The breeze really backed off today as it switched around to the north and was oscillating all morning and afternoon only giving the opportunity for 2 course races all day. With the wind around 8-12k, most everyone rigged their big sails for maximum power throughout the day. Unfortunalty there was also alot of holes throughout the course which caused alot of lead changes every race. The formula fleet of around 40 boards were pushing the line hard in both races today and had multiple general recalls before getting off clean. I got lucky a few times as I got buried at the start as the fleet was well over. In times like that, you have to be aggressive but not stand out on the line- better to start mid line in a pack instead of being over early right in front of the RC boat!
more racing photos here...In the start that that was clean I got off near the pin end clean in what I thought was a great start but looked over my shoulder only to find the wind had switched right about a minute before the start and now the boat end was majorly favored. The lesson here is to test the line and stay aware of the shifts during the 5 minute countdown. I got caught on the wrong side of the shift from the beginning and never got back in phase the whole race.
It was hard to get my game face back on after that race but somehow after a long break waiting for the other fleets to race and having lunch- I was able to get myself back in the game after I borrowed a fin from Sylvester and finally found the groove I was looking for in the light wind. The new light wind set up consisted of a 11.7 m2 north warp with my mikes lab l7 and new 70 cm Zajicek fin. The fin was much stiffer than what I was used to using but was able to hold angle and really rocked downwind in my initial test against Sylvester and Percy. So there I was ready for race 2- with the confidence to hold my angle upwind. I was ready to go! A couple of more general recalls as the fleet was really pushing the line but all 3 times I got off well with a lane for the first 20 seconds before heading back to restart. Finally the real deal- I was pushing the line aggressive at the start getting lined up with speed down the line with 20 seconds to go when I just ran out of wind and stalled as the wind died on the line and the fleet went over the top of me. How ironic as I finally found a set up to work and screwed by the wind. Well that’s the reality of racing- you’ve got to take the ups and the downs- hopefully learning something from every situation. The big lesson I learned today was to keep my cool- no matter how bad you think things can get, no matter how desperate the situation- there’s always one more board in front of you to fight to get and at the end of the day every point counts! Today I found my 2 throwouts for the regatta so tommorow got to get everything in line for some top 10 finsihes.
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