STATE FAIR REGATTA RESULTS

by Pam

Results

Pictures (link not yet active)

A picture says a thousand words, right? Well, not really. The day started off like the picture but at lunch time, prayers were answered and the wind came in from the north and the races were on and by the end of the day it was Doug, Sandy and Frank .

Now, although I didn’t sail yesterday, I was all around the lake and on both docks and I get the Doug debrief on the way home. I keep telling people that traveling to and from a regatta with Doug yields valuable information. What I hear and know and what I can apply and execute are two different things. Perhaps, a few of you will benefit more from Doug’s debrief though.

First, Doug dumbed down sailing for me earlier this year and gave a clinic in Colorado. 0-5 winds is about sailing smart, 5-15 is about sailing fast and anything over that is about sailing fit. The Butterfly Nationals in Colorado were all about sailing smart. Boatspeed had little to do with winning. Doug’s preparation for the event should have placed him way down in the standings but his experience (smart) is such that he ended up much higher.

Such was the case yesterday. However, boatspeed (fast) was the key to yesterday. The problem was that Doug was sailing my boat which looks fast but upon close inspection, the hull has some issues and it simply isn’t fast at all. Doug believes this fleet, as a whole, has some very good boatspeed, even Catherine and Amber crossed in front of him once. Doug realized he couldn’t win on boatspeed and relied on being smart because he’s seen some consistent tactical challenges in this fleet that he knew he could take advantage of. His observations of the competition were quite interesting. Many times your competition can see more than you think. I once asked Scott Young how to beat Doug and Kelly Gough. His answer about Kelly was amusing (I won’t share it) but his answer about Doug was dead on … he thought he had some vision problems on the course. What an understatement … he couldn’t see the course.

So, for what it’s worth, here is what Doug had to say about the sailors that consistently punched out in each race and how he beat each one of them. I think we all benefit by having new blood with talent in the fleet and since he’s willing to share his thoughts, I figure we benefit even more.

Some specifics are best for offline conversations … like why getting a good start is key to beating Bruce (and his current boat and sail aren’t doing him any favors), why Sandy doesn’t appear to know how good he is and why he would be the easiest to coach, why Gary and Burton waste their excellent boatspeed at times and why Frank just might be the best sailor out there if not for flyers that rarely pay.

Yesterday’s observations were that boatspeed was needed to win. Also important was looking upwind and catching the shifts. Since there were boats all over the course, it was easy to look upwind and down and have about a 1 minute warning of a windshift. The fleet apparently missed a lot of them and that is one area where Doug gained. Also important was being patient. Since the course was nice and long, you could just wait for things to happen instead of trying to force them to happen. There was some impatience on the course and Doug gained there too. Then the angles were important. Doug says the fleet didn’t appear to be aware of the angles and he gained there as well. Over and over again, Doug was playing catch up because he didn’t have boatspeed. He would be behind the lead boat and knew he couldn’t gain on them so he would tack. No one covered him and that allowed him to gain. All anyone had to do was cover him and he never would have gotten past them. Of course, I’m pretty sure Doug has some more tricks up his sleeve and even if you had covered him, he do something else. I don’t know what but maybe we should push him to another level and find out.