In a way, it is. A sail is a FOIL which is very much like an inclined plane (or wedge) used in air, or water, or any other FLUID (yes air is considered a fluid) (link). Other FOILs include wings, impellors, and turbine blades; foils are used in many types of complex machines.


The word "foil" can mean several things, from a type of light weight sword to very very thin metal used for wrapping up food. These things are useful too but they will not make a boat sail!

A "FOIL" is a simple machine... look Ma, no moving parts... which uses the energy in a moving fluid to generate power.

When we sail, we use two sets of FOILs. One set is the sails using the air to propel the boat, the other set is less obvious: the centerboard and rudder which control the the boat's direction. Both sets of foils are critical to sailing, and we are lucky to have centuries of development in making better foils which make sailing easier & more efficient.

Fluid... air, water, oil, nitrogen, whatever... has MASS (link). This is a scientific way of saying it weighs more than nothing, although weight is not quite the same as mass.



So, the movement of fluid implies energy, and that energy means a fluid will always exert force on any object in it's way.



Just because the movement of fluid generates force, this does not necessarily mean that we can gain useful work from that force.

It may help to think of the FORCE in these diagrams as rubber band, stretched, pulling in the direction of the arrow. The bigger the arrow, the harder it is stretched.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS:

The energy present in a fluid in motion will always exert some force on an object. "Drag" may be considered as similar to friction.

"Lift" is always at right angles to the direction of fluid's movement.

"Drag" is always in the same direction as the fluid's movement.

Can "Lift" be downward? Sure, why not? Lift will be exerted in whatever direction the foil is oriented, it is up to us to decide how to use that force. When we are sailing, the force of LIFT is exerted horizontally by the sails and the centerboard & rudder.



Generally we think of "lift" as being upward, away from the ground, but when we use "lift" as a science or engineering term, it has a specific meaning that has no relation to up or down.

Review... when fluid is moving past an object, or an object is moving through a fluid, we will always have some force being exerted. We will always have drag, but we might or might not have LIFT.

The shape of that object makes a big difference. A FOIL can have many shapes, some are better than others. By "better" we mean generating more lift and less drag!

However, even a flat plate can work as a foil.




 

What kinds of foil work best? Like any type of machine with many many variations, the desired function has to determine what kind works best. Wind turbines will use foils that look different from steam turbines which look different from airplane wings. An airplane intended to fly slowly, or specialized to take off & land on short runways, will have very different wings than planes designed to fly high or fast.

A spinnaker, which is a sail used for going down wind (broad reaching or running), looks very different from a genoa jib, which is a sail used to primarily to go upwind (close-hauled).

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Let's take a quick look at how to define or describe the shape of a foil:


The Spitfire was the best fighter plane of it's time, largely due to the performance it's wing. This is a nice picture and gives you a good idea what the Spitfire looked like, but it doesn't really show important details of the wing.

The CROSS-SECTION (link) (often simply called the "section" or "foil section") is what you would see if you cut the wing smoothly across the same direction as fluid flows over it. This is how the fluid "sees" the foil and this is the most important characteristic of the foil's shape.

It is easy to guess that a thick wing is for flying slow, and thin wing is for flying fast, and generally this is true. However as we will see, flying is not that easy (link to STALL) and foil behavior is not that simple! (link to Supersonic Foil wikipedia)



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When we say "thick" or "thin" foils, we don't mean a simple measurement in feet or meters (link to wikipedia). Obviously, making the whole foil section bigger will make it more thick, in the normal meaning of the word. However, the top two foil sections in the diagram are identical, the second (middle) foil is NOT thicker. The third (bottom) foil is thicker.

"Thickness" is relative to the size of the foil... specifically, the length of it's cross-section.


When sailing (or carrying out any other complex process) we must be as exact & precise as possible when communicating. This means using correct terminology, whether it is a matter of Right-Of-Way or foil geometry (link to NASA) ... One advantage we sailors have over other people using FOIL technology is that we can change the shape of our foil(s) relatively easily, using the vessel's rigging. This will be covered in more detail later.




