Train Wreck Day 1

Pretty darn good day.

I am sitting in 4th place after three races. Finishes are 6, 8, and 6.

I woke up this morning, kicked open the door, streched my legs and aired the stink out of the car (yes I slept in my car intentionally). It was cool, mostly sunny, and windy.

After breakfast I set about rigging the boat and getting ready. It was a borrowed boat with modifications I needed to get familiar with. The forecast was for a front to pass through midday, 10-15 in front of it and 10-15 after with 15-20 during its passing. When we set out to the course it was all I could handle.

I also very quickly realize how old, fat, and out of shape I am when I got tired limping along to the start.

I started mid line sag 1.5 lengths in front of anyone around me. Top mark I was 10th or so and worked my way up to 5-6 range through good upwind and an ocaasional good downwind. In fact I can sya this about each race. I stared mid line front row with clear air in all three.

The whole day I was challenged with the boat modifications. The mainsheet constantly got tangled in the double end block and cleats, and any line falling next to the traveller blocked its movement. Most tacks were failures. I lost a lot of distance on boat handling, probably 2 or 3 places in each race.

Race 1 was heavy with big right side gains. Race 2 was medium/heavy with right side gains and one left sied win (course changes got ahead of the clocking wind). I picked them all correctly.

Race 3 was light, post-front and 90 degrees different from 1 and 2. It was fogged and misted in with no visibility of the mark or shores. I flipped a coin and went left, way left. When people appeared out of the fog to see the mark and fleet, it was a crap shoot to see where you were. I was overstood a bit and left most boat. I rounded 12th or so. The rest of the race was sunny with a LOT of hard decisions on shifts and puffs. I did better than most actually ending up only a 150 feet or so behind the winner. I was in a pack battling for 4th through 10th. I made huge gains right and had to come in underneath a line of boats from the left. It was one of those cases where if I crossed I would be 4th, blow the tack and finish 10th. I did the best I could with the cards dealt.

I'm really happy with the results. If we get 2 races in tomorrow regardless of finished I will have had a good regatta to start the season.

Now I'm off to Walmart to get a pillow.