Me and Mister Fast

The second day of the Newport Regatta on Sunday was a bit windier than Saturday. I'm no good at estimating wind speeds in knots but according to John Skrzypiec the wind started out at "18kts with gusts to 22kts", and increased to 25 kts by the time of the last race. Perfect for fat boys, or even just slightly overweight Laser sailors like me.

I was determined to approach the day with a new attitude. Be on the front row in every start. Hike like hell all the way upwind. Pump like the devil all the way downwind. Give no quarter at the mark roundings. Fight for every place right up to the finish line.

It didn't work out quite as I had planned...

Starts. What's wrong with my starts this weekend? I never seem to jump off the line in the front row. I'm sure the problem is all in my head. In the last few seconds before the gun I always become convinced that some boat close to me is way over the line and so I don't go up with him. Then the gun goes and he is not called OCS and I am gassed.

On Sunday I try to break out of this habit and finally succeed in the third race. I pull off a front row start near the favored end and I'm looking down the line at other Laser bows all lined up with mine and a decent gap to leeward. Must hold this mental image. This is how it's supposed to look. Hold the image. Visualize this outcome in future starts. Maybe that will work.

But wait, it gets better. I'm holding my lane nicely for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds... And then the boat to leeward starts to fall into the disturbed air of the boat to leeward of him, who in turn is getting gassed by the boat to leeward of him. Oh joy. This is looking good.

First Beat. I have as much power in the rig as I can handle and am hiking my little socks off. I'm laying it all on the line in every race. My quads are screaming but I don't care. I'm hanging in there with sailors who have been way ahead of me all weekend. I can still do it.

Windward mark roundings. I'm getting better at judging my entry to the starboard tack layline. Avoiding being in the starboard tack parade too early. Not overstanding.

Downwind. We are sailing a triangular course all weekend but the two reaches are so broad they are effectively two runs. I'm still getting rolled downwind and losing a few places on each downwind leg. It seems that one particular guy, let's call him Mr. Fast, is passing me on the second downwind leg in every race. God knows why. (Note to self, must ask god why.)

Final beat. This is where I stick it to Mr. Fast. I'm tired of being passed by him on every run. I'm gonna grind him down in the beat to the finish.

In the first race I catch Mr. Fast shortly before the finish and tack to starboard, slightly ahead and to leeward of him, but not a really tight lee-bow situation. Hmmm. We're approaching the finish. The starboard end of the finish line is favored. Will he tack for it? I look over my shoulder. He doesn't tack as we hit the layline. Hmmm. Can I cross him? Not sure. It will be close. Time slows down. I look towards the pin end of the finish line. I'm not laying the pin. Neither is he. I look over my shoulder again. Dare I tack? I see his plan. He's going to keep sailing towards the pin and force me past the pin-end layline, then tack and cross the line ahead of me. Damn you Mr. Fast. Time slows down even more. He shouts something like, "You have to work for it!" Decision time is rapidly approaching. I'm almost at the pin-end layline. I decide to go for it. Tack on to port. Mr. Fast is behind my sail. Any second now either there will be an almighty crunch or.... Then he shouts, "You got it. Well done!" and his bow appears a couple of inches behind my transom. Tillerman 1 - Mr. Fast 0.

In the second race on Sunday I beat Mr. Fast by a few places. Tillerman 2 - Mr. Fast 0.

In the third race we are close approaching the finish line again. On port tack I cross behind Mr. Fast and tack on to starboard, to windward and a boatlength or two behind him. Effectively the reverse situation of race one. I grind it out and am soon seeing him through my sail window. I tack for the starboard end of the line and not only beat Mr. Fast but achieve my best result of the weekend. Almost mid-fleet mediocrity. Nevertheless the score for Sunday is Tillerman 3 - Mr. Fast 0.

After three races I am exhausted. There's nothing left in the tank. I've sailed my best, holding nothing back, and am feeling much better about my sailing than I was yesterday. So I call it a day and skip the last race.

Yes, racing is not just about winning. I know there are lots of rewards from racing that are nothing to do with the scores. I respect sailors like Steve Manson who is able to report that the greatest moment in his sailing career was when the "other guy" passed him right at the finish line. And I would agree that it's shortsighted to focus on beating one other sailor. But, at the end of the day, it is a competition and I, for one, enjoy racing partly because I am competitive by nature and I still get a buzz when it's me executing that perfect tack just before the finish to cross and beat the other guy.

