Monday, March 25, 2013

Mama Never Told Me There'd Be Days Like This



No.

Mama never told me there'd be days like this.

How could she? She wasn't a Laser sailor.



I've had my moments when frostbiting this year.

Like last week when I had a decent day (for me) and finished in the top half of the fleet.

Or the even better day in February when I led the fleet around the windward mark in one race.



Yesterday was not a day like that.

Mama never told me there'd be days like this.



I just couldn't pull off a good start to save my life.

I just couldn't seem to find any upwind speed.

I was slow downwind.

And I couldn't work out why.



On the good side I did ace all the crowded leeward mark roundings (even if I do say so myself.)

And I passed boats on every one of the final short beats to the finish line.



Some days you're the windshield.

Some days you're the bug.

Yesterday I was the bug.



Mama never told me there'd be days like this.

But Doug / Pam of Improper Course did tell me there'd be days like this.

Look at the top of their blog.

There is this picture (attributed to Demetri Martin who wrote a book called This Is A Book.)





Yesterday was just one of the downward squiggles on the relentless journey to the top right hand corner of life.

Doug / Pam did tell me there'd be days like this.


9 comments:

Unknown said...

Dmitri Martin's diagram looked like the wind patterns out on the water yesterday!

Tillerman said...

That could explain a lot too. The winds were getting lighter throughout the afternoon in Newport. I suspect it was the same in Barrington?

Baydog said...

Last time I commented on that photo, you also said that the photo could explain a lot. Or maybe it was me. I forget. I do that a lot lately. LOL.

Unknown said...

Lighter and swirlier. At one point we had a bunch of guys sailing close hauled. The problem was that some were on the upwind leg, some were on the downwind. One one downwind leg I sailed every point of sail, from Dead down to Irons!

Tillerman said...

LOL MYCS. At one point yesterday afternoon at Newport I did remark to one of your fellow MYC members, "This is worse than sailing on Lake Massapoag!"

It wasn't really true. But I was getting frustrated.

Keep Reaching said...

We all have days of being the bug - but what frustrates me the most is that on those days, not only was I having a lousy day, I couldn't figure out why - impossible to point to this or that and say, OK, lesson learned and next time I will do that better.

That frustration is really the (bad) icing on the cake - or the yellow splat of the bug.

Tillerman said...

Exactly KR. Not doing well and not knowing why is a source of huge frustration.

But on reflection afterwards I think I have worked out what some of the issues were. A bad day isn't so bad if you can turn it into a learning experience. And, if nothing else, at least I was getting some time on the water and a chance to exercise those Laser sailing muscles.

bonnie said...

This nice weather has got me itching to get my sailing season started - love to NOT have a NW wind in the forecast though, NW winds in Jamaica Bay do really annoying things.

Hope you are out there today, at least if it's half as nice in RI as it is here in NYC.

Tillerman said...

It is a decent wind today but I decided to make this a day for running rather than sailing. I did manage to get a good sailing practice session in on Tuesday though.

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