CORK Olympic Classes Regatta Day 2 (Kingston, ON)

What a frustrating day! One fluky hard race, a BFD (again!!!!!!), and a chance at a great last race of the day, only to capsize before the last run. The forecast for today (and the rest of the regatta) was for light winds. I used to dread the light air days, but now I am over that and I look forward to them almost as much as a windy day. It is a chance to play shifts, keep my head out of the boat and looking around, and focus on being smooth and building flow over my foils and blades. That being said - it is days like today that are easy to have a bad race or lose a lot of boats with the wrong decision.

So today, the wind was out of the north at about 5 knots in the first race. The second was crazy fluky filling in from all directions at different times during the race and mostly less than 5 knots. I was sitting around watching the finish of the 2nd race with the Finn's (since I had been called over on a black flag) when the little puffs started coming in from the south east and south west. The wind turbines on the far shore started to slow down, stop, and slowly turn around. By the time they finished the radials, moved the course, and started the full rigs and fins, the sea breeze was filling in nicely.

I was proud of myself in the last race for recognizing that the wind shifted hard left during the end of our start sequence and people were having trouble getting up to the line. I started mid line and tacked at the gun. I knew the boats near the pin who tacked right away would be over stood, but could sail lower and faster and might roll me, so I sailed as powered up as I could. I was super fast and climbing. It was flat water, flat out hiking, flat boat, and my sail was fully powered - loose cunningham, just snug vang, and deep outhaul except in a couple puffs where I flattened it a bit. I have been thinking a lot about getting flow and then holding still to let the loads build. It totally works.

I rounded the windward mark in 2nd and made the mistake of going low on the downwind which was now a reach. Then lost a couple boats on the upwind when I didn't go far enough right at the top. Still, I was in the top ten. I rounded the reach mark and bore away hard to get clear air and protect the left side on the last downwind - too hard though - a puff hit at the same time and I capsized! I can't believe I did that! Stupid. I thought I was done making stupid mistakes.

I realize that I have been trying to get fancy on the mark roundings and often turn too much when I should actually just point straight at the next mark.

Lesson for today: Recognize if the downwind is skewed before you get there! If it is square and light wind - get to an edge for clear air. If it is skewed, you might just have clear air by pointing straight at the mark. Why make it complicated? Just go as fast as you can towards the next mark!

Anyway, back to black flags - I was set up nicely I thought, but William Marshall stole my hole at 10 seconds to go, and I was probably too close to the line since the whole pack I was with was over early. More work to do - I'm trying to stay back enough but it is so hard when the people around you are pushing forward too much! That will be my focus tomorrow. Again.

Going to spin my legs out as they say in Canada.