Another steady easterly, and great competition. Kyle was out again, as was Richard Sewards, Nigel Heath, Paul Muldoon, Joe Van Rossem, Phil Blake and a few others (Sorry I can't remember you all). As it happened, that adds up to a good contingent of Masters Racing Team members.
The breeze was good for hiking, but alas, the courses were so favoured to the left that, once again, there was not much to gain by going anywhere else but "pin, left to the layline, then tack to the mark." Even if you overstood on the port tack layline, you were likely to be leading as long as you had average boatspeed and started at the pin. I suppose the frustration of too simplistic a winning formula is balanced by the fact that you still have to handle your boat well and make your way around the course smartly, but I can't say I like it much when the answers are so obvious.
Certainly boat speed is required to make the formula work. I was second from the pin in one race, when Paul Muldoon was at the pin, but I gained height as we went, and when we tacked at the port tack corner, he had to follow me to the mark. It points to the only weakness of a port end start in a drag race to the corner; You are pinned by the inclinations of the boats to windward if you can't cross. On this day, it was not the long starboard tack that provided the advantage, it was the subsequent port tack lift near the mark, so on the starboard tack away from the start, you never got the shift you needed to be able to cross a boat who had the same boatspeed. If you were going to cross early, you would have to duck.
Paul would have had to duck me before the layline to get across without following me, and if he had attempted it, I could still have made it hard for him by tacking as soon as he passed my transom.
My notes on Paul are not complete without mentioning that he got the pin in that one race by using a move that I learned from Walton. It is the "duck" move. Let me explain; When you are lining up on starboard for a pin start, there is usually a port tacker coming across who plans to tack under you and fight you for the pin (probably me). When you see him coming, you wait till he looks like he wants to tack, then turn down and aim your boat at him. It usually freezes him, and certainly makes it almost impossible to tack, so he ends up moving down the line to look for another hole. Walton first made the move on me, and I have since done it many times. In Florida this winter, I scored a beauty when I came to the pin on starboard with Juan Pablo Del Solar Goldsmith coming up on port. I made my duck move, and the look on his face when he had to go behind me was classic. He looked and waved and gesticulated like an Italian soccer player who had just been fouled. "Don't do that to me again," he said finally, shaking his finger as he passed my transom.
I was shocked when Paul pointed his bow dead at me as I crept up on port. "You bugger!" I thought, as I tucked in behind him. But he did the move perfectly, and I was actually happy to see it. Now I need to learn the counter move.
Other than the first race I entered (the 2nd of the day) where I fouled Kyle at the top mark and ended up 8th, it was a good day with a 1,3,1. Richard also showed form on his first day in the straps with a 1,1,4,5. Nigel was his usual consistent self at 2,2,2,3 (Jamie ran a total of 7 races).
And now the Spring warm up is over. We had 27 races over four weekends in pretty good breezes. What did I learn? Nothing earth shattering. I like my line adjustments a lot. And I am going to keep my handles. I really like my hiking strap adjustment and am waiting for it to be copied because it is the best of all by far (thank you Evan Lewis). The boat is a bit beat up and the blades are not perfect, but I am not going to fuss too much with them until closer to the Worlds. I am spending the next week watching documentary films at the Hot Docs Film Festival. After that I put my serious face on and my Worlds campaign starts in earnest.
I should add that Evan Lewis is working as my strength coach leading up to the North American Open in June, and has supplied me with workout and cardio strategies till then. I have been doing my strength work by myself for a number of years and it's nice to have a second set of eyes to help the progress. I am curious to see if the change to a coached program will have a significant effect. I decided last year that I needed coaching and now I have it in place in spades, with the Masters Racing Team and Evan. I am leaving myself fewer and fewer excuses.
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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