Day 5

Another beautiful day with nice wind - about 14 knots - and beautiful waves for surfing on the down winds.

I am mostly happy with my performance today except for a few key things. I got a little more conservative with my starts after our first black flag general recall, so I never had a perfect lane off the start. I capsized on the first downwind. I got my mainsheet wrapped around the end of my boom on the second downwind, which is extremely hard to undo, and you go really slow while trying to undo it. My method is to keep sailing down wind, grab the aft part of the mainsheet that goes to the knot, pull the boom in from here and flick the slack part of the mainsheet over the end of the boom. It took me a lot of tries to finally unhook it.

I struggled to find a good rhythm with the waves downwind, but by the second downwind, I think I got it. Starboard gybe with lots of upturns and downturns, rarely going straight, surfing most of the time - super fun!

2 more races tomorrow, and that is the end of the regatta and I get to fly home to leftover turkey!

Day 4

Finally, a day with wind, and a day with pretty good execution on my part all around! I am really excited about my starting. I feel like I have figured out how to do it well, and I just keep doing it. This is now the 3rd day of confident starting on my part, and I am doing the same thing repeatedly. I am starting just to the left of the dense pack of boats near the committee boat in every start. Typically we have one start that is a recall, and I am in or just to the left of the bulge causing the recall. Then they put up the black flag for the next start, and everyone holds back. I sail down wind from above the line through the middle of the line with about 2 or 3 minutes to go and sit on port below the middle of the line so I can watch the majority of the the fleet approach the line from the boat end. Once a lot of people have set up on the line, (about 1:30 left in the sequence) I set up in a low density place and begin to work my hole. I am paying close attention to seeing the pin and the boat - which means I am looking over my shoulder at the fleet to the right of me a lot - a lot more than I used to. I am relying on the line sag developing just to the right of me. (I now understand why it starts there, the first few boats are on the line because they are close to the boat, then, the rest of them start lining up bow even with each other, thinking 'I'll be protected by the boat next to me'. It is this line of bow-even boats that sags away from the starting line. I am trying not to push forward too soon, and drag boats with me. I think letting them think they are on the line and pulling the trigger early is better. Anyway, it is working, so I will just keep doing it until something changes and I will try to apply the same arm-sighting technique to pin end starts.

Racing today involved sailing fast in the 16-19 knot breeze with pretty big choppy swell, not tacking too much, and picking the right side. I definitely had room for improvement on a few areas of todays races. First, I lost a couple boats on the reaches, partly because my setup was not perfect, and partly because I chose to surf down a wave or two that actually caused me to slow down, when I would have stayed faster to keep planing at a high angle. Downwind, I found my speed was pretty good, but there were people who were faster, and I think that I was missing opportunities to make fast upturns while surfing a wave. That meant that I often ended up to the left of the gate marks and had to reach over, losing a little. My biggest loss today was going right on the second upwind of the second race. During this time I sailed through some lulls (16 knots maybe?) where I didn't power up my sail. I think this was really slow. With the waves that we had, my flat 19 knot sail setup was really slow in 16 knots. So - bad choice on the side of the course to sail, and slow boat speed for part of that upwind netted a loss of maybe 5 boats.

All in all a good day, with some really awesome downwind sailing. Looking forward to almost as much wind tomorrow - hopefully full hiking and some waves again.

 I wish we had Dynamic Dollies here, the heavy Euro dollies are hard to pull up this long ramp!

Day 3 of racing

Well my discussion with Mark about starting technique, phenomena that happen on the starting line with the fleet, and removing doubt in order to improve confidence and remove hesitation was super helpful. We had 5 starts on day 3 (3 of which were recalls since we only had 2 races). In every start I strove to know exactly where I was on the line. We actually had line sights since the breeze was farther left that the other days, but I also tried using the arm sight tool, and was aware of where the line sag would be and when a bulge was happening. Bottom line, I felt confident that I knew how far back I was from the line and when I could pull the trigger. Now I just need to keep practicing that and I really want to try the arm sight thing when we don't have a line sight.

