Who invited this family?

It was youth and family night at the sailing club. I went down to check it out. They had the BBQ going and quite a lot of young kids around. One of the parents was taking a Byte out. Another Laser sailor dropped by indicating that he was joining the club and will be racing on Wednesday night. He has both rigs but will probably use the full rig in winds up to 25 km/hr. He hasn't done much Laser sailing before but has sailed many other boats. Hopefully this will give me an advantage in the race on Wednesday night. There wasn't any interest in taking Elvira out, so I went out on my own with Fionnlagh.

The wind was fairly steady and moderate so I decided on roll tacking practice. First, an unspoken race with the Byte was in order. We started near the barge on the same tack at about the same speed and headed for mark 3. Some of the time I was matching the Byte for speed and some of the time I was faster. I didn't really pull ahead until the wind picked up. I could have tightened the outhaul to keep the boat flat but I hiked out instead. I was really pushing it- trying to hike straight legged and needing to be all the way out to keep the boat flat. This effort gave me more speed than the Byte and I pulled ahead. I did a decent mark rounding- releasing the vang somewhat just before the turn. On the downwind leg the Byte started catching up to me. I altered the sail position a bit as it didn't seem that I was on a dead run and that didn't help. Then I changed course a bit, scooched forward and heeled the boat a bit. That worked and I pulled away from the Byte, passing the barge well ahead of him. I was up for another round, but it looked like he had to head back in to check on his kids in the Optis.

Probably just as well as I needed to really work on roll tacks. I headed back up the lake tacking frequently. In general, I find it difficult to heel the boat to windward. I don't think I'm heavy enough. Certainly there is some positioning to be learned as it is tricky to put all your weight to windward and not fall in. The other thing I'll have to watch out for is leveling the boat. At my weight, it is difficult to bring the boat level quickly enough to provide acceleration. I'm sure at some wind strengths I won't be able to right it at all. Over the half hour I did become more comfortable roll tacking. I wasn't always successfull in accelerating, but at least I didn't lose speed on the tacks. The other thing I need to figure out is how to get the tiller extension past the mainsheet without moving the rudder. Ideally, a roll tack can be executed without using the rudder at all.

I finished off the evening with some jibing practice. I was mostly successfull at jibing without getting the mainsheet caught on the transom. The winds were light, so it was relatively easy. I'll need to work on jibing in higher winds and then learn to roll jibe.

As the wind died, I realized that someone had invited the entire mosquito family to the lake. They began biting me every few minutes on the water. I was sorry I hadn't thought to bring bug spray after Wednesday's experience. I had to wait for another boat to pull out of the water before I could bring Fionnlagh ashore. It was like some one rang the dinner bell for the mosquitos. I had five biting me all at once. I pulled Fionnlagh out as quickly as I could. I thought I would derig really quickly to get away from the skeeters, but it was so bad that I ran to the car for a wind breaker to keep them off my arms. I didn't have anything to cover my legs below the knees but they didn't seem to be biting there as much.

I tried wearing knee pads tonight to prevent further bruising on my knees from bashing the boat. They weren't ideal knee pads as they are intended for rollerblading and have a hard cap. This makes for a slippery situation when kneeling on the dock or the deck. While on the water, they seemed to be quite effective. They do look ridiculous, but then so do the bruises on my knees!