True wind conditions

• TWS ranged from 1.5 to 15.5 kn (avg 8.4 kn; middle 90% was 5.6–11.2 kn).
• Direction was fairly steady (circular std 13°, mean 155°), starting around 190° and settling into a consistent 150–165° band for most of the race, then backing further to 124–145° in the final 30–40 minutes — a real late-race left-hand shift.
• Wind built from 5.7 kn at the start to a mid-race peak of 11.3 kn (22:30 UTC), staying in the high single digits to low teens for most of the race, then easing to 5.3–6.5 kn near the finish.

Tacks and gybes

• 14 tacks, avg duration 9.1 s, avg speed loss 38.6%, avg recovery 5.8 s.
• The two worst tacks of the race came early: 20:58:51 (19 s, an unusually wide 176° heading swing, 74.6% loss — the worst single tack logged all season) and the very first maneuver, a rounding-turn at 20:53:25 with 62.2% loss. Both happened in the opening 15 minutes, before the boat settled in.
• After that rough start, tacks improved noticeably — several later tacks (21:35:24, 21:54:49, 22:00:03, 22:12:37, 22:25:56) all lost under 34%, with three under 7 s in duration.
• 2 gybes, avg duration 16.5 s (the slowest average gybe duration of any race reviewed) and avg speed loss 35.7% — both happened close together (21:19:51, 21:21:36) in a light patch (~2 kn boat speed beforehand), which likely explains the high loss and slow execution.

Upwind performance

• Beat boat speed averaged 59.6% of polar target (4,046 samples, avg TWS 8.4 kn) — one of the lower relative-speed nights of the season.
• Average TWA was 46.5°, about 5.6° wider than the polar-optimal 40.9° at this wind speed.
• Actual VMG averaged 2.37 kn vs. a polar target of 4.03 kn — only 58.8% of target VMG, essentially matching the 59.6% boat-speed figure.
• Likely explanation: with both boat speed and VMG percentages this close together, and angle moderately wide, both speed and angle look like contributors here rather than one dominant cause — though the very rough first 15 minutes (two costly maneuvers back to back) likely dragged down the whole race's average.

Power and boat handling

• Average heel while beating was 10.1°, consistent with the moderate 8.4 kn average wind.
• Rate of turn upwind averaged 1.03°/s, unremarkable and in line with other races at similar wind strength.
• Data insufficient: no traveler/vang/rudder data available to assess power management directly.

Boat trim

• Heel scaled down predictably by point of sail (10.1° beat → 3.4° reach → 1.1° run); no finer within-leg breakdown available.

Comparison with other races

• The closest wind-speed match is Race 5 (9.2 kn beat avg vs. this race's 8.4 kn); Races 4 (8.2 kn), 6 (7.5 kn), 7 (7.0 kn), and 8 (6.5 kn) are also broadly comparable light-to-moderate-wind nights.
• This race's boat speed relative to target (59.6%) was among the weakest of the comparable group — only Race 8 (58.8%) was lower. Its angle (46.5° vs. 40.9° target, a 5.6° gap) was also wider than most of the comparable races (Races 4, 6, and 7 all matched target angle within 3.7°).
• The worst single tack of the entire season (74.6% loss, 20:58:51) happened in this race, in the opening minutes — worth treating as a rough-start outlier rather than representative of the crew's typical tacking, since performance clearly improved as the race went on.

Coaching priorities

1. Slow start to the race (high confidence). The two costliest maneuvers of the entire season (a 62.2%-loss rounding-turn and a 74.6%-loss tack) both happened in the first 15 minutes, before later tacks settled into a much better pattern (several under 34% loss). Action: review what was happening in those first two maneuvers specifically — sail setup, starting-line traffic, or simply not yet in rhythm are all plausible and worth discussing with the crew.
2. Upwind angle and speed both slightly off target (medium confidence). TWA was 5.6° wide of optimal and boat speed only 59.6% of target — a combined shortfall rather than one dominant cause. Action: focus on both angle and speed together in this wind range (8–9 kn), rather than assuming one fix addresses everything.
3. Gybe execution in light patches (low confidence — only 2 gybes). Both gybes happened in a light-air moment (~2 kn boat speed) and were slow (avg 16.5 s) with high loss (35.7%). Action: worth a light-air gybe drill, but treat this as a single data point, not a season-long pattern.