Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Races 3 and 4 update

Races 3 and 4

Kind of stormy 15 -20 today.

Race 1:

    Once again, a great 1st beat following a great start. I had clear air the whole leg, and was middle left with a good view of the other leaders way left and right. Near the top I tacked to starboard on a big header even though no one else did and there were more boats on the right. Might have been a bad decision, but I never got to find out, my tack back was bad and I had to back down. Here's what happened, my vang was on so tight, that the mainsheet between the end of the boom block, and the boom strap caught the end of my tiller (not extension). This has only happened to me twice before but it totally throws you off guard. The boom has to be low enough to snag the tiller. So, I think I lost maybe 10 boats. I rounded with Paige in about 20th I think.
     The rest of the race I tried to stay in clear air downwind and get in a groove, and upwind play the shifts and keep a lane.  Often downwind, I would round with a pack of boats, and by the leward mark, they would be just in front of me. I think my downwind technique has improved, but more work is needed!

Race 2:
     I had a decent start, but not awesome. Struggled to make good decisions upwind in this race, the fleet spread really wide. It seemed generally like it was good to go left early, then work over to the right at the top of the beat. It was really hard to know when to tack on a shift, or when to go farther to a side to get to a new wind. Same story downwind.

Goal for Races 5 and 6:

Get spectacular starts, not just good. That doesn't mean high risk at the pin or the boat, just punched out and full speed.


Link to the regatta website:
http://www.laserworldchampionship.com/en/home.html

Results are here:  http://www.laserworldchampionship.com/fileadmin/medialib/dokumente/Regatta/Laser_WM_2012/ResultsAfter4Races.pdf

We are split into two fleets, blue and yellow. They change every day. The scores are combined, so there are two of every result for each race. U21 stands for under 21, they are scored separately in addition to the overall scores. After race 6 we will be divided into Gold and Silver fleets


A start


Standing in line to launch


Sailing in at the end of the day







2 comments:

  1. Nice reporting. Thanks.
    Keep your head up and smooth sailing.
    Enjoy your trip,

    ReplyDelete