Laser: class racing

One of the pleasures of class racing is that when you cross the finish line, if everybody else is still behind you, you know you've won.

Wednesday evening was lovely. A little cooler than it's been the last few days, but the threatened rain spotted briefly but never actually came in. Light southwesterly wind, not enough to plane, but just enough to make it interesting, to keep the boat moving and let me hike out with the occasional gust that came through.

Had a lucky race. A good start at the favoured end in clean air got me around the windward mark ahead of everybody. Jon and Pete then kept me on my toes, taking turns to snap close at my heels throughout the rest of the race, but without any major screw ups on my part, neither found the opportunity to quite squeak past.

One of the pleasures of one design class racing is there isn't a lot of difference to be be had in the speed of the boats.

There was a bit of congestion picking our way through the Handicap fleet and the Solo fleet's back markers. One poorly timed arrival at a gybe mark that meant I had to slow down and sail wide, letting Jon, not so far astern, gain precious ground on me, before cutting back in and squeezing past the inside of an Enterprise that fortunately took the mark too tight in and too wide out. Aside from that, it was relatively painless.

Then a fluky bit of pressure found me on the last beat but seemed to miss the others, and in clean air once again, gave me the chance to break clear ahead for the final lap.

Couldn't help but pause once I was over and done to take a photo of the finish line (it's between the chap in the red coat and the buoy visible afloat just off his right shoulder) whilst waiting for the others to cross it.

Forgive me if that sounds indecently smug. My first win in the new boat; I don't think they're going to let me get away with it that easy much more often.