When I start sailing in the spring, I usually do pretty well. The guys are impressed. What they don't know is that I get a chance to make all my early season mistakes down here, in Florida. If the number of my mistakes is in inverse proportion to my results in the spring, all I can say it, look out Ontario Masters.
We start this year with the Mids, which is a departure from years past. Usually, it happens at the end of the Masters circuit. I will not say that it is the most important just because it is the Mids, but we usually consider it pretty important, so it is not with happiness that I confess that I am not exactly burning up Jensen Beach with my sailing.
The first day was an absolute screamer. There had to be 25 knots of breeze in the gusts. I flew the Radial, which was the right choice. My first start was stellar. I hit the line on a port favoured setup, tacked, took a nice middle line, and rounded the top mark in 2nd place. And it goes downhill from there. I lost a bunch of places downwind, and then struggled upwind. I took the wrong side, and ended up in the teens. The second race was another great start, but I just didn't have the boatspeed. I was tired. I was pounding into waves, missing shifts, and basically looking like I never sailed.
The third race was better. I ended up 8th, but should have had a fifth, except that I crashed twice on the short reach to the finish. Not fun.
In fact, the entire day was not much fun. The wind was shifty and gusty. It would blow 25 and then drop for five seconds to four knots and shift 15 degrees in the process. If you ever sailed in a Northerly in the Outer Harbour and been teabagged fifteen times on one leg, you know something of what the sailing was like.
In the end, the results left me in 14th over all. Not what I was hoping for.
I was looking for a better day two, but it only got worse. Again, the first start was stellar, and my speed was great, but I went left. After the first half of the beat, I was looking very good, but then a big, big righty gust rolled down the bay and lifted the right side of the fleet about 35 degrees. It was the biggest, ugliest shift I have seen in a long time. 2/3 of the fleet rolled over the left side of the fleet. I was prepared to hang in there and sail, and the first downwind was fast, but when I rounded the bottom mark and hauled on the cunningham nothing happened. The luff was full of wrinkles. The downhaul was down to the boom and the wrinkles remained. I pulled on the vang, and it went block to block with no problem. I looked up expecting to see the top strap that covers the top of the mast ripped and the sail sliding down the mast, but that was not it. The only thing left was the upper mast collar. Though I couldn't see it, it was clear the upper was sliding down into the lower. I left the shore with a full rig and ended up with a Radial mast and a full rig sail!!
I got a tow in and replaced the upper and then headed back out. The wind dropped some, and was shifting to the north. Again, it was gusty and shifty. The start of the third race was pin favoured and blackflagged, but the guys were really pushing the line. I was late to the party, so I muscled my way into the line up, and before long, my bow was out where it shouldn't be. It was not that I was too early. If everything had stayed as it was I would have been fine. But it didn't. The wind shifted heavy right and gusted, which meant with one minute to go, it was very hard to stop the boat. If I headed into the wind, I would certainly have crossed early. If I stayed pointing the way I was, it was impossible to back the main because the wind was too far from the right and I was almost broad reaching. As it was, most of the fleet went over early, but I got caught. That was enough trouble in one day for me. I headed in, and decided to have a holiday day. I still don't know if they got a fourth race off or not. Probably did.
The upside is that I am blowing it so badly that the Ontario Masters are in big big trouble.
Surprisingly, I am not as bent out of shape as I usually am about such days. I am at the beginning of another two year program, as my next goal is the San Fran Worlds, so this regatta is like kindergarten again. I am looking at new things, training in different ways, working out ideas that I have seen with the good guys and trying them out. I was trying out some different upwind sailing technique and was very happy with the speed. I was body positioning downwind a la David Wright (crouching position, very low centre of gravity, hiking stick to leeward) to see how that was. My starting has matured a lot, and that is not going away. So there was a lot to like. And lessons to be re-remembered rather than learned: After the first 100 yards, look up!! Do your housekeeping. That sort of thing.
The third day had a light breeze. Only two races, and to continue my bizzaar ways, I didn't read the race instructions that indicated that the race committee changed the start to 9:30am from 10:30am. I was late to the first gun by about 30 seconds. It was a learning race. I really just decided to see how many boats I could pick off and ended up 26 out of about 50. Not bad.
The second race, I had a stellar start (again) and went right. Except for a big lefty that pushed the guys on the other side ahead, it was not bad. I was taking up the right side with the eventual winner of the regatta, Peter Vessela and looked pretty good until I made one bad tack and he gained about 100 yards on me. I was blown away by how quickly one tack can put you in the can (and conversely how one tack can send you to the front). It was a really interesting race. I ended up 13, which was okay, but more importantly, I felt like I was in the hunt and sailing well. I WAS sailing well. I just missed that big lefty at the beginning of the first leg. Downwind I was flying. I must have gained 100 yards on Joe Van Rossem and then rounded the bottom mark cleanly. On the second beat, I looked pretty good but again, Peter V. gained on me on one tack. It seemed that the middle was good, but you had to go to the right at the top of the beat to catch a big lift on starboard up there. I went over, but just a bit too late. Still, I thought I worked out the shifts well and was going fast.
The Mids are done. I ended way down the list because of my terrible day two but I am not at all discouraged. I feel like the lesson it is my time to learn is patience. As well, I am learning what it means to have my head in the game. I have been focused before during regattas, but there was some fear in the focus - a nervousness that infused the focus with something dangerous and, ultimately, damaging to my results.
I often look at the guys that win. I look into their faces for signs of what it is that they have. It isn't luck. I am sure of that. They really are good. Mostly, there is a confidence that comes from a mindset. I see behind the confidence a real kinship with the sport. In there eyes, there is something that says what years on the water tells them. They understand exactly what kind of attitude the sport needs and they have long ago changed how they thought to conform to it wishes. In their body movements, in the way they talk about the racing, in their dispositions, they acknowledge the sport. Bow to it, in a way. They show their love for it, and respect it. I love the sport, but there is a part of me that wants the sport to do my bidding. Maybe I need to get a little humble, a little less aggressive. Maybe I need to understand that the sport is not here for me, but that I am here for it.
This is all mental manipulation, of course. It is me trying to get the sport to do my bidding by pretending to do its. It is me saying, "Okay, I understand. You are the boss. I get what you are saying. You are running the show. But now that I understand and have bowed, too, GIVE ME MY WINS, DAMMNIT!!"
I've never been a fan of the pop psychology that suggests you have to be yourself to do well. I say, if "yourself" can't win, then you better figure out how to be somebody else. Certainly, there are things about myself I can't change, but there is less of that than most people warrant. There is a lot I can change - must change - if I want to win. The stuff I can't change, I work with. I don't just throw my hands up and say, oh well, that just me.
For instance, I am a very intuitive person. My organization skills are okay, but I rely a lot more on my intuition to keep me on track. That will never go away, so it needs to be managed. When I get excited, I lose focus. That's just me, but it is not GOOD me. It needs to be managed. When I was rounding the top mark in second in the first race on Saturday, I could see myself projecting into the future already. Picking up my trophy. That is just me, but it has to go. That will not be me for long. It hurts the focus. It takes me out of the moment.
So, dear reader, the next two years will have a lot of that. A lot of changing me to conform to the needs of the sport. In the end, I will still be me, but I will be a better, happier me because I will have won the Grand Masters World Laser Championships in San Francisco. Oh shit. There I go again. Thank goodness I have two years.
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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