One other bonus of the weekend. After the racing was over I was chatting with that guy. I complimented him on how speedy he was downwind and asked him how he was doing it. He passed on a tip on downwind technique that he had learned from one of the Laser sailing gods, something that I had not heard before.

Hmmm. Another way that I may be able to improve. The delusion continues.

Consolations

On Saturday my performance in the Newport Regatta was awful. I've never sailed so badly. My starts were pathetic, my boatspeed was off, my mark-roundings were amateur, and I struggled at the back of the fleet. The only people I could beat easily were the kid with the loose traveler and the old guy without a clew tie-down. Terrible.

Steve Manson told us in Sailing Flow that it's not about the trophies. Sure, I agree. But when you comfortably make the top half of the fleet in a regatta one year and then are almost last the next year you can't help feeling down. But then you have to look on the bright side and turn to those sailor's consolations...

1. A bad day on the water is better than a good day at the office. True. But I'm retired now. So I don't have to go to the office any more. What would I have been doing if I hadn't been sailing on Saturday? Probably going shopping with Tillerwoman at the local farmers' market. I've nothing against farmers' markets (or Tillerwoman for that matter) but a bad day on the water is better than a good day shopping with the wife.
   
   
2. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. I must be learning something thrashing around at the back of the fleet like this, surely? Even if it's only that I ought to exercise more and lose ten pounds.
   
   
3. At least I'm getting some exercise today. I haven't done any running for a few weeks. These days, sailing and gardening are about the only exercise I get. And even a bad day's sailing is more fun than running or working out at the gym. If it weren't for sailing I would just be some fat old guy sitting on a couch tapping away on a keyboard. Come to think of it, I am.......... you can fill in the blanks.
   
   
4. At my age Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were both dead. I'm sixty years old, I still have my health and enough fitness to chase some of the best Laser sailors in New England around a race course all day. I should be thankful.
   
   
5. It's sunny, the sky is blue, the water is warm and I'm out sailing. What is there to complain about?
   
   
6. I'm sailing in the capital of yachting, Newport. There's a lighthouse over there on Rose Island to the west, historic Newport harbor and waterfront in the east, Fort Adams home of the Museum of Yachting in the south, and the spectacular Clairborne Pell Bridge in the north. There are all kinds of classic yachts and former America's Cup 12-meters sailing around. Where else would a sailor rather be?
   
   
7. The bad days make you appreciate the good days even more. If you won every race you sailed it would become awfully boring after a while... I imagine. (I can only imagine such an improbable scenario.) The one day in three years that I won a regatta was only rewarding because it was the only day in three years that I won a regatta.
   
   
8. Failure is a great motivator. "That guy" may be beating me today. But I'm gonna get him soon. Tomorrow is another day. Next time I'll get it right.

OK. You get the picture. How about you? How do you console yourself after a bad day on the water?

Son of a Son of a Sailor

What a month! The first weekend of July I won a regatta and celebrated my 60th birthday. Then this weekend the best present of all... today I held in my arms my first grandson, born yesterday at 8:52pm, Aidan Christopher, 8lb 5ozs, mother and baby doing just fine, thank you for asking.


Big sister Emily was thrilled with the arrival of her little brother. As soon as she saw his feet she started playing This Little Piggy Went to Market with him. And then she held him in her arms and sang Frère Jacques to him as he snoozed.


Could we be looking at the Harvard University Sailing Team 2027 season Intercollegiate Championship winning A-team and B-team skippers? Who knows? But here's an omen. The first visitor from outside the family to show up at the hospital this morning was the sister of famous sailing blogger Dan Kim of Adrift at Sea.

Hmmm.

More "Heyitwasgreat" Stories

Two more entries in our group writing project, Heyitwasgreat.

Captain JP tells us a story about sailing the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers and of a moment on the first night when "the lights started to appear - below us, above us, and all around us" It was magic.

And in another entry from the SANJL Blog, Steve Manson shares some of his philosophy about why we race and the meaning of competition in Sailing Flow.

You have all this week to contribute so... readers start your blogging engines. Full details of how to participate at Heyitwasgreat.

Clams on Friday

Save the fish. Eat more clams.

That's one of the messages in this fascinating article on How to eat seafood sustainably. The advice includes...

• Eat less of the big fish such as salmon, tuna, swordfish and sharks, which are the most vulnerable populations.
  
  
• Eat lower on the marine food chain, including smaller species that are less endangered such as clams, oysters, mollusks, anchovies, and sardines.
  
