Musing 4

by Pam

I woke up the other morning and the first thing out of my mouth was 'why protect the right?' At the WRBC Rockfish Regatta the week before, Doug repeatedly told me to protect the right at the start and kept saying the first boat to tack will win the race. Well, Mr. Smarty Pants was right every single time and I still didn't understand how he knew that before the first race began.

Doug often shouts cryptic information at me on the race course and I never understand its meaning until days later when I think to ask. At Lotawana, it was, 'when you get headed, don't tack.' Yeah, like that makes sense and then he goes on to win 5 of the 6 races and throws out a 2.

So I woke up Monday blurting out why protect the right and finally got my answer. He said the course was set so that the first leg was super short because the start/finish line was in the middle of the course and any time you have a short first leg, the first boat to tack wins and usually only the rightmost boat can tack and everyone else is pinned down and in bad air. If you go left in clear air, you get forced too far left for too long and you miss all the shifts and in a first short leg, you can't make up for that. Good to know. Short first leg ... protect the right at the start. It's even better to have a second row start at the boat than first row down the line. Note to self.