This was a day for restoring confidence. I am the fastest guy on the course, for sure, but not, it seems, the brightest. The failures of day four will stand forever as a turning point in my racing life, I believe, and will remind me again and again that there is no substitute for experience.
Day 5, then, can be honestly called, the beginning of the rest of my sailing life. Never again will I win a regatta in my head before I have won it on the course. Never again will I allow my emotions take precedent over the call of reality. Never again will I underestimate the power of justice to over come the insanity of hubris.
So I sailed day 5 like I will sail the rest of my life - smartly, concentrating on the business at hand, and allowing the race to come to me. It was a St. Margaret's Bay day, southwest wind 12 to 15 knots and not a lot of shifts. In the first race I made it to the top mark close to the front, and came up first at the bottom of the first run. Peter Hayward rounded the left gate and went right, and I the right and went left. I should have followed him. When we met at the top again, I was behind by about 10 boatlengths and could not catch him. In the mean time, Peter Whip caught up to me and I had to tack on top of him just before the finish line to make sure he did not slip past me and win the 2.
In the second race, I took the lesson of the first, and when Peter Hayward and I rounded the bottom gate again, with me again in the lead, I stayed with him and extended my lead. I won the race by about the margin that he won the first.
As I sailed in, David Wright, who was coaching some of the other Radials, drove past me in his coach boat and said, "he's back!" referring to the good result today in contrast to the horror of day 4. That was nice of him, and made me feel like I had learned something. It was a good, good day of sailing.
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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