We had three races today in 15-20 knots I think. The waves were huge and fast, and a bit sideways. Most of our surfing was done on the top reach, going with the waves.
I am exhausted - got cold while we waited for a squall to roll through before starting the last race, and then it took over an hour to sail back to the yacht club.
The day was squally there were pretty big shifts, but it was sometimes hard to tell which squall was going to dominate the beat since there were often just windy rain clouds everywhere. Sometimes it was obvious, but after the second beat of the first race, I realized that the shift from the squall didn't come until you were practically under the cloud. Paige said she was surprised by the same phenomenon.
Everything about the day seemed hard. I never felt particularly fast in any direction, upwind on port was head on into very big waves, and on starboard they would roll under you sideways and sometimes they would push you sideways so your sail luffed.
Downwind was very hard because you could reach on starboard and catch a wave, but doing that more than a few times would send you off the course completely. By the end of the day I think I had a slightly better grasp on how to sail downwind. I found that it seemed good to sail hard by the lee on starboard, and as a started to push you, you could head down the wave for just a second to get some speed, then turn back by the lee and let the wave roll under you. This way you were never surfing waves completely, but using them to get a little speed and take it back by the lee to get towards the mark.
Three more races tomorrow probably, the forecast is similar, but dying in the afternoon. My goal is first to get to the line earlier when there is more space and execute better starts. I didn't have any good starts today, and I think I was getting to the line a little late when there were only a few or no good spaces left.
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