A Time For Every Purpose

It was a long sail out to the Laser circle at the Hyannis Regatta last weekend.

By the way, Brian Raney mentioned this issue in his brilliant write-up of the Hyannis-based Laser North Americans in the current issue of the class magazine, The Laser Sailor. What a gifted writer. He made the regatta sound so superb that I hardly recognized it. And I was there.

Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes. Long sails out to the race course.

It's a dirty little secret of dinghy racing that you can spend many hours on the water for a relatively short amount of time actually spent racing. This is not meant to be another anti-race-committee rant. A lot of this time not spent racing is inevitable. If the racing area is a long way from the launch site then you can easily spend two hours of the day sailing to the racing circle and back.

I'm not sure how I feel about this so I interviewed some of my closest friends. Here's what they had to say...

Testy Ted complained: What a waste of time. I come here to race. All this time getting to the course is just a pain. I'm going to be tired out before I even start racing. I need a mommy boat to tow me out.

Indifferent Ian responded: Hey, it's just part of the game. Chill out. Relax. We'll be racing soon enough.

Logical Len mused: You came here to sail didn't you? Well, you're sailing aren't you? Just shut up complaining and enjoy it.

Learner Larry explained: I can use all this extra time on the water. On the upwind sail to the course I can tune my beating technique. Then on the run back to the club at the end of the day I can try different methods for catching rides on waves. One hour of upwind and one hour of downwind? That would be a good practice session on a non-racing day.

Earnest Eddie enthused: This is a great workout. Much more fun than running or biking or working out at the gym. And much more specific to sailing. Every hour I spend on the water I'm just getting fitter and fitter.

Restless Ron asked: Are we nearly there yet?

Mad Mike ranted: This is a terrible place to sail. I'm never coming back here. Over two miles to the course and having to dodge all these ferries and don't even mention the fog. What a drag.

Anal Alan suggested: We should calculate the ratio of time spent racing to total time on the water. For example, today we were on the water six hours for three thirty minute races. That's about a 25% productive racing percentage. They should publish the percentages for every major regatta so we could see which ones give us the best value for the time spent.

Neighborly Ned asked: Hey Tillerman. Let's tune up together on they way out to the course. We can check out the shifts and the tides and work out the best way to work the waves. Isn't it great to have an hour to do this before we have to race?

Of course Ted, Ian, Len, Larry, Eddie, Ron, Mike, Alan and Ned are all just voices in Tillerman's head.

Is that a problem, doctor? Yes, I hear nine different guys arguing in my head. I shouldn't worry about it? It's completely normal to hold mutually inconsistent opinions? Lawyers and politicians do it all the time? OK. Thanks doc. That's a relief.

Oh, and I talk about myself in the third person. Is that normal? No, I thought not.

Hmmm. I think I must have been in the sun too long last weekend.

Hyannis Regatta 2007

Three days. Nine races for the Laser fleet. Great race committee work and on-shore hospitality. Thank you Hyannis Yacht Club.

Seeing old friends. Making some new ones.

Too much pizza. Not enough beer. Probably better that way round than the other. (I'm not saying the beer ran out. Just that I was too exhausted most evenings to be able to break any drinking records.)

Eight solid finishes and only one bad one. Hey, that's pretty consistent I reckon. At least for me.

Strong winds. Light winds. Waves. Flat water. Bit of everything.

Current sometimes. No current other times. Hey, if I can't detect it, then it ain't there.

Sunshine. Fog. Thunder boomers. But no rain while we were racing all weekend.

Some great starts. Some mediocre starts. No OCS's. Probably means I'm not trying hard enough if I'm never OCS. But in a regatta with no throwouts allowed it paid to be a little conservative on the start line. At least that was my theory.

Finding the secret for sailing a Laser on the beat fast and high in light winds and chop. Hey, if I told you it wouldn't be a secret would it?

Not finding the secret as to why the top guys were so much faster than me downwind in light air. Possible theories: I'm too old, too fat, too clumsy, too dumb, or too lazy. Hmmm. That's a tough one. All of the above?

