Countdown

The 2009 Laser Master's North American's is only a week away. With travel time for the boat, I only realistically have about 2 days left to prepare. The regatta organizers are expecting 100 entries. Should be great event!

This week I have been finalizing all of the boat preparation work and have been trying to get a an hour or two on the water each day. Gradually, everything feels like it is coming together. I have been working quite a bit on making sure all of the rigging is working well, making sure the blades are smooth and trying to get all of the boat preparation work done here so that once the boat gets to North Carolina, there will be no more work to do and I can focus 100% on getting used to the conditions.

In the Laser, physical endurance is the key and having the right weight to strength ratio is pretty important. From what I can tell, a really fit 175 lbs is faster than a not-so-fit 190 lbs. It also seems that there is a much greater speed differential downwind (especially in waves) than upwind which puts a premium on technique and fitness.

I have never felt especially fast downwind in a Laser except last summer at the North Americans at the Gorge, I seemed pretty quick downwind. The ocean waves at this year's event will probably put a premium on being quick downwind.

Lake Travis doesn't provide the optimum platform for working on my technique so I will have to really work on it during the practice day.

I was able to get a little bit of Laser racing under my belt on Wednesday night. It was the first night of our Wednesday racing series and I bet we had a few more than 20 boats out. I felt pretty fast around the race course and my boat handling felt good so maybe I am coming into form.

With any luck, my boat will arrive in North Carolina next Wednesday and I will have Wednesday and Thursday to practice and get used to the wave action there. I have also started sailing with a compass in anticipation of being offshore with no land to use as a reference point. I usually don't use a compass on a Laser but with open water conditions and a really long starting line for 100 boats, I think the compass will come in handy for figuring out the best end of the line to start at and maybe make it a bit easier to pick up wind shifts.

Thats all for now....next post will come from Wrightsville Beach North Carolina.