Laser Sailing is Fun

Top Ten List blogger O Docker says Ocean Sailing Is Hard. I don't really understand his point. Apparently ocean sailors don't like going upwind. Something to do with "swells and waves" and "leeway" and having to tack every three or four hours so you don't get where you want to go as fast as if you were sailing in a straight line.

Huh?

Apparently some west coast ocean sailors find the horrors of upwind sailing to be so intimidating that they sail downwind to Mexico where they succumb to the temptations of "cheap tequila, warm water, and the almost endless summer"... and then they never go back upwind to home.

Hmmm.

I guess I'll never understand ocean sailing. I've never done it. So I'll just have to take O Docker's word for it. Ocean sailing is hard.

Laser sailing can be hard at times too. But most of the time it is pure fun. That's why we do it. That's why I do it anyway.

Last Tuesday was a great example.

The sea breeze kicked up on schedule in early afternoon, and continued to build, so I headed over to Bristol Harbor and launched at 4:30pm in a delicious 15+ knot southerly that was whipping up some juicy rolling waves. I played around by myself for about an hour just enjoying the wind and the waves on all points of sail and not thinking at all about those miserable west coast ocean sailors having such a hard time doing ocean sailing on the ocean.

After an hour or so some of the other Tuesday evening Bristol Harbor Laser sailing crowd showed up and we started racing windward-leeward courses with rabbit starts. It was close racing and excellent practice. It reminded me somewhat of that day two years ago which I wrote about in Just Six Laser Dudes Racing Round a Sausage. But Tuesday was even more fun, if that could be possible. The winds were steady and strong enough for hiking, the fleet stayed close, there was plenty of boat to boat tactics, and the sun was low in the sky bathing the sea and the boats in an orange glow.

If the Wickford Regatta the previous weekend restored my passion to sail more regattas this summer, then Tuesday evening brought back my enthusiasm for informal group practice with fellow Laserites. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of Tuesday evenings in Bristol Harbor this summer.

Laser sailing is fun.

Fat Bottomed Girls

Today I ran another half-marathon.

If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.

Useless Unless Worn

I have just started reading Jon Emmet's new book Be Your Own Sailing Coach. I will probably write a full review later but I just had to share the first page of the book. It's that image above, an ad from Britain's RNLI campaign to persuade boaters to wear their lifejackets.

Very timely in view of so much news recently of fatal boating accidents. Wouldn't it be great if every book about boating started with a reminder to people to wear their lifejackets?

If you're going on the water this weekend, be safe.

The Curse of the White Towel

Last weekend I sailed in the Wickford Regatta.

Apparently, back in the day (whatever that means) the Wickford Regatta was the "premier springtime event on the East Coast." It says so on their website so it must be true. First held in 1972, it was one of the first Laser events in the world and in subsequent years 470s, 505s and Flying Dutchmen put the Wickford Regatta on the map.

It still is a pretty cool event. We had Lasers and 420s for regular folks like you and me. And sexier boats like Vipers and 505s and foiling Moths for people who are sexy enough to sail sexy boats.

I don't often have a chance to see sexy boats. It was the first time I had seen foiling Moths. I even got to see them actually foiling. It was an even more bizarre sight than they look on YouTube. I was tempted to try one until I noticed that all the Moth sailors were at least 8 inches shorter than me and at least 50 pounds lighter.

Hmmm.

Anyway, the Wickford Regatta was revived last year and is now, once again, one of the premier springtime events on the East coast. Well, at least the premier springtime event in Wickford.

I was only mildly surprised to realize that this was the first "real" Laser regatta I had sailed since the weekend I won the towel in 2008. I never knew at the time that winning a towel would almost destroy my motivation for sailing. I sailed very little last year. No regattas at all. That towel is a curse. Where is that towel? I need to have a towel burning ceremony to exorcise the curse.

Anyway. (I think I said "anyway" already.) Anyway, because of the curse of the towel I didn't have very high expectations for my performance at Wickford. If I had bothered to write down my goals for the regatta (which I didn't) they would have been

• have fun
• meet some old friends
• meet some new people
• get familiar with racing Laser regattas again
• work out what I need to work on
• learn something useful
• not win a towel
• have fun.

It's not every time that I go to a regatta and achieve every single one of my goals. But this time I did.

There were some really good sailors near the front of the fleet. Really good as in a couple of current Laser Masters World Champions and a Cape Cod Frosty National Champion. As usual a bunch of fast kids (meaning anyone under 35.) Then a solid group of mid-fleet sailors. And, as expected, I was duking it out with the other tail-enders.

I didn't totally disgrace myself. I even beat that other guy in 4 out of 5 races on Saturday. He reads this blog so I had to mention that.

Unfortunately on Sunday there was no wind. We stayed around until lunchtime before everyone admitted that there wasn't going to be any wind, so we all went home.

Actually Sunday was better than it sounds. It meant that we all got to hang around together on the beach and talk about what sailors talk about. Laser sailing isn't inherently a very social sport when you are actually racing. But Laser sailors are interesting, friendly people (present company excepted.)

I caught up with some old friends. Spent a long time talking with a very interesting guy whom I had only known casually before. Picked the brains of some of the top sailors. Spent an inordinate amount of time with some other inquisitive souls examining how the regatta winner rigged his boat. Even measured his all-important downwind vang setting. How anal-retentive of me.

