Trainning for… Swimming!
Trainning day today with Colin, the club’s Commodore. At some point in one of my earlier posts I had mentioned a questionaire that arrived in the post from the club. I gave it back to Colin and he arranged some trainning for me. I think that he had in mind some racing trainning but it turned out to be more general.
There was a nice breeze, if not too strong for someone with my experience. We started three of us. We were in three different levels. I was somewhere in the middle. The other guy had been sailing much longer than I have but I have packed loads of sailing within the last two months (twice per week). The girl who was sailing with us didn’t have much expeirence, if any, but an experienced member got in a double-handed boat with her and showed her how to crew. She actually improved quite a lot during the day.
In the morning we started with some theory on tacking and gybing. You can tack and you can tack. Tacking or gybing round the mark is easy. The point is to tack without loosing any speed. Now, that’s the trick. We were shown how to tack and gybe so we loose as less speed and power as possible and we were told about the rolling tack. Then we launched and did some racing practice. After lunch, the other guy had to go and since the girl was doing “crew” training, Colin had the chance to give me one-to-one coaching.
It wasn’t racing as he had planned, but mainly on tacking and gybing. I can say that now I can tack and gybe better than before. Colin told me that he saw a considerable improvement before and after the training session. I managed to capsize a couple of times but one of the capsizes was dry.
A dry capsize happens when as soon as the boat turns on its side, the helm moves quickly on the side by swinging his/her leg over like getting on a motorbike. Then the other leg and steps on the centreboard. The weight will bring the boat upright and as the boat turns upright, swiftly the same motion to move into the boat.
Although I could see the progress in general, it made me nervous because I was feeling like under the microscope, so achieving a dry capsize was quite exciting and rewarding.
In the evening we had a race (Wednesday evening race). I had a pretty good start but I capsized again while I was on a run. Later I was told that ot was a “run by the lee”. This time it was a wet capsize. I brought the boat upright and on the next lap, on the downwind leg I new I had to gybe and bring the sail on the port side by I was too tired and I couldn’t be bothered to do it. Then I capsized again. I had one more lap to do and since I was tired I dropped the race and went in because I would be making too many mistakes. They say this is the time that you have to give up. Being tired in the water is not good at all. You really need the energy. If you don’t have the energy, you are looking for trouble. I was in the club since morning. I had sailed, quite some time and since the wind was quite strong I felt drained.
More racing on Sunday.