My good starts eventually turned in to poor results - primarily due to being slow on the runs - but to race with a good lane for most of the first beat was really cool. My speed in the first race was good. We had enough wind to be fully hiking with a combination of chop and swell. I even ducked the race leader - Evi Van Acker from Belguim - about 3/4 of the way up the beat. Unfortunately, the wind from the right that I tacked in under the lay line petered out near the top and boats farther right and left came in ahead of me. Still mid fleet I was really happy with that upwind, only to lose a couple on the reach, and lose the entire fleet on the downwind. It was a tough condition, one that I have sailed in at 3rd beach a lot, but have still been struggling with. Swell and chop, with enough pressure that you can catch waves, but they are very hard to catch. I struggle with accelerating the boat enough to catch the first one. Feeling waves roll under you when you feel pressure in your sail that should be enough to get you on a wave is frustrating! Marks advice: get going by the lee, do a little press to accelerate, and take it down a little, then turn back to hard by the lee as you get pushed by the wave. This first wave is helping to accelerate you so that your next press by the lee can help you catch the next wave. Going straight by the lee will never get you up to speed enough to catch the wave in this condition, so you have to use a previous wave combined with a turn to really accelerate the boat and then do your flatten-by-the-lee-to-catch-the-wave move. Something new for me - I was trying to accelerate in a straight line, not catching waves.

In race 2 the wind started to die and I started losing on boat speed about half way up the 1st beat. The mixed up chop and swell was still big, but there was very little pressure in the rig and we were all sitting in. This is a really tough condition. It sounds like sailors were using a variety of different sail set ups for this condition. Again on the downwind I was slow. This was a different condition though. No wave catching. Lots of leftover slop with very little wind. Marks advice - super loose vang (like so loose that it bounces slack while you are sailing) so you can over trim the mainsheet but still have by the lee flow. Don't rock, just keep the rig as still and steady as you can to maintain flow over the sail.

We had a 'reserve' day today, no sailing. A group of us took a boat ride out to some little volcanic islands and swam around a coral reef with fish and sea turtles. It was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow we will be divided into Gold and Silver fleets. I'm at the bottom of  silver fleet - which much less than where I had set my goals. So I am readjusting my expectations. It is obvious that the fleet as a whole has improved tremendously over the past few years. In my fleet is Annalise Murphy, heavy air superstar who won 4 races in a row at the Olympics, past world champion Kristal Weir, Canadians Isabella Berthold and Claire Merry, and Suzannah Pyatt from NZ - all top sailors.

My goal with the rest of the regatta is to learn as much as I can, and to execute what I already know. One thing in particular I will be focusing on is sailing confidently and decisively.

Day 2-3

See Mom I am wearing my sunscreen.
Okay, so Day 2 went a little better in some respects, although this experience is extremely humbling.

I have been working hard to improve my weaknesses, but with my limited budget, the improvements come slower than for the athletes who don't have to work and get to train full time with coaches and training partners. I am incredibly lucky to be here competing and learning as much as I can.

Once again, I struggled with starts. This is a major difficult problem for me. We actually had 4 starts in two races, because each race we had one recalled start before re-starting the race. Each time I had a good start in the start that was recalled, and hesitated in the start with the black flag up. My mantra for today is to turn the 'hesitater' off! I am not naturally a quick reflex type of person. Something weird happens during the starting sequence, and my mind say "Wait, stop, hold the phone, this is something new, let me stop and think about it!" and the wheels start turning. This is the exact opposite of how I should act on the starting line! Today my goal is to turn off the hesitater.

After a good morning discussion with coach Mark Littlejohn, I have a better understanding of why I hesitate and how to fix it. Basically, I have doubt about how far back from the line I am, and to eliminate the hesitating, I have to eliminate the doubt. I learned a tool that Marit uses for knowing how far back from the line you are when there are no line sights. It involves pre-race homework. You sit on the line near where you plan to start and use one arm to sight down the line at the pin, then turn and use the same arm to sight down the line at the boat. You should feel your arm turn 180 degrees. Then drift back a boat length and do it again, your arm should turn less than 180. Do this a couple times and you can get a sense of how far back you are at different angles. The next thing is to recognize the line sag phenomenon and how it works on a black flag - which is something I forgot about yesterday. Mark drew me a picture with a great explanation of the line sag shape, and now I know exactly where I was in that sag yesterday. I played the 'beat your neighbor' game well yesterday, but didn't realize that me and my neighbors were all well behind the line.

Here is the picture:

Happy to explain this better later, right now have to get ready to sail. Our start is at 1pm today. Still processing a lot of what I just learned about confidence and doubt and decision making. Focus today is on having confidence in what I know, and forget about what I don't know.

day 2 morning

We are postponed on shore with no wind. It is very still compared to yesterday morning. Here is the link for a video about the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t0D8mHWW1Y

Prepping for Day 2's racing

Looks like we will have the same light sea breeze again today. Yesterday we were postponed for a while to wait for the sea breeze to fill in. We raced in 6 knots building to 11 I would guess with chop that was kind of mixed up from all the boats. 

Hope Peter doesn't mind I am sharing his long-distance coaching advice for today. Its good advice!

Day 1

What can I say. I had two bad starts today, and in this fleet, coming back from that was next to impossible. My boat speed needs to be better, yes, but the most important thing is to get two good starts every day!

