It was a downwind start again, albeit a broader reach than the almost dead run of last week. A necessary expedient with the wind in that direction I guess, if you're set on starting the race from the shore.
Then a relatively short reach down to the first mark with (again) a starboard rounding. We do seem to like rounding the first mark to starboard at South Cerney. I've been racing for years and have to say that a starboard rounding of the first mark was almost as rare as a reaching start, but we've had both for two weeks running now.
Starboard roundings of the first mark are a recipe for chaos and mayhem as everybody comes tearing in on port and those few on a starboard approach have to make a late tack on top of the buoy, so a port rounding for the windward mark is usually favoured by the race officer when setting the course. But I guess if you're starting out with a reaching start, a downwind leg and therefore no windward mark, the starboard rounding becomes irrelevant. Chaos and mayhem are ready baked in by the start line and that first leg.
So, twenty-three boats on a Wednesday evening, on a relatively short start line, all proceeding en-mass down said short reach to arrive together at the first mark rounding. Needless to say, the first couple of legs of the first lap were fraught, but none so fraught as that first rounding.
Were it not for the fact that we were in open air and in our own individual boats, social distancing would have been something of an issue . . .
I started at the windward end again to avoid getting smothered by everybody else's dirty air, but couldn't pick up enough speed to break clean ahead, so arrived somewhere in the middle of the pack at the first mark and got completely shoved out by a dozen boats barging in from astern. It's one thing to call water on others that have no right to push in, but these kind of crowds develop a momentum of their own.
The next leg was longer; a very broad reach on starboard and after the bottleneck of the first mark the other boats started to spread out, so I was able to pick my way down through the field to the leeward mark to enjoy a much less stressful rounding. Albeit with a gybe from a dead run onto a close-hauled fetch up to the next mark on the other side of the lake.
The sort of fetch where if you sail it cleanly and don't get hit by any unlucky shifts on a very shifty night, you can lay it in one beat. But if it doesn't work and you have to tack, it punishes you with time lost. The wind bend in the last hundred yards made for a nasty header as it funnelled out of the gap that leads into the little used backwater on the east side of the lake. You could see it in the angle of the boats ahead, so it paid off to sail high at the beginning of the stretch to give yourself some leeway at the end. I didn't spot that early enough on the first lap, but remembered it well for the remaining three.
A tack around the third mark put you on to a broad reach on port back across the lake to the next. The wind was fickle and shifty for that first lap, but for the remaining laps of the four lap race I got lucky, with the gusts blowing through more than enough to put my little Laser up onto the plane for the length of it.
The exhilaration of that ride was almost enough for me to forgive the brevity of the only beat of the race that followed on the next leg.
The beat is where a small boat like mine makes most of its gains against the rest of the fleet, by picking her course up the leg, tacking on the headers and sailing up close on the lifts. Downwind is more of a procession, at best a drag race, and dead downwind gives all the tactical advantages to the asymmetric, if they're canny enough to take them, as they drive their big kites down the course from favoured gybe to favoured gybe.
So I like a course with a nice, long beat to windward, and this we were denied last night.
But I can't complain. The one thing that's always true of any race, is no matter how much you might not like the course you're given to sail, everybody else has to sail the same one.
I screwed a few things up. Mostly on the second mark rounding, gybing from a dead run, then having to sheet in fast and harden up the sail controls to lay a close hauled course to the next. On one instance, I actually dropped the tiller. I'm sure I heard laughter from the boats behind.
On another occasion, hiking hard against a very gusty beat on the third lap, I actually all but stalled the boat in irons on the final tack. I pulled out of it, but only just, and slowly.
Ultimately, I finished in 2nd place, beating everybody on the water except an Aero (whom I was catching) and an RS300, both of whom being faster designs then lost to me on handicap. I failed to shake one of the Solos, despite my best efforts (and perhaps because of my afore mentioned mistakes), and so he in turn finished close enough behind to beat me on handicap and take 1st place.
And very well deserved, I should add.
It was a good evening's racing. A challenging course set, quite outside of my comfort zone, but once we settled into it, I enjoyed myself nonetheless. One thing I do love about the Laser; I can have a reasonably inauspicious start (ie. bungle it completely with my "tactical" decisions and clumsy boat handling) and the little boat still has enough guts in her to make the time up and climb back through the fleet, as long as I bully her accordingly and make her work for it.
Of all the little boats I've bought and raced over the years, this one, surprisingly, is most definitely my favourite so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment