Can we start again, please?

I began the day mildly sore all over from yesterday's water workout. I also had a headache developing. I was hoping it would disappear, but it actually got worse as the day wore on. Today was cloudy with some sunshine. The wind was very light to begin with, with puffs and shifts and built a bit over the day. It was never consistently all out hiking condition.

The first drill was start and stop on the whistle. I think I was doing better at this than I have in the past. The key was Erin's reminder to bear off a bit before sheeting in and then roll, sheet, flatten and steer to close hauled. The timing is really important. If I flatten after fully sheeting in and steering close hauled, I don't feel I get as much power as if I'm off the wind a bit. I need to spend more time playing with this and practicing to get it right. I think it would be best practiced on a day with light, steady wind. On the downwinds back to the start, we did a bit of gybing on the whistle. Once again, my gybes are in rough shape. I'm too chicken to roll properly and I was catching the mainsheet on the transom frequently. Tomorrow I should work on that if there is some time.

The second drill was lining up on other boats for a start. They split us into two groups. It wasn't clear to me why or how, but about half of the radials were with the full rigs and the other half were with the Bytes. I was with the Bytes and it was a nightmare - although good practice because the same situations occur frequently on the start lines in Alberta. We spent a lot of time waiting for people to get on the line. This was complicated by the fact that there was only one end to the line and the wind was shifting. The main frustration was the people constantly trying to squeeze into tiny holes and ending up in collisions. I was having trouble manouevering through all this. I did not defend my position well, I often ended up sailing backwards, or stalled in the wrong place, or drifting down onto boats. I really lacked focus and the enormous time it took to get every one lined up caused my focus to drift further.

After lunch I was one of the first few back on the water. Dave E, Hannah, and I sailed out to the end of the bay. I tried to use this to relax and focus me and get back into the feel of the boat. Then we all gathered for death circles for a while. With a much larger number of boats than yesterday, it was quite crazy. I was cautious at times and aggressive at other times. Notably, I was not stearing with my body enough and not rolling enough. I really need to focus on that againg. It's becoming almost automatic on windward mark roundings but there are so many other times I need to think about it. I had an interesting moment this afternoon at the windward mark. I was a little too close but managed to wiggle round moving the boat with my body. I'm not sure how, but it seemed to some naturally.

In the afternoon, the split was better with Bytes separated from the rest of us. The first drill was a start line with a race to a line a short distance away. The goal was to accelerate off the start a get in front. Anyone not doing this gets buried in bad air. There were variations on this for hours. Sit on the line, 2 minute starts, mystery starts, pin end boats go and try to squeeze in at boat end. At times I was good at finding a position and I was defending that position at times. It really was mixed afternoon. When I had space below me on the line, and no one rolling me from above, I could accelerate well and get a good start. Drills like this with this number of boats are rare and so I'm glad we spent so much time on this one. It's only practice in these situations that teach you to put it all together.

We wound up the day with some practice races. The Gatekeeper drill. Start, through a gate, round windward mark, round gate, windward, through gate, over the finish and round up. Again, I was really inconsistent. I had a few good starts but lost some ground on the upwind. There was one particularly unhappy upwind where I was pushed to the left by three different sailors. Steve R. was the last one and he pushed us way out past the lay line for the mark. By the time he finally tacked, there was a train of boats heading downwind from the windward mark. Steve headed into them, hoping to find a hole to go through. I followed. Big mistake. We were both on port tack and had no rights. As we approached, the boats bunched up and although I found a hole and crossed in between two boats, I then found myself with a hole too small to cross in front of two more boats. The only way to avoid collision was to head downwind and this I did suddenly, but surprisingly well. I really expected to end up in a collision. Glad to avoid a collision, but in a really horrible situation. pinned with one boat upwind and two downwind, going in the wrong direction. Blah. Even slowing down wouldn't help as there was a whole train of boats behind. The hazards of a short race course. It wasn't possible to go back and round the mark, so I just kept going. I think the only time I could have prevented this situation was when I was heading for Steve on port. I should have ducked instead of tacking, but I didn't see him until it was too late. A question I hope I never need to know the answer to: could I have sailed past the mark on the wrong side and somehow gone round? Would I have to dip the layline on the other side?

This generally wasn't one of my better days, although it did have a few good moments. Mentally, I wasn't in the game today and physically I was a little tired and the headache didn't help. How do I maintain the focus I had yesterday?