Wembley Open Meeting
Today was the Wembley Laser Open Meeting. Last year I was last out of 32 boats. This year I knew I wouldn’t be last. The point was to get as high in the fleet as possible. The weather wasn’t going to be very good. Light to medium winds and rain at times. The format was 3 races, with 1 discard. Steve had done a fantastic job in preparations. He had managed to secure £430 worth of prizes from Rooster and he had made welcome packs with vouchers, maps, sailing instructions, etc. for every competitor. He hoisted 2 Laser flags on the balcony of the clubhouse and it all looked very impressive. Even the club had raised the standard by having lunch tickets for everyone who had paid for his lunch in advance.
On the first race, I had a pretty bad start and I was battling against, Tom, Rob, Corbin and Chris. On the downwind leg I chose the wrong side of the lake and that made things even worse. Generally speaking, my beats were fine and I was gaining on most of the the other boats around me. On top of that I had to do a 720 because I touched another boat. The guy was an idiot and he started shouting “Two turns man, you have to do two turns. Now!”. I got really pissed off with him and I told him I will do the turns as soon as I have clear water to do it. Anyway, I finished 28th out of 37 boats. That’s only 9 from the end and I cannot say I was very glad about it, but still, I wasn’t last.
On the second race, I decided to go for a pin end start but others had the same idea and it became too congested. Fortunately there was a general recall, so I went for a more conventional approach that paid dividends. A few people got black-flagged and I also managed to find myself in the middle of the fleet with people like Steve. I fought hard but I didn’t manage to stay that high in the fleet, so I dropped back bit by bit and I finished 21st.
On the third and final race I had a fairly good start. At some point I hit a mark and I did a 360. On the last couple of laps, I was battling with Steve, Jay and Tom. It made the whole thing quite interesting, because the light winds were getting us tired and bored. On the last beat towards the finish line, everybody was pushing as hard as we could. Not all shifts worked in my favour and it seemed, I was losing. So I sailed defensively for a while so I would make sure that I wouldn’t be last. Once I secured that, I started looking on how to gain places. At some point I was covering Steve. Then Jay seemed to be gaining, so I tacked to cover her. She was covering Tom, so I had two of them covered. I saw Steve going towards the other side, but I decided that I’d rather cover two than try to cover one opponent. So, Steve finished ahead of me, but I managed to keep Jay and Tom behind. It was fierce battle but it paid off. I finished 25th.
I am happy with my performance, overall I finished 25th out of 37 boats. Corbin who is a more experienced sailor than me was 26th, but he got black-flagged on the second race. I am glad I finished ahead of him, although realistically he is better than I am.
After the prize-giving, we had a BBQ to celebrate my birthday. I am 33 today! Some people stayed for the BBQ, we had a few drinks and some really nice food Lydia had prepared plus the meat. During the BBQ it was raining, but that’s the English weather. There’s nothing we can do about it. I feel tired after such a busy day. More sailing on Wednesday.