After sailing in light air for the past month, we were pleasantly surprised but in disbelief when we arrived at Oka, Quebec for the Canadian Championships and our host (a local sailor and windsurfer) indicated that the wind forecast for the following day would be 15-25 knots. How could this be? We were all expecting 3 days of light air, but this forecast was coming from a reputable local sailor, so it must be correct. Sure enough, the following morning the wind picked up and was bang on forecast...the best wind I had seen all summer.
Coming from the SW off the shore, it proved to be very shifty on the Lake of Two Mountains, somewhat similar to a NW wind in the outer harbour in Toronto. We had 5 races on Friday that really tested the sailors' ability to read the wind oscillations and look for pressure changes. With a lot of familiarity in these conditions, I did well on Friday with a 1, 6, 3, 4, 1, for first place, followed by Danielle Dube and Rob Koci.
Back on shore much of the après-sail chatter was focused on tacking decision-making, i.e. was it best to tack immediately on every shift or eat into the header for 10 seconds then reassess? My thought process in Friday's conditions worked like this: First priority was pressure, second was wind shifts and third priority clean air (weeds weren't a factor on Friday). Ignore minor oscillations, but with any moderate or significant wind shift the gains that could be picked up by immediately tacking and sailing high on the new lifted tack offset the 1-2 boat length hit taken by tacking, or from sailing for 10 seconds into a header. Of course it sucked when the oscillation was a fake and a second tack was required. Having a precise read on the degree of wind shift in these rapidly oscillating conditions is vital to your decision making. My approach to this worked well, but unfortunately there isn't sufficient room here to go into detail here... lol. Approach me after sailing sometime with an appropriate adult beverage in hand and we can talk......
