8-3-11 RACING

by Pam

The triple digits are starting to wear.  Once again, we had a beautiful sunny day, with plenty of sun and heat.  I opted to bail on the first two races and let Doug do his thing.  He won the first and second race and I jumped on for the third. 

First thing I asked was ‘What have you learned from the competition?’  ‘Lots’ he said.  ‘For instance, Sandy has really good boat speed.’  I asked, ‘so why didn’t he do better?’  ‘Because he doesn’t have good boat speed.”  Lovely.  Gibberish.  He was having one of those days.  I’ve observed that sometimes Doug gets so far into the zone that he feels, sees and knows everything that’s going on around him and it all makes perfect sense in his head but when it comes out of his mouth it’s nothing but gibberish.  I’ve asked him to describe what he is thinking on those days when all the dots connect perfectly.  He said, ‘I’m saying to myself, I need a lift and then I get one or I need a header and then get one and that happens all through the race.’  Sometimes it seems like the man has learned to manipulate matter with his mind. 

So, in my debrief on the drive home, I find out that Sandy has really good boat speed.  The entire fleet has good boat speed so that isn’t what is going to win a race.  The lead boats often go off in the same direction and they reach the top mark fairly close indicating boat speed is similar and not the winning factor.  The fleet starts to separate when it comes to the decisions of left or right and tack or not.  He calls these decisions tiny things that make a big difference.  I’m trying to get him to give me rules of thumb.  He’s actually working on a sliding scale chart that simplifies the decisions for me but for now he says he tends to make left/right decisions (sails the course - favored side) at the bottom mark and midway up he makes tacking decisions (sails the competition - angles) and at the top he sails the breeze (sails the competition - positioning, inside, last shift, protect the right).  But then those decisions are tempered by other factors such as if he’s in the lead and the competition goes a direction he thinks is the wrong way, he goes with them because it's a choice of either extending his lead or getting it wrong and losing the lead boats. 

So outside of the racing, Sam has joined WRBC and was installing his newly built stand (using Brad’s instruction sheet) and was making his boat comfortable in its new home.  Welcome to the fleet!

Meanwhile, Frank was teaching Catherine to drive the rescue boat, set the course and run the races.  He succeeded in pushing her way out of her comfort zone and watching the interaction between the two was entertaining.  When Catherine announced that she was hot, Frank reached down and grabbed a bottle of water and proceeded to open it.  At first I thought he was going to drink it and ignore her completely, then I thought he was going to open it for her and hand it to her.  Nope.  He gave her a nice surprise spritzing to cool her down. 

It was a good day ... three good races, no heat stroke victims, a new member, a little training and some good competition.  It’s hard to beat this fleet for a good time.