I should have known better than to title a post with “Day 1”. 

My morning disposition quickly changed from one of a writer’s contemplative state to one of competitive focus.  Getting up in the morning, I would quickly catch up on important email, and then hit 10 weather sites, trying to get a handle on what was going to happen.
 
Rather than rehash every race at this point I thought that I would scribble down some general thoughts about the regatta.   This way I won’t bore you with the mundane details.
 

Always measure current
 
The long distance race for this regatta was with set marks; a 7-mile beat, an 11-mile downwind, and a 3-mile beat to the finish.
 
When we got back to the dock, a few of these boats were complaining that the mark was too far to the left. On the downwind leg the lead boats went to the left side of the course and sailed the bearing to the mark.
 
What they forgot was that with a knot of current the whole racecourse was moving to the left so they may have been sailing the proper bearing, but the whole racecourse was moving to the left.  We jibed onto starboard immediately, and jibed back to port well to the right and pointing at the mark.  We caught more than half the fleet.
 
Never, ever, start second row
 
We all know this, but it is something we learned again at this regatta. 
 
Starting second row means that eventually you will have to tack and take asses until you can find a lane.  This virtually ensures that you are going to the right corner.  That’s OK if that’s the plan, but if you know that the left is the place to be, you’re screwed.
 
Go to bed early and happy
 
The shark fleet love to party and at so many regattas, the last Sharkies are shutting down the party in the wee hours of the morning.  I like to party too, but at the Canadians I learned about the dangers of over indulgence. 
 
Lesson learned:  Have a very happy attitude adjustment period, a good dinner, a few more drinks, then go to bed before 2300 at the latest.
 
Practice on the boat you will be racing
 
Oy veh.  Crazy Ivan was Shark of the year last year, and the Paul won Gold Cup in her last year as well.  So we were fairly confident that the boat had legs.  But we had such trouble making her go in certain conditions.  She was fantastic downwind, but we just couldn’t point or sail fast up wind.  This was a big contributing factor in our second row starts.
 
With some practice in the boat we would have know about these limitations, and maybe figured out some strategies to deal with it. 
 
Never give up half way through a race
 
Most of the time playing the middle doesn’t work.  Hitting a corner is the only way to take full advantage of a shift or pull out sufficiently to take a commanding lead.  Sometimes however you get screwed. 
 
This happened a few times this week, and we had to fight our way back up the fleet.  A lot of sailors find themselves very deep in the fleet and get discouraged, sail the middle to be conservative and not lose any more boats.  This means you are always tacking to clear your air.
 
We had some incredible comebacks from deep in the fleet.  Sure we were mad at ourselves that things didn’t work out for us in previous legs, but we managed to pick off a pack of 5 here, and another 3 there, and found ourselves back up front again.  Never give up when you’re behind, there could be a third in it for you.
 
Never assume that they will go up
 
On the start line, when you are taking a boat up, normally the windward boat will take it almost to head to wind and luff.  When the leeward boat bears off, then the windward boat can bear off, and they both have a lane.
 
At this regatta, so often we would call a boat up and they would sheet in and slowly bring the bow up.  This slow and half assed attempt to go up leaves the leeward boat without a lane, and a slow windward boat on its hip after the start.  Yet another contributing factor to our crappy starts. 
 
Wear your boots
 
People always tease me because I wear dinghy boots for every race, even in brutally hot weather that we had last week.  The reason I do this is because they stick to the deck, are good when wet, and are great for climbing the rig. 
 
After one race, I decided to change into flips on the way back into the harbour.  We got hit with a squal with 40ish knots of wind.  While we were frantically taking down sails and bashing through waves, I was sliding around the deck trying to keep my footing.
 
We were in the middle of the harbour and headed for cover on the city side.  Once we got the boat into the lee of Algosteel, and were able to clear the deck and get things lashed down, the first thing I did was put on my boots. 
 
Stay Humble
 
I must be getting old. 
 
While at the regatta, I met a 20 something sailor that is just getting into the fleet.  On a particularly drunken evening, this guy was spouting about how he could get on any boat in the fleet and how great a sailor he was.  All I could say to his gushing self-love was “Keep practicing.”
 
I really hope that I was never this cocky.
 
Regatta pranks actually hurt
 
My friends Daina and Andrew were regatta organizers for this event, (Daina was regatta chair.)  They have been working on this event for almost three years, negotiating with the club, sponsors and putting together the multitude of details it takes to have a successful event.
 
But on the second to last day a group of sailors, who were never identified, decided to go to Centre Island and steal a component of one of the rides (a water based log ride).  They paddled it back to the club and left the thing on the lawn.
 
Sounds like a funny prank, but it ultimately caused the regatta to be a losing event as opposed to a revenue neutral event.  The Shark Fleet will be responsible for paying for repairs, to get a federal inspector in to check the ride and possibly lost revenue for the amusement park.  Not to mention the relationship problems that this would cause for the club and the amusement park and the Shark fleet. 
 
Fun is fun but destruction is destruction.
 
 ————–
 
This was a really fun event.  The results weren’t what we had hoped, but I still can’t complain about being top ten.  My goals were to learn from two guys that I really respect and to do my very best to get the boat around the course.  I feel like I did both of those. 

As usual, I behind on reporting events.  Better late than never.

We had a great first race.  The Race Committee had to postpone until about 1230 before the SSE breeze started to settle in.  It was still holey (is that a word?) and shifty.  Our first race we had a mediocre start, but quickly found our selves in a nice lead coming from the left corner.  We round the first windward, the first downwind first with about 5-6 boat lengths to spare.  At the second windward mar, we had an increase in wind and screwed up the tacking angles, which had us overstood by a few boat lengths.  This mistake gave the second, third and fourth place boats an opportunity and we lost them shortly after the mark.  Lucky for us one of the boats hit the committee boat at the finish and they had to go back and do spins, so we ended up third in that race.

The second race was a bloody tragedy.  We had a good start and found ourselves in a good position on the fleet off the line, pretty deep in the left corner.  We had a great angle on the fleet, but for some reason our boat speed just totally tanked.  We were way deep as we rounded the windward mark, and it was hard to fight our way back.  On the second windward leg we kept getting tacked on and kept having to work our way right, to the starboard layline.  We ended up mid-fleet, so we sailed a drop on the first day.  Damn.
Today is a new day.  We have chatted it out, and i think that we’ve done some attitude adjustment that will help us today.  Generally the boat is fast, points, and is rigged well for manouvers.  (Roundings, tacks, and jibes have gone fairly smoothly, but we still need to be diligent about cleaning up after stuff and making sure that everything is running smoothly.)

I’m going to try and keep these blog entries up, but it’s a little tough as I have to get up early to do this.  If it peters out, than I hope you will understand.

We managed to get the boat measured and put together and I think things are on track. The boaats are slowly filtering into the club, and I think that registrations are up to 53 boats.

Yesterday was a pretty good time. We didn’t really do that much. Paul and Hal had the boat put together, waxed and tefloned and mostly put together, when I got here. We put the boom on and rigged up the tactic and generally got things straightened away.

We had lunch and dinner at the Oven’s Room, gosh I thinking this is going to be an expensive week, with so little food planned.
I hung out with the Shark Poop guys for most of the night. This was fun, mental games. Poop were the World Champions last year, and so they are defending their title. The mental games are hillarious around here. Everyone is having fun, but trying to pysch out the competitors, it’s all in good fun, but I’m not used to this level of competition.

We have the practice race this afternoon, and we are hoping to get in an hours practice before the race. We still have to work out the tweaker system, I have to get used to having most of the lines lead to the mast. It is a way more logical rig, but it will still take some modifications to our crew work.

Well I’m on the bus on the way to Toronto. The apprehension continues.

When I get to RCYC the boat should be in the water, and with any luck Paul will have it on the island already. We will need to get sails measured, boat inventory done, and get weighed. No matter what boat, no matter how well prepared this measurement stage always makes me nervous. I know that Crazy Ivan has done the Worlds a tonne of times and I’m sure that we will be fine for the all up weight, but you never know.