So, to break it down to the details, I think that my pre-start set up is okay, and my general plan for where to start. Its usually in the last 30 to 5 seconds that something goes wrong.

Race 1: I found myself getting a little to close to the boat to leeward late in the sequence, (need to do a better job staying to weather in my 'hole') so I backed up so I could sheet in and sail back into the same hole with flow and speed. I messed up the timing of this move and did it too late (I think anything less than 20 seconds is too late). As I went to trim in to sail back into my hole, I realized that I was going to be late, so I immediately tacked and ducked a few boats.

Well, I should have done a better job of staying to windward in the hole I was in, but the next thing was to recognize the problem earlier and back up with 40 or 30 seconds to go instead. Another options at 30 or 40 seconds would have been to back up, tack, and tack back into the same hole.

The bail out at the start at least gave me a lane heading right, which was part of my plan, and I managed to cross a couple boats on that upwind, but the next major mistake was hitting the lay line too early, which caused me to lose the boats that I had gained. With the density of our fleet (the leaders weren't that far ahead of the the stragglers at the first mark, so the entire fleet was rounding close together) the wind on the lay line is so turbulent that to actually lay the mark you have to over stand quite a bit, very expensive.

Race 2: I did a great job building a hole to leeward and was primed for a good acceleration, but I pulled the trigger just a fraction of a second too late, and got shot out the back. Although I worked hard to stay in pressure, on the lifted tack, and actually managed to find lanes to do this, I could not claw my way back.

Tomorrow: focus on building a good hole on the starting line, and pulling the trigger at the right time.

Geography

This is where we are, sailing on the Gulf of Oman:

Finally we are ready to race

The practice days are funny because every sailor is on their own schedule with their coaches. Some head out early and do their own thing, but eventually there is a big international group of sailors just doing races that are run by some coaches. Usually they are 2 or 3 minute starts between two buoys and a windward-leeward finishing by rounding the left gate mark (that was the starting line). In between races everyone is milling around, there are almost as many coaches in powerboats as there are sailors.

I sailed two coach-run practices races today and then the official practice race which was run by the race committee with a real 5 minute starting sequence and the pyramid buoys we will be using during racing the rest of the week. My starts were okay, but not great and I usually had to tack out after a while and duck a few boats. I don't think my upwind speed was very good, some situations would have worked out better had I been faster, particularly right after the start. My downwind speed seems pretty fast however, and I was able to pass a few boats on the downwind legs. This has been a weakness of mine, so hopefully I can continue sailing fast downwind!

Pics from todays practice race are here:
http://www.laserradialworldchampionship.com/media-zone/

Team USA at the opening ceremonies:
Christine Neville, Erika Reineke, Haddon Hughes, Paige Railey

Back door sea breeze

After talking to a coach about the 'left handed sea breeze' we are seeing here in Oman, and how it is tough to predict the shifts, I went searching online for more info and found a great article about sea breezes by Ed Adams. Here is the section on what he terms the Back Door Sea Breeze, which fits what we saw the last couple days. The link is at the bottom for the entire article, it is one I plan to read again. After reading it once I understand now why sailors have the saying 'land on the left, go left' but there isn't the same saying for land on the right, at least in the northern hemisphere. Anyway the formula here seems to be about playing those unpredictable shifts and staying out of the middle, but I think that recognizing how much the wind is veering and building and what time of day it is will affect how much to protect the right side of the course. Heading out now for the practice race. Tomorrow starts official racing.

Backdoor sea breeze

While the corkscrew sea breeze forms easily - let's say it comes through the "front door" - when the synoptic gradient is from the opposite direction, a sea breeze has a more difficult time developing. And when it forms, it is more variable than other sea breezes. For lack of a better term, we'll call this scenario a backdoor sea breeze.

When the synoptic gradient is sideshore or slightly offshore, between NE and E on our hypothetical shoreline, convergence creates an area of stronger velocity just offshore. The convergence also inhibits the sinking of air from aloft and disrupts the formation of sea breeze circulation. Because the sea breeze has trouble forming close to shore, it often forms farther offshore and then tries to fight its way inshore, across the zone of convergence. For a backdoor sea breeze to form, it takes a greater air-to-water temperature differential, and a weaker synoptic gradient, then it does with a pure or corkscrew sea breeze.

In a backdoor scenario, there will be more wind on the left early in the day, as the left is closest to the zone of convergence. Then, in early afternoon and given favorable conditions, a backdoor sea breeze can form offshore, as a SE breeze on our sample shoreline. In between the sea breeze and the convergent wind there is usually a zone of light and shifty air. Slowly, this zone will move toward shore as the sea breeze wins the fight, but it can take much of the afternoon for the sea breeze to make landfall. If the race is started during the fight, boats on both corners of the racecourse will often come out ahead of the those in the middle.

