When I was good, I was really, really good...

...and when I was bad, I was awful.

Frozen Assets, Day 2
BigWaveDave forecast 15 knots today and I think he was pretty close to the mark. Environment Canada forecast sunshine and 10 degrees and it really felt like they were wrong.

It was a bit windier than I would like on the way out to the start. There actually were waves. Ooops. I should have studied up on wave sailing techniques. I didn't sail very far up the course prior to the start because I felt tired and sleepy and wanted to save energy for the race. These were full hiking, grommet to the boom conditions. I would watch the Laser full rig start to see what the gents thought was the favoured side. Anne said she thought left was favoured. That made sense to me because the wind was coming over land from the NE and the left was not sheltered by the island.

I decided on a midline start because I wanted to go left and avoid crowds or sliding into the pin. This was lining up to be an excellent strategy. Lots of space left, 46 seconds to go. Adjust the controls, 46 seconds to go. Sadly, not lightning fast adjustments but a stopped watch. Argh! No way of knowing when the horn would go as the last signal was at one minute. I reached into position behind the line and watched the other boats. I would trust their timing. Unfortunately, it was already too late. As I checked, the other boats were sheeting in and nearer the line. I sheeted as fast as I could and was clear enough that I didn't get buried in bad air, but I was a boat length or two behind the line at the horn. I was sailing reasonably well mid fleet. I don't recall a lot of the details of the race. I do remember the first downwind leg.

As I approached the gate on Starboard tack, a full rig came in from Starboard on a Port tack heading in front of me. I called starboard. Unbelievably the guy responds by saying that he is trying to get to the other gate. He hits me, not hard, but enough to slow me down slightly. I tell him he still has to obey the rules of the road. He continues interfering and not giving right of way. I steer windward of him and say protest. He says whatever and sails to the other gate. Now a couple of the boats I passed downwind have passed me back. I work it upwind, sheeting to keep the boat flat, hiking hard. On the last downwind I had managed to be neck in neck with 4 other boats. Now a couple of strategic errors. First, I did not check out the position of the gate relative to the finish line in advance. Compounding that, I was outside of two boats for the left gate mark and the finish was a reach left of there. Even worse, there was a boat to windward of me. This is all hunky dory when we are on starboard heading for the gate. As we approach, though, everyone wants to gybe. The trick is that gybing loses you the right of way unless you are inside the two boat length circle. Given the pinwheel, I don't think I was ever within two boat lengths of the mark. I need to study the rules on this situation. the guy inside of me looked as if he was going to gybe. I saw that the angle was just good enough that I could sail by the lee to the finish so I yelled starboard. He didn't gybe. Then we were all round and a gust came through and we are roaring neck in neck to the finish. I'm not sure, because it was impossible to see but I think 2 of the 3 beat me over the line. Why? because the hand the inside which was shorter and when I sailed by the lee, they were in my wind. Blah.

I was determined to make up for that with the second race. I was in serious danger of losing my third place standing from day 1.

more later...
Regatta photos