Raced my Laser again in the Wednesday evening Hotdogs series at South Cerney. Very light, shifty conditions. The sort of stuff I usually do well in. Except the primary line on my outhaul broke on one of the beats.
I keep a safety knife in my buoyancy aid, and the conditions were light enough for me to hold the tiller between my knees, grab the boom and cut away enough of the now redundant string to make a loop out of a few pieces tied together and so jury rig a new outhaul. The foot of the sail was exceptionally baggy though, which was fine off wind, but destroyed my pointing for the two beats of the course.
I reckon it cost me about three minutes. All for the sake of a £3.50 length of dyneema failing on me. The moral of the story is take the time to check your control lines regularly. The irony is that I generally I do, and only replaced the kicker control line and the dyneema traveller at the end of last month.
I finished a sorry 13th, middle of the fleet. One of the other Lasers snuck past me as I was cobbling my boat back together, but I caught him up again on the next lap and got a lucky lift going back up that same beat that let me sneak back past.
Mishaps aside, it was fun to be back out with the Laser. But then, it always is.
And the sunset was absolutely gorgeous.
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