Tomorrow should be pretty laid back there is no racing scheduled and nothing to do really after we get the measurement stuff out of the way. Good to have the day to decompress and get our heads into this.

This just makes me sick. Found this picture on BoingBoing this morning.

The Israeli propaganda machine are in full swing, justifiying this war with the images of supportive children who have no idea who the enemy are.

I wonder if these little girls know they could be dead tomorrow from the retalliation that these very bombs will evoke.

Update:  Thanks for the comments that pointed out that this photograph was staged!  That’s possibly even more sickening.

It seems that the photographers or the parents of the children, it is still a little unclear, were trying to set up the frame.   That’s more than a little slimy in such a charged situation.  Gosh I wish we could get real unbiased news from the media.

It is less than five days until we start the first official race of the Worlds.  It’s going to be hard to focus at work this week.

The plan for the week is to practice tomorrow night with Paul and Matt, pick up Crazy Ivan in Ottawa on Wendsday, and take the day off sailing on Thursday and get things cleaned up at home.  Friday I’ll head off as soon as I can after work.  I can’t wait to get to the club and get settled in for the week.

I just checked the registration page and see that there are 50 boats entered so far and the deadline has been extended.  All the usual suspects are there, which is kind of reassuing since we beat them all at the Canadians.  I know most of the boats, but there are a few folks from over seas that I don’t know.

The weather is a little volitile right now so there isn’t much point in trying to make predictions this far out, but I’ve been keeping a close eye on the systems that might come into play.  This is Hal’s gig anyway, but I like to know what’s going on in the big picture.

My gig is make sure that the lines run smoothly and that everything will work through manouvers.  I’ve seen pictures of Ivan’s deck layout and I like it.  Should be much more clean and simple than Scallywag, the boat we had for the Canadians.  This boat was Shark of the year last year so we know she is fast.  At least we will have the practice race to sort out any modifications in our crew work for the new layout. 

My blogging may be sporatic this week, as things are really busy.  I’m told that RCYC now has wifi all over the island so I should be able to write from Toronto.

It is with GREAT dismay that I watch Israel and Lebanon continue to escallate toward war.  Both sides are being totally unreasonable and I can’t help but comment on the conflict. 

Israel are almost always heavy handed in their response to Hezbollah attacks of any kind.  The soldier that was taken back in June is a perfect example.  They take one guy in a huge fire fight, and Israel totally loses it and launches every damn helicopter they have and start pounding away on every “suspected terror target” they can think of or create.  This sort of disproportionate response is totally in-character for the heavy handed and angry state of Israel.

But the damn Palestinians are just as dumb.  In the midst of heavy bombardment, Hezbollah have upped their demands, asking for the release of Arab/ Palestinian prisoners that Israel is holding.  WTF???  Why would you give a positively infuriated army more reason to bomb the hell out of you.

The use of civilian targets on both sides is very, very disturbing.  Israel have formed a sea and air blocade that is essentially cutting off Lebanon from the rest of the world.  Funny how one country can unilaterally form economic sanctions on a country and the rest of the world only “condemns” the action.  Where is the UN?  Where is the mighty USA?  Someone has to see reason!

Hezbollah are also using civilian targets as threats, recently threatening to bomb Haifa.  (A small village on the east coast.  My sister just got back from Haifa where she was attending university.)  These threats on small civilian cities gives legitimacy to the claims that Israel are fighting Palestinian terrorists, as opposed to a government.  (Everytime I write the word –terrorists–, I want to put it in quotes, but I’m still not sure that is appropriate given recent actions.)

I am totally dismayed by this senseless escallation of violence.  As two angry ideologies play out this drama with missiles and guns, the people just continue to die.

Warning:  Lots of sailing jargon and stuff in this post.  If you’re not a sailor, don’t feel badly about skipping this one. 

OMG am I tired.  Utterly exhausted from the mental and physical demands of the weekend, and I really hope that this post makes some kind of sense.

We had an uneventful drive down to Windsor and got in around 12:30.  Record time really, only five and a half hours drive. 