Rounding the windward mark in first place in one race on the last day. Oh did I mention that I was ahead of last year's Central American and Caribbean Champion, the current US Masters Champion, and this year's North American College Sailor of the Year? Well yes, they did all roll over me on the downwind leg but it felt good for a while. When you're an old duffer like me you have to relish those small moments of glory.

Overall score for the regatta in the top 25% of the fleet. And everyone ahead of me was younger than me and had a newer boat than me. Hmmm. I guess I could fix one of those issues?

Beating that guy. I told you I would. Didn't you believe me?

Getting home in time to see my granddaughter before she left our house on Sunday evening. She still remembered who I was and demanded a hug. Actually several hugs. Priceless.

How was your weekend?

Red Hand Gang

It could have been entered for our most embarrassing moments in sailing project. Bill Faude's moment occurred while sailing in the Pan Am games in Brazil and is recounted on his Lightning in Rio blog.

This morning we went out onto the racecourse before the racing to check out the conditions. One of the things we regularly do is to sail by a permanent sea buoy of some kind to check the current. We have tide charts that tell us whether the tide should be coming in or going out. But the wind delays that sometimes. Or else the wind can even prevent the tide from going out at all. This happened on Tuesday. Anyway, we put a sponge in the water next to a big red buoy. The sponge floats low in the water so that when it moves you know it's the current that's moving it and not the wind. You might also do this with a weighted stick. OK, so we picked up the sponge and I told David I wanted to touch the buoy for good luck. I smacked it a good one as we went by. Later I looked down and saw a red splotch on the side of the boat. I thought someone was bleeding but in reality it was a hand print. The red sea buoy 3/4th of a mile off shore. The red sea buoy smack dab in the middle of the dirtiest harbor you'd ever never dream of swimming in. The red sea buoy, one of thousands in a gigantic country where very little appears to get periodic maintenance...had just been painted. Incredible!

Killer Bees

Joe wants bees.

Nemesis

Oh no! Not that guy again. I'm getting soooo tired of seeing his transom...

There's this guy. About my age. Good Laser sailor. I've known him for years and after we moved to this area he was one of the first to welcome me to the local fleet.

We've raced in a few regattas together this season. And every single time he finishes in front of me. Not by much. A place or three. A few points maybe. And it's driving me crazy.

My main motivation for trying harder and for racing better is to beat this guy. I'm consumed by it. I measure my performance against him. If I beat him I think I've had a good race. As the season progresses and my regatta finishes creep closer to his I think I'm improving.

The logical side of my brain tells me it's crazy to measure myself against one other sailor. He might have a bad day. On any given day he might be unwell, or worrying about his work, or have an equipment breakdown. But if I beat him I will be all puffed up with pride and think I have become a better sailor.

Logically I should measure my performance against the whole fleet. I should be setting myself targets to be in the top 30%, the top 10% of the fleet. Not to beat just one guy.

But the emotional irrational side of me can't help it. I have to beat this guy. What's he doing differently from me? Does he have better equipment? Does he rig his boat differently? Does he hike harder? How does he trim his sail downwind? Desperately I have to find out how he's beating me every weekend and I have to, I just have to find a way to get past him.

Am I crazy? Or are you like me? Is there one boat that is always just ahead of you in the races? Are you focused on beating it? Or do you see the bigger picture?

Another regatta this weekend. He'll be there. That guy. I know he will. This weekend I'm going to beat him. Just watch me.

Cow on a Beach

Why a picture of a cow on a beach? I have no idea. Ask Adam.

This photo was taken in 2005 on some Caribbean island but it was so good I'm not telling you which one. Or I've forgotten. One or the other.

Expectations

Some sailing bloggers like Andrew are jetting round the world to major championships and have every reason to expect a good result...

"... held on Robert Scheidt’s hip most of the way up the beat. We tacked and I was able to pinch him off..."

(God, it must have felt good to be able to write that bit!)



Others have more relaxed ambitions. The author of J24 Blog has these expectations for Friday night racing...

