What Happened to the Other 20%?
Since last week the forecast for today’s weather, looked good. Winds over 10 knots and dry. Since Monday it started changing. It was showing 9 knots wind, for the evening, and rain. Fortunately, the wind stayed at over 10 knots but we still had some rain.
I don’t really have any good comments for the race officer because he set the line parallel to the wind and just a few meters from the shore. Alan ran aground twice before the start and we were lucky we all crossed the line on the same direction. I was off the line quite fast with a pretty good speed. Slowly, but steadily, I started dropping back. On the first downwind leg I managed to loose to Rob and Alan.
I tried hard to catch up but it was impossible. I was trying to keep the boat flat, but it wasn’t helping. I was trying to point high and the only thing I could do was keep Ian, who was following astern, away. For the last part of the race I went for speed, but Ian was getting even closer. I managed to finish ahead of him, but still I wasn’t happy.
When I went in, I started complaining about my sail. It turns out that Steve is so fed up of listening to me complaining about my sail, that he lent me one for a couple of months, provided that I will never complain about my sail again. Later on in the club house, Brent said to me that I accelerated nicely off the line. They say that 80% of the race is the start. I really don’t know what happened to the other 20% and my result was so bad.
Next week, we’ll see if the sail was to blame.