Breeze and Bruises
Strong winds today and I was expecting lots of Lasers out. Unfortunately, my expectation didn’t materialise. The wind was strong while we were rigging and it picked up even more. I went out for the first race and it was quite gusty and shifty.
In the first race my start wasn’t very good, and considering the competition I didn’t do very bad. I was expecting to do better, but the shifts and the gusts were worse than I expected. A few people DNFed but I managed to finish 5th out of 7 with a few capsizes.
On the second race we were only 5 boats. I thought I could finish 3rd. I was first at the windward mark and I thought that things looked good. At the second mark I got hit by a strong gust as I was gybing and my world turned wet. I recovered quickly and I was second with Liam ahead and Corbin close astern. On the downwind leg I kept Corbin back but he established an overlap at the bottom reach. I fought hard and by the next tack I was ahead. I thought I needed to gain a bit more ground and then I should sail conservatively to keep the second place.
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to stay upright. The shifts and gusts were too extreme. A couple of capsizes later, Corbin was ahead of me and I was trying to get closer to him, to no avail. The shifts were the biggest problem. The boat would come on top of me too quickly without being able to do anything about it. Bringing the boat upright is quite tiring. At some point as I was getting back into the boat my chest landed onto the mainsheet block. That was painful. It took my breath away for a few seconds.
Towards the end of the race, exhausted and battered I saw Rob passing me by. I just sailed towards the finish and finished 4th. Not a good day. I was looking forward to it, but the shifts and the gusts made it impossible.
While we were de-rigging, someone measured the wind with a handheld anemometer. It showed 27mph gusts. That’s a F6 gust. I think that the wind wasn’t as bad as it was at Middle Nene, but the shifts were the biggest hindrance. The forecast for Wednesday is 10 knots. If it’s not shifty it will be nice.