Laser NA's

Qualifying is over for the Laser NA's in Long Beach. Gold Fleet racing starts today.

Day one was a very windy sea breeze with medium, steep messy waves. My results were decents - 6,7,7.  Held a clear lane all the way around the long courses. I wished my upwind boatspeed was a little better, and don't know why I was slower than the leaders. It took a couple races to figure out the wave technique for downind here, but downwind speed was not bad. The waves push you right, they are very skewed to the wind, so you have to turn farther than you think by the lee to get enough speed to catch them.

Day two I was hoping to improve my scores, but dropped way back. The breeze didn't fill in until late and we sailed two races in the same big messy waves, with only 6-10 kts of breeze in the first race and maybe 8-12 in the second. Again I was way off the pace upwind, and I'm not sure why. Need to spend more time in these conditions. The downwinds were fun! I am starting to figure it out, surfing a lot and catching some boats.

I'm trying not to be discouraged for the next two days. Going to pay more attention to how the leaders are sailing and see if I can improve my speed. - Can't forget to keep my head out of the boat though.

-Christine