• To have fun
  
  
• Don’t hit any other boats
  
  
• Get more friends and family out racing with us
  
  
• Prove Bill wrong that it is possible to BBQ hot dogs on the pushpit-mounted grill while underway in a race.

What are your expectations for sailing this weekend?

Who Needs An SUV?

Len Wells from Columbus, NC gets the award for most unusual way to tow a Laser. Len and his Laser are powered by a Honda Gold Wing.

Thanks to ILCNA District 12 and Marilyn Sechrist for the photo.

Not Today Please

Cheat the nursing home, die on your Laser.
But please... not today.

The photo shows Joel Lambinus and his Laser after being run down by a tour boat in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina while sailing in the Charleston Yacht Club Open.

"I looked over my shoulder, and I saw the boat, about 75 yards away and headed dead straight for me," said Lambinus, 57, an experienced sailor. "A Laser sits 6 inches above the water, and that boat is four stories tall and 100-something feet long," he said.

He recalled hearing a woman aboard the tour boat scream as he hit the water. "I thought, what a hell of a way to die. I'm going to die underneath a tour boat in Charleston. What kind of a way to die is that?"

LOOK OUT!
IT'S COMING BACK!

Why Sail?

Why do we sail? What is it about sailing that grabs our attention, fires our enthusiasm, and turns us into lifelong passionate devotees of the sport?

I came across some answers to these questions yesterday in an unlikely source...

1. As compared to other methods of transport the uncertainty of sailing is part of its charm. (Apparently the author had never had the pleasure of flying with Northwest Airlines.)

2. The fact that skill and attention are required at almost every instant of the journey makes it more satisfying than other methods of travel. (Please note, that guy on port tack in Newport. You know who you are.)

3. Sailing is a game in which the mental power and physical activity of the sailor are pitted against the forces of nature. All other games are essentially rivalries between opponents in the exercise of some skill. But all of life is not combat; it is often the exercise of our ingenuity in dealing with natural forces over which we have no direct control. So sailing gratifies one of our deepest human instincts: it mimics the struggle of humanity to progress by taking advantage of the forces of the natural world.

4. The sailor uses his skills and intelligence to beat against the wind, an apparently impossible act to the uninformed layman. Just as in life, the stupid or lazy person will drift with the wind and be buffeted wherever life takes him; but the smart, diligent person finds a way to make progress in life "against the wind" whatever that may mean in his vocation. Is the feeling of rounding the windward mark in first place after a long hard beat so different from the pleasure we feel from scoring well in an exam, finishing a tough project, or winning that promotion at work? It's all about the mental payback that comes from success after putting in the necessary hard work to achieve it.

5. In light winds the sailor is constantly on the lookout for small opportunities to make progress that may be missed by the less capable or careless. Also in life, the person with the skill for seeing small opportunities and taking advantage of them will often go far, whether we are talking about personal finance, looking after your own health, tending a garden, or... finding subjects to blog about.

Which brings me (somewhat prematurely) to the question of where the hell did I find these weird ideas to blog about? Well, they were in a long article by P.G. Hamerton entitled Sailing Analogies in an 1883 edition of The Contemporary Review. The sailing essay was tucked away between ones on The Saints of Islam and The Nonconformists and Church Reform. (Hey, I'm sure they were topical subjects when Capt. Nat was in his prime.)

Dear old PG goes on to draw analogies between sailing and life in such areas as putting on more sail (which apparently explained why the Poles, Italians and Egyptians were respectively getting more or less than what they deserved in the 1880s), the role of ballast (a somewhat contrived analogy to the power of moral energy), and lastly the similarities between the sinking of a sailing vessel and our own death. Heavy stuff man. PG sounds like a bundle of laughs.

And how the heck did I find this gem? Am I in the habit of perusing the local libraries for 19th century editions of The Contemporary Review? No. It was all thanks to our good friends at Google. This document was digitized by them as part of their Google Books project and discovered by their search engine when I was trying to find out more about that eerie quote in yesterday's post about one of my heroes.

Anyway I'm sure PG's style of sailing writing went down well in Victorian times. If alive and kicking today he would probably be writing The Horse's Mouth.