Laser: Wednesday rinse and repeat

This Wednesday was another "couldn't decide which rig to use" evening at the Lake, but this time at least I remembered to take all my sailing kit with me. The forecast was only around 13 knots, and dropping as the evening wore on, but gusts were predicted up into the early 20's. 

photo: william gardiner

As I was getting the boat out to rig, the "gusts" seemed pretty much continuous, serried rows of little white capped wavelets dancing down the fetch of the lake to where I was looking out from the lee shore. I rigged the Radial again.

photo: william gardiner

It was the right choice. The lulls between the gusts were more the exception than the rule.

I made a mess of my start. I misread the line as having more port bias than it actually did, so chickened out of holding my position up by the committee boat early, sacrificing height and position to bear away to pick up speed down the line in the final seconds before the go, getting myself stuck out at the pin end. 

photo: william gardiner

Kean, the only sailor with a full Standard rigged Laser, punished me for it, stealing the lead off me and beating me easily around the windward mark. I kept nipping at his heels despite my smaller rig, but he kept his lead persistently over the next couple of laps, whilst I ducked variously between him and Gary who was being a friendly nuisance but clearly having fun in his RS200.

Monty, this season's junior nemesis in his own Laser Radial, seemed to have fallen safely behind, tangled with Ian and his Solo.

photo: william gardiner

It was a great course and fantastic sailing. A couple of challenging beats to split up the fleet, spaced by two exhilarating reaches and a potential dead  run along with a couple of gybe marks to spice up the entertainment. The little Laser screamed along, the log later showing we often touched just short of 11 knots, which is stupidly good fun when your boat only has about six inches of freeboard.

Still tangled up with a terribly persistent Gary, I rounded the final mark into the last lap just as a big gust came through, Kean was still just ahead, but Gary just astern to windward and bearing down on me, leaving me no room or option to tack despite the gust bringing an obvious header with it. 

photo: william gardiner

I held my course until Gary tacked and cleared, but could see the gust had brought the rest of the fleet down fast behind us, and the foremost of them had tacked directly after the mark, making the most of the lift we'd missed.

I tacked, still in heavy wind, and saw Kean ahead and to windward do the same, but get suddenly into some kind of trouble, stuck head to wind with his sail flogging. I hiked out hard and sped away, cackling gleefully to myself, with hardly the time to wonder if he'd had some sort of gear failure or had just got caught out by the gust mid-tack.

photo: william gardiner

And Monty appeared, crossing just astern of me on starboard, looking inanely pleased with himself for catching us up. It was there I should've tacked and covered him, but I pressed on. At this point it would've made little difference to my result as he was sailing on his proper handicap but I was still carrying the handicap for my Standard rig respite sailing with my Radial. 

But it might've saved me the indignity of being beat on the water by him again.

Tacking to lay the windward mark, my mistake was realised, and Monty charged in just ahead of me but clear on port. I spent the rest of the lap trying to chase him down and almost had him on the second beat, but failed to keep clear as we bore away around the windward mark, my mainsheet just tapping the bow of his boat to leeward.

By the time I'd completed my penalty turns, he'd stolen a safe lead on me, rounding the bottom mark and crossing the finish line a clear 24 seconds ahead, leaving me with an ignominious 2nd place finish in the Laser fleet and a 4th place overall in the general handicap.

But with a smile on my face. The sailing has been fantastic. Whilst everybody else sailed in to head to the bar, I stayed out for another ten minutes or so just for the sake of it, reaching back and forth in the last of the now fading gusts, playing on the water, looking out for the perfect angle for a fast plane.

I couldn't help but reflect how lucky I am to have this. A fresh breeze and clean, open water beneath a moody sky that glowered with storm-threatening clouds lit by the amber light of the sinking sun. It had been a good race, adrenaline fuelled and challenging from start to finish.

But sometimes it's nice just to sail.