Can someone sail too much? Brian Raney, a friend from Cedar Point Yacht Club, might have once. He told me at the Midwinters that his experience last year racing at the US Olympic Trials for men's singlehanded class (which Andrew Campbell won in a tiebreaker) was nine days of eating, sleeping, crapping and sailing. The look on his face told me it took just about all the sailing he had in him to finish the regatta. By the end of it, he truly understood how grinding sailing could be for those who aspire to Olympic success.
Brian is young (an Apprentice Master) so his grinding experience took nine solid days of sailing. Mine was a bit more complicated. It was seven days. In six I raced in buffeting, blasting, drifting and generally hateful Toronto northerlies, in five I biked 25k, in four I worked out in the gym for 1 1/2 hours, and in all of them I worried about work.
Last night, the eighth day, I hit the wall. I was tentative right from the start as I prepared my boat on the beach, didn't feel good sailing to the line, and certainly didn't feel fast in yet another northerly that was trying to alternately teabag, autotack and deathroll all of us. I tiptoed around the first race to a 6th, ground out a 3 in the second, and made it to a barely 4th in third. I started the fourth race with the grim determination I usually reserve for doing the dishes or vacuuming, bailed at the first windward mark, went home and skipped the last one.
In the first race, I noticed a huge shift waiting for anyone who was willing to go right after the gun, and less of a shift on the left. I went right to capture my reward for being so insightful, and the wind promptly lifted everyone on the left side of the course over me like I was on another leg or possibly in another race. That rounded me at the back. But, "aha!" say my listless synapses, "now I know the left is better (which normally it is in those conditions in the Outer Harbour) so go left next time."
You will know the story from here. My mind and the wind play pingpong, with me the ball. Can you relate? I know if you race at all, you have been there, and cursed the sport as loudly as I did upwind this night.
I did round the first top mark inches ahead of Ken Walton in the third race, and I held him on the reaches (triangle windward return courses all). In fact the second reach was a wonderful battle. I was protecting the inside, he was feinting to go high inside, then dropping down to leeward, then feinting again, and I protected again. For the four minutes or so that we flew down the second reach to the bottom mark, I felt like I had something in the tank. When we got to the mark, we were very high and sailed by the lee to it with me inside with rights and Ken gunwale-to-gunwale beside me. Ken went wide, cut in and took me at the mark and I never led again.
Defending my position like that emptied the tank completely. Tobin Young and Richard Sewards, both big strong guys in this kind of breeze, passed me upwind easily, not just because they are strong, but also because they are smart.
The racing this night was all about what I call "lines". I sometimes imagine there are lines drawn on the water that define exactly what route you must take to be exactly on the highest course to the upwind mark. Because the wind is so disorienting and the shifts so quick and gusty, it is not necessarily simply, "sail the lift, get the header, and tack, sail the lift, get the header and tack, etc." You might hold on a header for a beat or two, or sail through it completely. You might even tack before a lift, because you are looking for the "lines."
You must start on the correct line, and when you tack, you must tack exactly on the correct "next" line, and then tack again when the following line comes. The lines define the place where you are taken ultimately be deposited to exactly the right spot that will, in turn, deposit you exactly on the mark, not an inch below and not an inch above. It's being deposited on the mark exactly that defines the lines.
Anyway, on my last beat up to the first mark in the next race, I guess I saw no lines, too many boats in front of me, too little inside of me, and too much beach beckoning me. It was over, and all the thoughts that huddle older men, that make us cry to God for mercy, that whittle at us till we are wizened and frail and our dreams pass unrequited into history, came to call. As I sailed home, I had what I will call a Dylan Thomas moment. Older men who read him will know it.
The boat is packed on the trailer. I will not look at it till Friday, three days from now, when I head down to the Buffalo Canoe Club for some training, and my heart is fuller of Tony Robbins than Dylan Thomas.
Rob Koci races in both the Laser Full-Rig and Laser Radial fleets around District 3. Currently, Rob is the District 3 secretary and maintains a frequently updated race diary on D3Laser.com. Rob's home port is St. James Town Sailing Club in Toronto, Ontario.
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