I managed to wake up nice and early and I went to the club. People were arriving and since it was an Open Meeting day, all doors and gates were open. I started rigging a club Laser that had been decided in advance, and soon I ran into some problems. I couldn’t find a decent sail. Eventually I had to repair one. It had a tear at one of the batten pockets.<\/p>\n
A batten is a piece of plastic that is supposed to be slightly longer than the pocket. This way it makes that part of sail tight and with a small curve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Steve always has a “magic box”, something like Mary Poppins’ bag, with pits and pieces. He gave a sail patch. It’s a self adhesive piece of plastic\/fabric that you can apply over a tear. Later on he lent me a clew strap too, he keeps a spare in his “magic box”.<\/p>\n
Format was 3 races, 1 discard. This means we do three races but the two best results count. On the first race I started quite well, but soon I messed up. I almost missed a mark. Actually I would have missed it if someone wouldn’t tell me. I actually messed up his race. He was at the front of the pack and I was towards the bottom. As our courses crossed, I had right of way and will going around me he hit my boat. So he had to do a 720 degree turn penalty. Then he pointed out that I had actually missed a mark. So, if I was going towards the mark, I wouldn’t had been there and he wouldn’t have hit my boat, so he wouldn’t have to do a 720.<\/p>\n
Anyway, by the time I went back and round the mark I was last. I continued racing and although at some point I was racing two other boats I finished last. We had a lunch break and went out again for the two remaining races which were back-to-back.<\/p>\n
At the second race my start was not that great, but still OK. The wind had picked up a bit and at some point I capsized and was trailing behind. Towards the end I managed to overtake someone but he managed to pass me on the last beat. I realised that I cannot figure out, yet, how to approach the finish line without loosing time. I think that it should be done with 1-2 tacks less than I do it.<\/p>\n
![\"Laser_Open_WSC_25-06-06-002\"](\"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2006\/06\/Laser_Open_WSC_25-06-06-002.jpg\")
At the third race, my start was worse. I was planning to start from somewhere in the middle of the start line, but I found myself leeward to all those fighting for a position next to the committee boat and I had all the dirty wind. As a result I could hardly move forward. It took me some time to cross the line and after a couple of tacks I was chasing the bottom of the pack. By that time I was tired, there were more gusts and my sore thumb had started hurting, making things even more difficult for me. At some point I could hold the tiller extension tight enough, lost grip, got into an involuntary gybe while I was still sitting in the wrong side, I capsized. I pulled the boat upright, wet and tired I continued round the course and at some point I was told that I wouldn’t be able to finish with 20 minutes from the first finisher.<\/p>\n
From that point onwards there was some serious lack of communication that resulted in nerves, anger, shouting and disappointment. From what I have managed to understand things happened like this:<\/p>\n
\n- One of the safety boats approached me and I was told that the Race Officer says “You will not finish within 20 minutes, so you might as well quit.<\/li>\n
- I said “OK, fine”. I was slightly disappointed because I would like to try to finish, but I was tired anyway and I don’t want people to be pissed off waiting for me in the committee boat for half an hour. I had said that I quit anyway.<\/li>\n
- I was told, though, that if I want I can continue sailing.<\/li>\n
- So I decided that I would continue cruising round the course. I also set my watch to stopwatch and I would aim to finish as close as possible to the 20 minute limit.<\/li>\n
- As soon as I heard the first finisher’s gun, I started my stopwatch.<\/li>\n
- At around 2 minutes 54 seconds from the first finisher’s gun the same safety boat came up to me and I was told “Turn back in, now”. No “please”, no “if you don’t mind”, no politeness whatsoever. With a the authority of a race official someone tells me to go in.<\/li>\n
- I turn back to go in. By this time, I am thinking that since I am being treated like that I should had been given the chance to try to finish within the 20 minutes.<\/li>\n
- I pull the boat off the water and I ask the Race Officer who’s decision was that I HAVE to quit.<\/li>\n
- He said that I didn’t have to quit but they were polite to let me know that I won’t manage to finish in time and it would be polite if I wouldn’t keep the on the water pointlessly.<\/li>\n
- I said that I had no such intension, I had quit and that I was cruising while I was trying to see how long it would take me to finish. I also appreciated the fact that they let me know.<\/li>\n
- Then I was told that as I sailed past the committee boat I should had told them.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The whole thing was making any sense to me. Later on, after I had calmed down, I realised what had, most probably, happened. When I said “OK, fine” (see 2) the safety boat didn’t inform the race officer that I had accepted his suggestion. Most probably they didn’t even mention to him that I was cruising, or that I was given the choice to cruise. I on the other hand, assumed that the race officer had been informed that I accepted and I didn’t see any reason in telling him anything as I sailed past the committee boat. At that point most probably he got quite upset because he thought that I was expecting him to wait for me to finish. So, when I talked to him (see 8) he assumed that I was just being selfish.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance to talk to the race officer and explain that I had actually dropped out of the race and I assumed that he was told.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I am sure that you have guessed that I didn’t finish the last race. As the format was 3 races, 1 discard, this is the result that was discarded in my case. Overall I finished 32nd from 32 boats. That’s last in my first Laser Open. Someone gave me a present, though, a burgee.<\/p>\n
A burgee is a wind indicator. It looks like a little flag that you put on top of the mast. As the wind blows, the burgee turns accordingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, on Wednesday I will have I burgee to put on the top of my mast and hopefully I will see today’s Race Officer and explain the whole situation, because I feel unhappy about it, I am sure he does too.h<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was my birthday. 32 years old! I am getting older and wiser! I had invited dome friends in the afternoon for a BBQ that lasted until the evening and then we went to a Restaurant to meet some more friends. As a result, I didn’t go to bed until 02:30 in the morning. I… <\/p>\n
Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dinghies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Laser_Open_WSC_25-06-06-001\"](\"https:\/\/yiannis.uk\/captainslog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2006\/06\/Laser_Open_WSC_25-06-06-001.jpg\")