The evening was not sailing, but it was the beginning of making relevant improvements in what matters most to successful Laser sailing—physical fitness. Yes, you have to manage your boat around a course. Yes, you have to hit your shifts. Yes, you have to start on the gun with speed, but it matters much less if you do all these things in a Laser when you are a ball of goo.
Do you know how old you have to be to be a Master Albacore sailor? 50! Most classes don't even have Master categories because you can be old and competitive. It is no mistake that the Laser Masters category starts at 35. Those of us who want to excel have taken note, and realize it is not for nothing that it is so.
Laser sailing is hard, so the Ontario Masters Racing Team (OMRT) decided it was time to measure how fit we were for the job. Last Wednesday, we convened at the University of Toronto fitness facility in downtown Toronto to be pushed though our paces by Evan Lewis, a student and teacher of fitness and one of Ontario's finest sailors. We pushed up, pulled up, stretched and had our fat pinched. We blew our brains out doing 2,000 meters of rowing to get our hearts to as near to bursting as possible, then had our blood drawn to measure Vo2max. We hiked flat out on a hiking bench for as long as we could and generally stood around otherwise and felt like we belonged.
At the Midweek Maddness regatta this year, I picked Mike Matan's brain after the second day to determine what I had missed and what he found to win the regatta. Someone stepped in to listen and said, "Mike, you must have been hurting badly by the end of the day." Indeed, we were all hurting, with the winds building to 20-plus knots by the fourth race. Mike, being a thoughtful sort, was silent for a minute. He mused for another, clearly trying to decide whether to provide the pat answer or tell the truth. He finally said, "Well, not really."
It was hard to imagine someone getting away from the day without hurting, but clearly Mike was among the happy few. You see, he has faced what many of us cannot—or will not. Laser sailing is physically very hard, and the winner is often the one who is bound and determined to be fitter than the rest. He has one of the most challenging fitness routines I know, and as a result, sails in comfort when we sail with daggers. Now who gets the right shift? Now who starts on the line at the gun? Now who powers over, under, ‘round and through the fleet? Certainly at the Mids Madness, it was the fittest guy who was sailing clearheaded, in comfort and powered up. At the Worlds, I want to be my fleet's Mike Matan.
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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