Chatter and Concentration

Today, I was hoping for a dry day so I could put my new tell-tales on the sail. My prayers were heard and with Brent’s help I managed to put three pairs of tell-tales, above the sail “window”. Next time I will put two more pairs at the luff of the sail in line with the top and middle batten.

I found my sailing watch. I thought I had lost it but it was inside the boat cockpit after all. I rigged the boat and went out only to find out that I had forgotten by gloves. Since the start sequence hadn’t started yet, and other boats were still in, I decided to go in and get them, because last time I forgot them the sheet was slipping through my hands. I went back out and while I was trying to set my sail something went wrong and the outhaul hook came of the sail clew. The velcro clew strap I have kept the sail quite tight onto the boom, so I still had control of the boat.

I brought the boat head to wind and passed the hook through the clew. I didn’t realise until much later that the outhaul was twisted and was causing too much friction. As a result I didn’t have full control of the outhaul and I couldn’t put on as much outhaul as I would have liked. For most part of the race I was racing against Jeremy. I think it was his first time racing a Laser, but he was quite good. He is much lighter than me, so it’s normal to be faster, but I am supposed to have more experience than him.

I don’t really think it was my day today. On the last lap, after I went around the leeward mark the traveler blocks got stuck. It’s a very strange situation; it has happened to me once before. They get stuck in a 90 degree angle and the top block is stuck on the deck with the traveler pushing it down. As the mainsheet pulls from the other side the bottom block, which is now at the bottom, gets twisted on the traveler, so it doesn’t get freed. It took me some time to sort it out and by that time, Jeremy was 5-6 boat-lengths ahead of me. Going upwind, he picked up gusts and he increased the difference. Towards the end I started closing the gap, but it was too late.

The other thing that he did, that really annoyed me was that every time I would overtake him he would ask me what it was that I was doing that was giving me the extra speed. A couple of times he asked me which was the next mark. I really don’t mind pointing the next mark to someone, but all this chatter made me loose my concentration. I didn’t want to be rude, so I didn’t really tell him anything about it, but I lost focus. I think it’s part of the game to be able to shut out things like these.

Today I paid for the boat, so it is officially mine! Steve is working on the lettering for the name. I hope that Sunday is going to be better. I need to find a better way to rig the outhaul, because at the moment it doesn’t work very well. I will also try to see if there is something I can do to minimise the chances of the traveler blocks getting upside down again. As you can see, a new boat keeps you busy.