I think I have overcome the curse of the towel. The Wickford Regatta restored my passion for Laser racing. I've got the bug again. I'm scanning the district regatta schedule to work out what regattas I will race this summer. I'm making mental checklists of what I need to change on the boat and what I need to practice.

I'm back!

I Do Believe in Duct Tape

Best line from tonight's finale of LOST....

"I don't believe in a lot of things

but I do believe in duct tape."

That explains it all.

I think I'll go to bed now.

Glue Factory

48 Blogs that Offer Tips on Boating Safety

Talking of boating safety (of which we seem to have been doing a lot lately) check out boatinsurance.org's post on 48 Blogs that Offer Tips on Boating Safety.

Britannia Rules the Waves

Yes, that really is a bouncy castle being paddled through a fleet of Lasers at an international regatta. Thanks to tonic.com for drawing my attention to the three plucky Brits who decided to honor the proud nautical tradition of our seafaring nation by paddling an inflatable bouncy castle five miles across Lake Garda. Full details and video at Three Brits Realize Their Dream Of Crossing Italian Lake In Inflatable Castle.

If further proof were needed that, when it comes to boats, we British are more than slightly unhinged, check out the story at Captain JP's Log of the skip with the outboard which is supposed to be demonstrating something about the evolution of boat design. (For American viewers, "skip" is Real English for "dumpster".)




Altogether now...

When Britain first at Heav'n's command

Arose from out the azure main;

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sang this strain;

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee,

Shall in their turns to tyrants fall;

While thou shalt flourish great and free,

The dread and envy of them all.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

Still mor majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke;

As the loud blast that tears the skies,

Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame,

All their attempts to bend thee down

Will but arouse thy generous flame;

But work their woe, and thy renown.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

They cities shall with commerce shine;

All thine shall be the subject main,

And every shore it circles thine.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

The Muses, still with freedom found,

Shall to thy happy coast repair;

Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crowned,

And manly hearts to juide the fair.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

It Could Happen To You

Sometimes fatal boating accidents happen to people who may not be very experienced boaters and who, because of their inexperience perhaps, make some bad judgments... like driving a motor boat fast in the dark in unfamiliar waters that have low rocky islands. That appears to be the case in the accident that I reported a couple of days ago.

But you are not like that, are you? You are an experienced sailor. You know what you are doing. It couldn't happen to you, could it?

Wrong.

It could happen to you.

It happened to Marty Stevenson, a friend of Carol Anne and Pat Byrnes who wrote about Marty and his tragic accident here and here.

Don't assume it couldn't happen to you. Play safe. Always wear your PFD. Wear a drysuit or a wetsuit if the water is cold. Accidents happen. People fall into the water for all sorts of unpredictable and unexpected, and sometimes unknown, reasons. Nature does not respect your years of experience. You had better respect nature.

Don't let it happen to you.

Sorry to sound such a dark note. But I don't want to read any more posts about fatal boating accidents to people I "know" through blogging. And especially not one about you.

Three Laser Sailing Posts

And now for something completely different...

After a week of powerboat posts it's time to get back to the real subject of this blog which is... whatever I want it to be.

Seriously, I need a fix of Laser sailing reading. Maybe you do too. So for your reading pleasure, here are three recent posts about Laser sailing that piqued my interest in the last few days. Each, in their own way, reminds me of a period of my sailing history and holds a lesson for what I should be doing in the future...

Keeping the youth interested... Brent Burrows is pretty young himself - only 16 years old. He's an up-and-coming Laser sailor from the Bahamas. Most of his blog posts are about his own racing and his training sessions. But this post is about an even younger sailor, Pedro, who has been sailing Optimists for a year or so. Brent sees a lot of potential in Pedro and has volunteered to coach him all summer to develop that potential. What a guy!

In my last few years in New Jersey I spent quite a bit of time myself mentoring young sailors but I haven't done any of that since moving to Rhode Island. I should be more like Brent.

Practice Toward Perfection. Jay Livingston has written another classic in his series of posts on the Zen of sailing. His musings on the meditative nature of solo practice remind me of all the days I sailed my Laser alone in 2008. You can overdo this solo practice thing but it certainly has its place. I need to be more like Jay.

Laser Masters Nationals Wrap-Up. Scott Young is a very accomplished sailor. He is a four-time winner of the Mallory Cup and was tied for first place points at last year's Laser Masters North Americans. He recently sailed in the 2010 US Laser Masters in Charleston. Most people would be happy with fifth place at such a tough regatta. (I would be delirious. So delirious that I would probably retire from Laser sailing and take up power-boating.) But Scott sets high standards for himself, and in this post he analyzes what he should have done and what his competitors did to prepare for this championship.

Such things as...

• sail in a competitive home fleet
• do the midwinter Laser circuit in Florida
• experience the local conditions before the regatta
• sail a series of regattas before the championship to be sure of your fitness, equipment and race course management

Certainly in 2007 when I really hit the New England Laser circuit and sailed almost every major local regatta that summer, I saw the impact on my results at the Masters Worlds that October. I should listen to Scott more.


Hmmm. What just happened? I read a few blogs and all of a sudden I'm getting enthusiastic about Laser sailing again. My flirtation with power-boating is over... probably... for now... until the next time.