Friday we got stuff sorted out on the boat and went to Hal’s club for a game of golf.  I was a little worried about my back still, so I was in charge of diving the cart around the course, which was about my speed.  After that we got the rig up with a couple of SNAFUs and tried to figure out how to rig the boat.

The boat.  Oh God that boat.  Hal had done a great job on the bottom and replaced a bunch of blocks and sketchy hardware on deck, but it wasn’t until we got the mast up and the lines run that we realized how strangely rigged the boat was.  Totally skipper-centric, which means that everything is lead back to the driver.  Most people have the majority of lines lead to the middle so that the middle can do the tweaking and the skipper can concentrate on driving the bus.  The awkward set up made for a lot of snags and messed up manouvers.  Really frustrating.

The first day of racing went pretty well.  We had to wait until 1230-1300 for the sea breeze to settle in and stop fighting with the thermal.  Once it filled in it was shifty with lots of lanes.  (Very similar to conditions last year at the worlds.)  We got two races in, we were 3 and 6 of 25 boats.

After racing we had a BBQ at the club and then headed back to Hal’s.  Hal and Sandy are the best hosts I’ve ever stayed with.  Bar none.  We ordered pizza and lounged around their fantastic house.  I have to admit I over indulged, and with the sun and the activity all day, I was happy to get into bed around 0000. 

Sunday morning, we got to the boat around 0830 and rigged.  The breeze filled in early thankfully, and from the south.  It was puffy and shifty, but a good breeze. 

There is an old saying that foredeck never win a race, but they can certainly lose them.  I proved this little truism beautifully in the first race.  We caught a bad shift on the first weather leg, and ended up very deep in the fleet.  After a couple more legs we fought our way up to 6th again.  Then it happened.

At a leeward rounding I took the kite down under the genny instead of behind.  Stupid mistake.  The problem was that I just couldn’t get it sorted out.  Three times we tried to tack and were fouled.  Our 6th evaporated into a 21st and we were a very unhappy boat for the rest of that race.  At this regatta we only got a drop after 5 races, so I was stuck thinking that I had just lost the regatta for us.  Thank god we got in 3 races on Sunday and were able to drop that 21.

After that catastrophe of a race we ripped out all the lines, re-rigged the spin sheets, and sorted everything out.  Going into the second start we had clearer heads and were in a little better spirits.  We had a good start, and a crappy weather leg.  Way, way deep in the fleet.  Good tactics and a bit of luck got us back into 3rd and we were back in a good head space again, and were back in the game.

The last race we again managed a third which kept us in a fairly good position.  The whole fleet was was up and down in the standings and almost all the people in the top 10 had at least one really crappy race to drop.  It wasn’t until we got to shore and started working out points that we realized that we were in contention.

As the title of this post would imply, it worked out for us.  This is the first time I’ve won a national championship and I’m obviously happy as a clam.  Coming away from the regatta, I’ve learned a lot and feel that our chances for winning the worlds are really good.  I’ll practice as much as I can between now and then, and hopefully things will work out for the Worlds as well. 

I’m outta here.  Talk to you on monday

We’re headed off to the Shark Canadian Championships tonight, finally.  I say finally because we’ve had a few set backs, and I am convinced that we’re ready to go racing.  Hal has the loaner boat sorted out, and Paul and I have all the plans sorted out for traveling and gear from this end. 

For me this is the hardest day of the regatta, the waiting before we hit the road.  Once we roll into town, I’m in regatta mode.  Constantly checking the wind, looking at the other boats, and eating and drinking with friends.  (In moderation of course…)

We’re going golfing tomorrow afternoon with some other Sharkies, and hopefully will get in some practice on the water.  I’m sure that Hal has gone over the inventory, twice, but it’s always good to have fresh eyes look at things.  (Where the hell is that anchor anyway?)

There is a huge high pressure system covering most of central Canada right now, and the forecast is for 30 degrees and sun.  At least we’re used to sailing in light air at SPSC from the worlds last year.

I’m feeling pretty good about the whole thing.  My back is mostly stable, and I think I’m in the right head space for racing.  Just can’t wait for that first prep signal!