When a longtime J/24 bowman gets put into mastman duty with a pro team, he gains new insight—and respect—for his neighbor on the rail. Read more about SAILIG WORLD's Editor, Dave Reed, experience sailing in the recent J/24 Copa Mexico in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico."I’ve been racing on the same J/24 in Newport, RI, with the same fantastic skipper and core team for nearly 30 years. By nature of me being the whippersnapper teen when I joined the team way back when, I guess I’ve always been relegated to the bow. It’s my domain, a position I’ll relinquish only when they take the spinnaker pole from my cold, dead hands.
The funny thing about my career in the J/24 class, however, is that as long as I can remember, I’ve never actually sailed on anyone else’s J/24 for a full regatta.
It’s always been the same boat, same job. Forever.
You’d think, after all these years, I’d have a pretty good handle on what was going on behind me on our boat, one rail seat aft at the mastman’s position, but not really. I guess I’ve always been too busy looking forward, focusing on my own responsibilities on the foredeck. On our boat, this second-spot back is where we usually put newcomers and visitors. You know…where they can “contribute” by adjusting the twings while not really getting in the way.
After my experience last week at the Regata Copa Mexico, a must-do J/24 regatta in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico (just north of Puerto Vallarta), however, I’ve reconsidered the mastman cog in the J/24 crewing machine.
The thrown-together crew of which I was part of for this incredible regatta included Chris Snow, of North Sails San Diego, who, as a past national champion, was obviously most qualified to drive. Our talented trimmer was Rich Bowen, designer for North Sails. The tactical genius (and “funny stuff”) would come from the mind of Chuck Allen, who completed the North Sails back-of-the-bus brain trust. That left the front-half of the boat to me, and George Witter, pitman for the 2010 J/24 national champions 3 Big Dogs.
When I learned I’d been slotted into the mastman position, with George on the bow, I was sort of bummed and anxious.
“I’d be better off on the bow,” I thought to myself. “That’s what I know best . . . Maybe I should propose George and I switch.”
But the team roles had been professionally predetermined, so as we sailed out for our first day of practice, I started to mentally go through the mastman’s job list for every maneuver.
This is when I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what the mastman does on other J/24s other than pull the twings and move from side-to-side. On our boat back home, the jobs in the middle of the boat are, for the most part, divided as such: our genoa trimmer trims upwind, then moves to the middle of the boat downwind. The mastman, who helps call puffs upwind, slides to the cockpit to trim the spinnaker. Our tactician handles the twings during the jibes works the pit, and the bowman, of course, handles everything forward of the mast, including halyards. This is, generally, how we’ve always done things.
But after an educational week in the mastman’s seat—a position, I grew to love—I’m convinced we need to change the way we do things back home. And, strangely enough, it all boils down to empowering our mastman. Here’s how things were divided on Bogus:
The trimmer trimmed the jib and the spinnaker. He never stepped forward of the companionway, which eliminated any position shuffles.
The tactician focused on tactics, fleet management, boat balance (weight fore and aft, side to side), parked in the companionway downwind, rolled the boat from the inside, and stuffed the kite in the takedown.
As the mastman, I looked up the course in the pre-start, looking for wind and surprises, called out time aloud in the pre-start, counting every second after 30 seconds. Upwind and down, I called puffs, lulls, and waves and aggressively rolled the boat in tacks and jibes, hiking off the twing line on the jibe roll. I served as human guy and then gathered the foot of the spinnaker before hitting the rail. And when the manure was hitting the fan on the foredeck, I was on halyard backup. I reset sail controls (outhaul and vang) before and after the mark roundings, and moved my weight all over the place to help balance the boat. Now that’s a lot more than just pulling the twings and staying out of the way." For more SAILING WORLD Mastman sailing experience perspectives.
I was fortunate to have a great crew (pictured here) who sailed with me for the week. We had a great time, made some great new friends and renewed friendships with many others. For the week I had doing bow, George Witter from Santa Barbara, CA. George normally sails with recent NA Champions THREE BIG DOGS. Doing the mast, calling the wind and providing Spanish translation was Dave Reed from Newport, Rhode Island. Dave is the editor of Sailing World and will hopefully be doing a feature story on the event. Doing tactics and lightening the mood onboard was Chuck “El Chucko” Allen. Rich Bowen trimmed sails and helped a lot with boat speed.
To say competition was strong would be an understatement. With three multiple J/24 World Champions and North American Champions present, the top three boats would surely be no "push-overs" in the realm of international one-design competition. As anticipated, the top five was made up of World Champions, NA Champions and Mexican Champions-- ouch, that racing must've been hot, hot, hot! Winning his second Copa Mexico in a row was none other than 2010 J/24 World Champion Mauricio Santa Cruz from Brazil on his famous NEXTEL BRUSCHETTA. Second was the previous year's 2009 J/24 World Champion Tim Healey from Newport, Rhode Island on 11TH HOUR RACING/ SAILORS FOR THE SEA. Third was a J/24 North American and National Champion, Chris Snow from San Diego, California on his familiar blue boat BOGUS. Fourth was past J/24 World Champion Mike Ingham from Rochester, New York on BLUE DEMON. And, fifth was Mexican Champion Ken Porter on COMEX. Incredibly, everyone in the top five won at least one race out of the total of ten races, including Robert Vernon on JOYITA from Chile.
* The "J-Trained" tacticians are continuing to put their mark on the Volvo Ocean Race. As even Ken Read (6x J/24 World Champion) has to say, "we're racing tactically and strategically from sched-to-sched (e.g. 3 hour intervals)." In other words, when all boats have to report to Volvo Race HQ their Lat/Lon for safety/tracking reasons, everyone knows where they are, how fast they're going and at what angle. Talk about stress. The navigators have to be the "coolest" guys on the planet to have to deal with the incessant pressure of going "higher/lower" and at what sail trim/selection on the "cross-over charts" to keep their machines going at 99% or better. So far, some crew of the top three boats on the leg to Auckland, New Zealand count amongst their experiences getting "schooled" on J/22s, J/24s, J/80s in both America and Europe. Go figure-- a 40,000nm J/24 one-design race-- in essence, wondering where the next wind shift, wind streak, current anomaly shows up before passing the next mark, one a 3 hour interval 24x7 each leg. Hmmm-- a challenge to say the least. Nor for the faint of heart. Steely nerves, forethought and planning are evidently part of the equation that also includes "mother luck"! To see how these teams are doing take a look at: 
