Laser: barefoot prevarication

Couldn’t decide which rig to use with my Laser at South Cerney Wednesday evening last, full sized Standard or the reduced Radial. Forecast was for gusts up into the low 20’s, which are great fun with the Radial but survival conditions for the Standard when you're my size. On the other hand, the average was forecast to be in the low teens, which turn the Radial into a bit of a slow slog. Never used to have this problem when I only had the one rig.

So I prevaricated, I umm’d and ahh’d before setting out, and then loaded both sails into the car, resolved to decide once I got to the lake and could have a look at the conditions first hand.

On getting to South Cerney, I went to grab my kit from the car, thinking I’d get changed before I rigged, and was crushed by the realisation that in all the dithering about which sail to bring, I’d forgotten to bring the bag I'd meticulously packed with my sailing gear.

Rush-hour traffic would’ve meant a 45 minute journey home, so heading back to fetch it wasn’t an option. Instead, my friend Gary leant me a spare wetsuit, my mate Suzie lent me a pair of her shorts (amused to discover that we’re actually the same size) and I “borrowed” a stray buoyancy aid from the lost property. I had my own gloves, as I keep them with my foil bag, so whilst not cutting my usual stylish figure in a hodgepodge collection of begged, borrowed and stolen gear, I was at least kitted out to race. Except for my feet. Lacking any sailing boots, I resolved to sail barefooted.

How bad could it be, I thought?

Well, the water felt almost warm, although the gravel shore was painful underfoot as I launched, but 20+ knots of wind on bare, wet feet turns out to have quite a numbing effect, and by the time the race actually started, I couldn’t feel most of my toes. Which was awkward, as the only way I could make sure they weren't tangled in the mainsheet on the cockpit floor, and they frequently were, was to actually look, and whilst I didn’t capsize despite the entertaining conditions, I did very nearly throw myself overboard as I hiked out to flatten an energetic roll tack in what turned out to be a mistaken assumption that my feet were secure under the toe-straps. 

Evidently, they were not. I only recovered myself and saved the capsize by somehow bouncing off the dagger-board, I’m not entirely sure how. It must have looked acrobatic, but it was pure accident and more than a little good luck that saved me.

Yet it was all great fun. In the end, with the sneaking premonition that my bare feet were probably going to be a vulnerability and that both borrowed wetsuit and (temporarily) stolen buoyancy aid were ill fitting, I’d rigged the Radial. It was a good choice. The gusts were frequent and hard, with more than enough pressure to keep the boat moving up through the challenging beat to windward, and sending us positively flying over the water down the four reaches that zig-zagged back down the course. It was a very wet, very lively evening with some very close racing.

I managed to beat almost all of the other Lasers, despite a couple carrying Standard rigs; all except for one. Monty, one of the Club’s youngsters, in his own Laser Radial, thrashed me convincingly, both on the water and, because I was signed on with my Standard rig despite using my Radial, after handicap. I got close enough that I could’ve stolen the bung out the back of his boat a few times across the course of the race, but never quite managed to slip past. Then, in the last half of the last lap, he found clean air whilst I got tangled up in the back markers as we lapped the fleet, and he shot away, leaving me for dead.

I’m really going to have to up my game, or he’s going to be stealing my Laser trophy at the end of the season.