After the sea breeze has moved across the course and inshore, it will begin to veer. This shift will often come in "pulses" of 10 to 15 degrees, rather than a slow, steady, shift to the right. Each pulse is a response to increased heat on shore, the wind taking a "shot" right to relieve the pressure drop on shore. Once the pressure is relieved, the wind steadies out and oscillates as the pressure differential builds again. Then the process is repeated.Given enough time before evening, this sea breeze can eventually veer to nearly perpendicular to shore. However, this type of sea breeze is not as well organized as a pure or corkscrew sea breeze. So it tends to fall apart early in the evening, and as it does, the wind will begin to back toward the synoptic gradient - toward the morning wind.

http://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/four-ways-to-win-sea-breeze-game


My notes from Ed's article:

Happy Oman National Day!

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/oman-marks-national-day-without-sultan-qaboos

Another beautiful light sea breeze today. It started out farther left than yesterday at about 340 degrees as opposed to 45. It slowly clocked right as it got stronger in the afternoon, but never quite as far as yesterday. I sailed two practice races. The first turned out well by playing shifts up the middle and going left on the downwind (I finished second!). The second one I was mid-fleet using the same game plan. At one point during that upwind, I tacked on the lee bow of a pack of three starboard boats, and I think that was a mistake. Peter is always telling me to be wary of ever lee bowing since you get pinned. Well they pinned me heading back towards the middle and I think I sailed a knock for a while, I'm not sure. In the end, the right side payed quite a lot that race, so ducking that pack of boats might have been a better move. At least I would have had the freedom to tack when I wanted to. I talked to Pernelle from France after racing and her opinion was that playing shifts was important, but that you shouldn't tack on every single one since the edges of the course tend to pay. Brenda Bowskill from Canada won the first practice race by going left, playing the shifts up the left side, and passing boats on the downwind. I was right behind her on the downwind to the left of the whole fleet. We sailed by the lee on starboard almost the entire run, only gybing to come back to the mark by the lee on port for about 10 or 15 boat lengths. She thought there was better pressure on our side, and maybe some current advantage. I think we also sailed less distance.

Measuring in:

A girl from the Ukraine working with the sail measurer to fix her country code letters. I had to fix mine too - its not easy to peel and reapply 6 letters!

1st Practice Day

Despite being kept up with a migraine last night (probably a result of long plane flights, too fat pillows, and swimming in a pool with no lines so I had to lift my head to look for the wall - all causing back and neck muscles to seize up) I was up early and busy all day. Breakfast was pretty good. Lots of eggs, yogurt, good coffee, nuts, dates and fruit. I picked up my brand new never used charter boat with new blades and spars. I've never used so much new stuff! It all looks perfect. I took my time setting up my boat and was on the water in time for a practice race and a good upwind session on my own, getting used to the wind and waves, and doing a lot of tacks for practice. My tacks felt really good today which is good for my confidence. I did a couple long downwinds with the Chinese team, who are all very fast. The waves here are pretty small, but definitely surfable, the closer you get to land, the more they start to stand up. I had trouble deciding which gybe was faster downwind, in the end I felt more comfortable sailing on starboard and catching waves by the lee, although the fastest Chinese girl was sailing a lot on port. I think it was about 4 to 2 starboard to port in that group. I have a few things to fix on my boat before sailing tomorrow - my tiller was too high today and my traveller blocks were getting stuck on it downwind, so I have to shim it differently so that it fits better in the rudder head. Also need to tighten my daggerboard brake and get the charter boat guy to drill holes for a handle. Otherwise, everything is all good! Right now we aren't allowed to replace the charter hiking strap with our own, but someone made an official complaint about the strap being unhealthy for your ankles because its not sticky, so the jury is going to decide whether we can put our own strap on. Doing my pigeon pose stretches right now as I write to help loosen up the muscles. Can't wait to get back on the water tomorrow!

Oman

Arrived in Oman this morning, and have been trying to stay awake in order to adjust to the 9 hr time change. I have been mostly successful. Tomorrow I can pick up my charter boat and go sailing. A number of sailors are already here and were out practicing today. From talking to a few of them I have learned that the last few days have been a light sea breeze that builds from the NE around noon. It is pretty warm, about 80 degrees with warm water and very sunny.  The event is being hosted at a resort and it was great to use the pool and swim laps this afternoon.

One Week to go!

Only one week till I leave for Oman. According to Fran Seidenberg, they have the best dates she has ever tasted. Looking forward to tough competition!