Lessons to Learn
Today was a day with mixed emotions. First of all. I was held up at the office and I didn’t leave before 18:00. That’s bad. There is no way I could get in time at the Welsh Harp. I arrived 50 minutes later and I had to rig a Laser and change in 10 minutes. Impossible. I got into my gear in record time and I rigged the boat as fast as I could. I almost forgot to put the bung, I messed up the cunningham and outhaul so bad, that when I was on run I couldn’t let the sail out all the way. I couldn’t even push the boom al the way. On top of all that, my kicker was all twisted. The boat was not handling well and it all felt too stiff. I had missed the race start anyway, so I decided to go in to sort it out.
I re-did the kicker, although I didn’t know how to do it. It’s quite tricky because you have the rope going through six pulleys, and if you don’t get it right it ends up twisted and not doing its job. I undid the cunningham and the outhaul and did them again, properly this time. I checked everything was OK and went out again. This time the rigging worked perfectly. There was a nice wind and made the whole thing quite enjoyable. I cruised a bit and then I went in. When I pulled the boat out of the water I saw that there was water coming out from the bottom of the hull. I have to ask form someone to check it. Maybe the boat was damaged at some point and nobody realised. I hope it’s nothing serious. It’s not my boat, it’s a club boat, but it has all the XD fittings and it would be a shame to have some serious damage. If it has to be decommissioned, there will be less boats for the members and I don’t want to be fighting over club boats with someone else.
So, today was quite frustrating day, but now I know that you need time to rig the boat properly and have time for a thorough check before going out. Hopefully on Sunday there is going to be enough wind to do some racing. I’ll let you know, as usual.