What else is important about how a FOIL works? Lots of diagrams show the foil is at an angle to fluid flow, and obviously this angle can be changed. We sailors use the SHEETs to change the angle, a pilot must change the angle of the whole airplane.




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Here we see three boats, the 3 skippers have different ideas about how to trim their sails even though they are all on the POINT OF SAIL (in the diagram, a close reach on port tack). .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . The first boat has their sheet eased out and the sail has an ANGLE OF ATTACK of 15 degrees, although this is not any data that you would have (or could use) while actually sailing.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .The second boat has pulled their sheets in so the sails are tighter, to an ANGLE OF ATTACK of 25 degrees. .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  The 3rd boat has pulled their sheets in even more, so the sail is pulled in tight to an angle of 35 degrees. The sail is set in a position approaching what would work if they were CLOSE-HAULED. As you can see by the air flow swirling (turbulence) around the sail, this is not an efficient way to trim the sails! 

Both LIFT and DRAG will change as the ANGLE OF ATTACK changes. For any given FOIL SECTION and a given fluid flow past it, there will be one ANGLE OF ATTACK which gives the greatest amount of LIFT, and one specific angle which may not provide maximum lift but will provide the most efficient ratio between LIFT and DRAG. The section shape will affect how large of an angle will be effective, and whether the balance between lift and drag changes smoothly or dramatically, and whether the foil will be prone to stalling. 

You can see this is a complex subject and we will clarify some of these concepts later. More specifically, we will show how to apply the relationships between angle, flow, camber, lift, and drag, in order to sail better!

For now, let's review-

- moving fluid exerts FORCE on objects in it's path

- the force of LIFT is always considered as perpendicular to flow, DRAG is in the same direction

- the ANGLE OF ATTACK is very important to making a foil work efficiently. 

- the SECTION is one of the most important ways to define/describe the shape of a foil.

- THICKNESS of the FOIL SECTION is relative to the length of it's CHORD, not a measurement in inches or centimeters


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There is a great deal more to study on this topic: pressure and flow relationships, how the angle and shape of the foil affect it's performance, and specifically how all these things relate to sailboats and other vessels. For example, a ship's propellor has blades which function as foils. We will soon have a 2nd lesson available on FOILs to go into more detail.

For now, we will show a diagram of an FJ sailing, with the forces of lift and drag shown on the sails and the centerboard.
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(Sailing Lessons Table Of Contents)(link)
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Welcome to 2013... lots of work!

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It's a New Year!

We have two new fully-qualified Skippers who completed their Blue Books and are now proudly wearing their aiguillettes. These were awarded by LCDR Craig Tyson at his retirement ceremony... that's right we also have a new Commanding Officer.





The coaches have been keeping busy on the boats. This pic is not a capsize drill, it's cleaning & inspecting the hull. Fortunately winter has been mild and Head Coach Rezab has been able to remove a rusty centerboard which needs attention.





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How do you remove a rusty centerboard? Very carefully! Let's just say that it is more work than we expect from the cadets... at this time...

Coach Rezab had the capable help of Coach O'Flanagan putting the boat on a crane and accessing the pivot bolt to remove the centerboard. Javelin 'boards are ballasted which increases the stability (link), but like most sea creatures they are heavy and awkward on land.

How rusty was it?
Extremely!

Here is a close-up view of the centerboard after -some- of the rust had been laboriously removed.

A better and complete job was done by sandblasting


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Because humidity in the air causes rust to begin forming instantly, it was important to paint on a protective coat of primer  ASAP... in this case, with about 20 minutes.

Next, the centerboard will get smoothed-over with a thick layer of epoxy. Hopefully the coaches will be able to give it a bit more of a FOIL shape instead of a pitted flat plate.