Mistakes…
Today I was expecting a nice wind of around 10 knots. I thought it would be nice to sail in a nice wind and it should have enough power to move me around quite fast. I arrived at the club and started rigging Bubble. I noticed that the top cover was torn, near the gunnel and after I took the cover off there was a small chip on the deck. The Sea Cadets have been here all week and their Toppers are in the racks opposite Bubble’s berth. I think that they dropped some rig or something and caused the damage. It’s not a very serious damage, but a torn cover will need to be repaired.
I went out, and I was getting ready for the start sequence. For some reason, I felt that my start was not that great. The windshift helped me though and as the gun went, I tacked to port and got off the line first! Everybody else was on starboard towards the pin end and after they crossed the line they were waiting for each other to tack. I was leading up to the first tack, and then I realised that I didn’t know the course! Mistake #1.
I asked someone about the course, but either you told me the wrong course, or I heard wrong. Anyway, I sort of slowed down a bit and I saw everybody going towards the other side, so I headed there. I was on the North side going towards no 1, but the course was no 2 first then 1. So, I lost a bit of time there. I continued pursuing the rest of the fleet. Somehow, I was not doing very well. For some reason I didn’t have as much speed as I would have liked, for that wind. I was losing ground on the beats. I know I haven’t perfected my beating but usually I do better than this.
I ended up finishing 10th out of 11. After I crossed the line, I turned back and went towards Alan to help him come back towards the line quicker. It turns out that his boom was too high for the wind. He didn’t have enough kicker on and he wasn’t sheeting in. Pete was on safety boat duty and he came around and gave him more tips. Pete also told me that I was sitting too far back today. He might be right, actually, because the wind was not very strong, so I should be sitting as far back as I was. So, mistake #2.
As for as the first mistake is concerned, that was stupid. I shouldn’t make mistakes like that. As for the second mistake, it shows that when things go wrong, I don’t have the ability, yet, to see immediately where the problem is and rectify it, straight away. I need to think about it after I go in and talk about it with people in order to find the solution. Sailing is a learning process.
No sailing on Sunday, I am going to Bolton to see my nephew. More, next week.