Musing 3

by Pam

Doug and I were looking at pictures of the Laser Open Worlds that just wrapped up. I didn't have my contacts on and at a glance, my vision was what Doug's use to be before his surgeries. As he looked at the picture he was trying to see what Tom Slingsby had figured out that had him way out in front of the fleet. He ran down the various sail controls and noted differences and then said to look at how fluky the wind was. Huh? As he explained, I realized that without contacts, I was seeing with his old eyes but hadn't learned to use the information available. I finally understood the difference in what we see when we sail. I look back and see Bruce, Frank, Sandy, Burton and Gary (when I'm having a really good day) and Doug looks back and sees wind through its changing patterns. Bruce is a lift, Frank is a header, etc. He was never able to see sail numbers or people and he didn't care. What he could see was shapes and angles and he learned to glean quite a bit of information from that limited vision. Interesting ...