Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sailing the Laser
The weather here has been perfect for sailing every day the last week, sunny, and windy! Sunday I sailed the club Laser for the sprint series, which are lots of short races. The wind was looking pretty tame when I was rigging the boat, so I used the full rig. On the water, of course, the wind quickly picked up and soon was a bit too much for me (weight issues). Upwind was very slow because I constantly had to spill wind, and together with some pathetic starts meant I was never really competitive. The course involve two marks, fairly close together, which had to be rounded, twice. So lots of carnage at the top mark. Fun stuff :-)
During lunch I changed rig to a radial sail, wich is slightly smaller. It helped a lot! I could keep up upwind, and as my starts got better I managed a first and second placing! The wind kept increasing and the number of boats on the water slowly dropped as people gave up. (This also made starting easier!). There were mostly lasers on the water and it was great to sail with direct competition rather than on handicap, which I usually do. Tactics, strategy and of course boat handling are so much more important and make racing much more satisfying. I was a bit worn out from the sailing, had to hike fully the whole upwind and there are no cleats, so good exercise there! Can’t wait till next week.