3-1-2014 Racing

by Pam

As I write this it is sleeting outside. It's hard to believe that less than 24 hours ago, it was a beautiful sunny day, the Bradford Pear trees were all blooming and some of us were wearing shorts and sailing. But, on February 2nd the groundhog did warn us that there would be 6 more weeks of winter. Fortunately, Texas likes to give us a little sneak preview of spring to enjoy. For those of us that came out to sail, it was a very nice treat. I even got a little bit of pink color on my cheeks. I noticed on Facebook that sailing has been cancelled today all over the D/FW area and even as far South as Austin.

With the warmer temperatures on Saturday, we had a better turnout than most of the winter and the wind was just enough but not too much. Sort of perfect for our return to a 10:30 start time. Someone forgot to remind the Lasers though and they missed the first two race starts and showed up about noon. It was nice to get back to taking a break after the first two races and exchanging thoughts during lunch.

I raced the first race with Doug on the committee boat taking pictures and filming. Doug's narrative on the videos was a series of frustration 'Pam should tack … Pam's in a hole … what are you doing? … tack girl tack! … so what does she do? does she get aggressive? oh, no please just go right ahead … well, she just screwed up again …" Whereas, Gary, Bruce, Burton, Amber and Cathy all got a 'well done … nice job … looking good' and even Miles got a 'nice little roll tack.'

Anyone in the lunch room listening to Doug at lunch thinking he was taking shots at me should know that in his mind I was abusing the boat by making it go slow and insulting Mother Nature by ignoring all the gifts she gave me. After spending some time going through the videos with him, I see the error of my ways. I was sailing angles and completely forgetting that sailing the pressure should have come before angles on such a day. Fortunately, he got on the boat for the second race and won which took a little of the edge off of his frustration of watching me sail the first race. I can see we're going to be putting in some time getting the walkie talkies to work before next week so he can protect the boat's reputation as I make my way around the course.

Gary, now about 30 pounds lighter, is looking really fast in the boat. He's always had exceptional skills at finding pressure and staying in it and his steering is awesome. I'm betting he'll be winning quite a few races this year. I sailed on his boat once last year (or was if the year before) and thought the hull was a little on the heavy and slow side (but that might have been me). Gary, we'll have to switch boats for a couple of races because I'm betting you'll be wicked fast on a new hull.

As I was sitting on the committee boat watching the second race, Amber and Cathy were coming downwind together just a gabbing away. Cracked me up! Both were sailing pretty well just behind the leaders and having a good ole time. Move a couple of places up and do that and you'll drive the guys nuts. As it was, Bruce politely informed Paul that is was bad etiquette to pass someone while singing along with the music on one's iPod. Times, they are a changing.

So, for the third race Doug and I sailed two up with Doug at the helm. I'm on a bit of a quest lately to understand how weight affects performance. Doug says in the light stuff and heavy stuff, weight isn't much of a factor but in the medium stuff (like Saturday) we can't do well. He was right (and wrong). We did as well as I did by myself but not as well as he did by himself. My takeaway is that an experienced skipper can take on a light female passenger and hang with the group and do some one on one training that would take the passenger much longer to learn alone. Or, we're back to my two way radio training idea. We'll get back to testing various microphone covers so that the wind doesn't trigger the mic and keep it open for only one way communication.