The first month of the season and all I seem to do is make mental mistakes. Sailing is a game of who makes the fewest mistakes, whether that it is physical or mental. A friend of mine once said “If you are not on the front row of the line at the start, why do you bother showing up at all?” I certainly felt that way with the first fleet racing of the year. I never got the boat near the line. Now it was very low wind the first races, but I still should have been on the line with speed.
I did not get any fleet racing in until the second weekend of June. For my first Lightning racing of the year I had a newbie on board, Andrea, and last years crew, Mike Bono. Mike was rusty and Andrea had been sailing before but not in a few years, and not racing. We were late getting out after finishing getting the boat ready and missed the first race. It was the first time getting the boat out and I was not totally prepared. I left my jib sheets at home and had some final repairs to make and had to tune the boat. Consequently I was unable to go over the boat with my crew and did not go over any spinnaker stuff. I also had picked up a fourth to bring out to Dave C, who only had his young daughter with him. We sailed around with all 4 of us until the first race ended. That would have been the perfect time to go over the boat, but we just talked and relaxed instead. I was late to the second start as well, and I had the main choked off. We were fine going up wind, but downwind getting the spinnaker up was a problem and getting it down was even more so. We sailed past the mark trying to get it down. We were so far behind it was funny. So we finished last, third out of 3. I actually thought we worked well together, my crew was just new. A few days of practice and I could see this be a good team. Andrea has a lot to learn, but her movements were smooth.
The theme for all the MC races of the first Sunday was be late for the start. And I was, including a good 45 seconds in the last race. I was able to recover in the second race to finish 3rd out of 9 by hitting a good wind shift on the downwind but that was my only good move. The other finishes were 6 out of 8 and 8 out of 9 boats.
This second fleet racing weekend we had heavy air for Sunday. It was great, except I had another new crew on board the Lightning. Mike joined me again and I had Nick Hudson. I had a decent start, but my sets were awful. I was letting the main out too far and so the spinnaker was getting caught between the main and the side stays so it cannot fill. The gybes were tough. I am used to the MC scow, where you need to use the tiller more to steer the boat through a gybe downwind, especially in heavy air. The Lighting has a much larger rudder and therefore smaller movements will get a bigger result. I am over steering this boat like mad. This is especially true in my gybes. Because of the bad downwinds I am loosing boats. I had one upwind where I had the middle man doing clean up on the leeward side and so was not sailing the beat properly. Why clean up when you need to get going? My upwind speed is not too bad and I had ok starts in the Lightning that day. But I need a lot of work on my downwinds. Nick did well for his first time trimming a spinnaker. I had to help out a bit with the guy, but other than that he was pretty good. Mike needs to move faster across the boat, but all of our movements need work. Three boats and I finished 3rd and 2nd in the two races. I was with the first boat until the downwinds.
MC sailing, we almost did not go out the wind was blowing so hard. I am glad we went as it is good practice to tack and gybe and sail. It was very hard and tiring. I actually had good starts with speed and would’ve rounded the windward mark around 2nd or 3rd in each race, but I missed the mark each of the first beats. How in the heck do you do it once let alone twice! I was just not checked into the chess match part of the game that well. I did all I could to catch up in the first race and did with a great downwind, but upwind I lost two boats at the end to finish 4th. That was still not bad for having missed the mark and doing a 360. I should have slowed the boat down and tacked behind a few guys instead. But that is hindsight. Hopefully I remember to do it the next time the same thing presents itself. The second race I was unable to recover and beat only two boats. It was a ton of fun in the high winds and downwind was a blast. You really needed to work to keep the boat from diving into the waves. Keep it healed to windward, vang on to keep the upper leach from backfilling and tiping you over, and sail by the lee. There were a few waves that you needed to head up to avoid them, but mostly just pulling the tiller toward you to head more down and surf the wave a bit. We had 9 boats the first race and 8 the second and I had a 4/9 and 6/8. So far for the pre-season I am in 6th out of 10 different starters with 27 points and first and second with 16 and 18, respectively, in 5 races.
The fourth weekend in June, we held the Lightning Champagne Regatta on Saturday and Sunday. We ended early on Sunday, so we were able to have 3 MC races in the afternoon. I will post more about the Champagne Regatta later (I did not do well). The wind was basically extremely variable in direction. Mostly out of the south, but we had east puffs and west puffs. Some of them for extended periods of time, such that if you were in the right position, you were golden, if not, you were shot out.
For the first race it really looked like we were going to have a committee boat favored start and starboard would be the first long tack. Soon before the start the wind died down to its low point and there seemed to be some east in the new wind. But the west came back in. I was closest to the committee boat and shot into the lead with Bob Cole the next closest competitor. The wind did shift to be more from the south during the race with a slight west tilt for the second half of the second up wind, but I was so far ahead at the beginning that I led wire to wire.
The second race was the most exciting in that 4 of us tried to hit the windward mark at the same time. Chris Hawk crossed me on port and then tacked with Bob Cole ahead of me. I was unable to stay up to speed and angle to the mark so I had to bail out and perform two quick tacks. I followed right behind the three leaders as we headed to the east side of the course. About 1/3 of the way down the course I started to get a read of a west air going across my tell tales, so I gybed away from the pack. The two boats behind us had also gone west, but much farther and earlier than I did. Around 2/3rds of the way I saw what the front three were going for, and I felt that I was either screwed or going to lead. Luckily I got the west and the east did not materialize. I then took the starboard lifted tack 90% of the way back up to the windward mark and stay on the east side. There was another long puff coming down the lake. Chris Hawk tacked early to see if that would let him catch up to me, but I stayed into the breeze longer and once I tacked to port I was gone. I would have had to tip over for them to catch me. Halfway down the leg we got the nicest puff of the day so that I had to move to the windward side downwind. It was a nice easy win from there.
In the third race we had one of those Crazy Ivan starts, there was very little wind and you could not make the line on port. Chris Hawk was the only one to escape at the start. I was the second one and Bob Cole was right behind me. Chris separated from me and I separated from Bob the rest of the race. Going around the leeward mark the last time I went west just in case something could help me catch Chris. I thought I might have over stood as I was getting some really nice west shots but instead I noticed Chris came back to cover the other guys and I was much closer to him. He was able to hold me off and sailed a nice mostly comfortable win. Getting a 1, 1, 2 out of 7 boats was a nice salve to the Champagne regatta. This probably put me in 3rd out of 12 starters for the Pre-Season. Next weekend is the start of the official KYC season. I hope we get the winds we have had for most of June the rest of the year, so far it has been better than the last few years.
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