  
• Choose fish caught by line, pot, or net (or other artisanal methods) and avoid fish caught in massive trawl nets which pull everything out of the ocean whether it is the intended catch or not.

That's if you don't want your grandchildren to be telling their grandchildren in fifty years time, "Yes dear, that's a picture of a fish. Fish were animals that used to live in the sea."

Chop

I went out for a practice sail in my Laser yesterday, launching from Weaver Cove in Portsmouth. There was 15-20 knots of wind out of the south stirring up a typical Narragansett Bay chop. On port tack it seemed that I was heading more or less directly into the waves, such as they were, so I used the "opportunity" to try and figure out a way to deal with the choppy conditions.

I figured that slamming the bow straight into a two foot wave every three seconds was not the fastest way to sail the boat, so I tried in succession...

1. Aggressive steering to avoid the steepest waves
   
   
2. Aggressive steering to head up each wave and down the back
   
   
3. Bearing off a few degrees when approaching some steeper waves
   
   
4. Torquing the boat with my body to help it bear away on the top of each wave
   
   
5. Leaning back in the boat to help the boat head up each wave front
   
   
6. Hiking further back in the boat to prevent the bow digging in to every wave
   
   
7. Hiking harder as the bow hit each wave to try and power the boat through the wave crest better
   
   
8. Various other gyratory body motions that felt like they might do some good
   
   
9. Trying to channel Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt
   
   
10. Prayer

All in all, I couldn't say which method worked best though 7 felt good and 10 was the easiest.

After about an hour of upwind work I headed back down and practiced my transitions between sailing by the lee and broad reaching. All the top coaches say transitions are key to downwind speed. I wish I knew what a transition is. It might help.

But heyitwasgreat.

Purple Haze

Purple haze all in my brain
Sailed my Laser last Thursday, I can't complain
Capsized once, but I don't know why
'Scuse me while I eat this pie

Purple haze all around
Crazy wind, I sailed up and down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, Joe Rouse put a spell on me

Purple haze all in my eyes
My legs were straight, my vang was tight
It was blowin', blowin' twenty knots, what a grind
This stuff sure was easier when I was in my prime.

Clerihew Day

Today, July 10, is Clerihew Day, the birth date in 1875 of Edmund Clerihew Bentley, the British writer who invented a four-line rhyming verse, usually biographical in nature and resembling a limerick.

I'm not exactly being overwhelmed with entries for the Heyitsgreat writing project. But we had some fun with clerihews last year, so lets see if there's more interest in that.

The rules for a clerihew are simple

• it is biographical
• it begins with the subject's name
• it has the rhyme scheme AABB
• it should be light-hearted or humorous

So the challenge is to write a clerihew about yourself, or perhaps another sailing blogger.

Here's my contribution...

Tillerman the Laser sailor
Once blogged about his autobailer
He even wrote about a clam shack
What a hack.

Have fun.

First "Heyitwasgreat" Stories

Three entries so far in our "Heyitwasgreat" group writing project...

Christy of Central Air writes about a magical beer can race in Hooray for Team LaVita. It's very impressive to read about what she managed to do with "minimal flailing".

Derek Jackson tells us on the SANJL Blog about a day when he was racing his Sunfish "in the zone" at a Mid-Atlantic Regional regatta and concludes that the reason was that It's Got To Be The McLube. SANJL stands for Sailing Association of North Jersey Lakes and if you're a Sunfish sailor within driving distance of Northern New Jersey you really should check them out.

Manfred Schreiber from Germany sailed his Bull 7000 in the annual club regatta on Sunday and with seven-months pregnant K. steering they came first on corrected time in the 36 boat fleet. He tells us how they did it in Sunday was great.

Plenty of time for you to write your story on this theme. Full details at Heyitwasgreat.

Safety First

On Monday evening and yesterday we saw much activity on the bay in front of our house. Helicopters and boats from the Coast Guard and other agencies were searching the waters of Mount Hope Bay. Apparently a 65-year-old man was sailing his 32-foot boat with his wife, and he was hit by the boom and fell into the water. He was not wearing a lifejacket. As of now, he has not been found and the search has been scaled back.

We're not talking about an accident on the open ocean. This is a relatively sheltered bay, a dozen miles or so from the coast of Rhode Island Sound.

Just a couple of weeks ago there was another tragedy on the bay. A man was fishing from the rocks on the other side of the bay and was struck by lightning.

It's a dangerous world out there kiddies. Play safe on the water. Check the weather forecast. Wear your lifejacket.