Having spent Saturday racing the Laser, everything hurt Sunday morning. As long as I kept moving I was fine, but the moment I stopped everything seized up. It hadn't exactly been wild conditions the day before, but I'd forgotten how much that boat brutalises me. Saturday evening had been spent in an exhausted, sore huddle in front of Netflix. Nikki had no sympathy, and only baffled amusement that I'd do it to myself and, furthermore, proposed to go out and do it all again with the Albacore on Sunday.
But compared to the Laser, the Albacore is civilised, almost decadent comfort. And I'd promised to race with Amanda.
It's quite difficult to describe the weather we had on Sunday without resorting to unseemly profanity. I drove through falling snow to get to the Club in the morning, but on arrival found the sun was shining and a brisk breeze was gusting over the water. The breeze then dropped off to little more than a drift as we launched.
We had a few issues with a twist at the head of the jib that, foolishly, I didn't spot until we were launching, and no time left to take it down and put it up properly if we were to make the start line, which was on the far side of the lake. I had half a mind to abandon the first race to put it right, but we decided to see how the start went and decide from there.
As it turned out, it was our best start of the season. Of course, there isn't an awful lot of competition for the spot yet. But, perhaps more by luck than judgement, we got to to the starting area just as the preparatory signal sounded, and six minutes later, seconds before the start, found ourselves on starboard at the favoured committee boat end of the line, with somehow acres of space to leeward to accelerate into as the gun went.
So we took full advantage. The first beat was a long stretch down the full length of the lake, and with clean air out at the front of the fleet, we easily made the windward mark ahead of everybody else. The pressure of the wind in the jib transferred the the twist in the head of the sail to the halyard, so it gave us no problems.
The course was an unusual one for a club race; a triangle followed by a sausage. Basically, the first lap was around three marks of a triangle, giving a lovely long beat followed by two reaches, then the following lap dispensed with the second mark, taking us back up the beat and then on to a dead run back to the final mark.
Naturally, by the time we got to the second lap, Amanda and I had both forgotten that and I duly set out for the wing mark of the triangle again, before a very sporting gentleman in the boat that was, until then, just behind us, called out to warn us of my mistake. The minute or so of erroneous navigation probably cost us at least a couple of places and so squandered our glorious start, but after correcting it we still managed to finish with a creditable 5th place out of the fleet of 14 boats.
Then there was a long, cold half hour wait between races whilst the committee shifted the course around to cater for the wind backing through about 90 degrees.
We then had all four seasons in the space of an hour for the second race.
A squall came through, and we went from bright sunshine and easy sailing to hard hiking, snow, sleet, hail and rain, back to bright, warm sunshine and drifting conditions for the last lap. We finished middle of the fleet with a 7th place.
Overall, I was very pleased with how the boat went. There's still plenty of scope for improvement, especially as far as the helm and crew are concerned, but it's good to have things to work on and creases to iron out. I love the Laser, and really enjoy racing single handers. But, although I find it's much harder to do as well in a double hander, aside from the appeal of the companionship and camaraderie you get from racing with a friend aboard, there's also a particular kind of satisfaction to be found when you both get a halfway respectable result together.
It made for the perfect finish to a very active weekend, almost as if we're making up for lost time.
This evening however, I think I'm going to put my feet up and relax.
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