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.