“The most fun an adult can have wearing a hermetically sealed rubber suit.”
The first day of Laser frostbiting was today. It was 50 degrees and sunny, with winds at 5-10 knots. Beautiful conditions.
As mentioned in my last entry I expected to go out on my first real day of Laser racing and get, well, humiliated. Shockingly it didn’t happen. In fact I am somewhat at a loss to explain how I actually managed to put up what would be a reasonably good day for an experienced Laser sailor. For me it was nothing short of miraculous.
What a blast it was though. I’ve not taken the helm in a race since 2005 and back then I had a small army of people on the boat with me. Including people to help me with basic things like setting up a start so the boat ends up in an advantageous position at the beginning of a race instead of buried under everyone’s foul air with nowhere to go and timing the tacks to the wind shifts so we’d sail the shortest way to the marks. Today…no Tactician calling the start or the tacks…just me looking around and saying “huh…looks like time to tack”.
The cool thing was I didn’t suck as fiercely as I thought I would. In fact I did pretty well for a rank newbie and even led the fleet for a little bit. And I don’t think it ever felt any better when I had ten other people on board helping to make it happen on the big keel boat.
I’m certainly not claiming any Mad Sailing Skilz or much of anything but blind luck on a light air day. The race I was first to the mark, well, that was because I screwed up the start so badly I could only sail the other direction away from everyone else because I put myself in such a deep hole. Away from the fleet…and right into an awesome wind shift that lifted me in front of everyone else until I got greedy and pinched my way into a mark. Cost me two boats but I didn’t care at that point I was so happy not to be last. So a lot of beginners luck and not having to pay too badly for my sloppy tacks and poor boat handling made for a fun day on the water.
Only six more days until the next race!
