Wednesday Night Racing

Maybe it was the heat. It has been brutally hot in the north-east in the last few days.

Maybe it was the light, patchy, shifty winds. Never my favorite.

Maybe it was the larger fleet with the resultant crowded start lines and mark roundings.

Whatever it was, Wednesday night Sunfish racing this week was incredibly frustrating. It seems like I was always having trouble getting off the start line in clear air, never finding a good lane upwind, frequently getting involved in incidents with other sailors at mark roundings, slow on the offwind legs, hardly ever in the groove upwind, unable to predict accurately what the wind was going to do...

Why does everything seem to go wrong at once? The previous week was the exact opposite. Good starts, clear air and excellent speed upwind, arriving at the first mark with the leaders, sailing fast and clean for the rest of each race. Go figure.

And when things start to go wrong, my mental attitude goes downhill too. I find myself getting irritated at the other sailors. Don't they know the rules? How could he be so stupid as to do that? Why didn't he give me enough room? Why did she have to tack on my air? A negative attitude only contributes to slower boatspeed and more tactical mistakes. So things go from bad to worse.

Then I start to get annoyed with the boat. Hate the Sunfish. Never did like it as much as my Laser. Stupid boat won't point. I'm too heavy to sail a toy boat like this anyway. Amazing how much slower I go when I start thinking like this.

So I blame the heat, the wind, the size of the fleet, the other sailors, the boat...

Who else could I blame? Myself? You must be joking.

Anyone want to buy a used Sunfish?