Goals for the 2009 Season

Given the limited amount of time I have available to race, I am going to try to make the most out of my schedule for 2009. My big goal is do well in the Laser Master's World Championship which will be held on St. Margaret's Bay, near Halifax Nova Scotia in late August. In addition, I am excited about gearing up to do the J-22 North Americans which will be held at Rush Creek Yacht Club outside of Dallas in early October.

Along the way, the event that I am really focused on at the moment is the Laser Master's North Americans which will be held at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina beginning on May 15th. This years event could draw 100 boats with already nearly 75 pre-registered. I think most Laser Master's sailors are using this event as a tune-up for the Worlds, especially since it will be held in similar conditions as those expected in Nova Scotia.

I have not done that much Laser racing in open water, big wave conditions so it will be a huge challenge for me. The last two North Americans were held on fairly small bodies of water (Lake Travis in Austin and at the Gorge in Oregon..a river) and I managed to do well at these venues. This will be totally different. Stamina and technique are going to be very important, especially while sailing downwind. Huge gains (or losses) can be made downwind in these conditions.

Contrary to popular belief, these Master's events do not draw a bunch of out of shape old guys. My experience has been that the folks that are still racing Laser's at this point in their lives are dedicated to fitness and have a lot of drive to do well at anything that they attempt. You will tend to see a lot of guys that look like "ex-military" types walking around the parking lot. They are all very serious and focused, yet at the same time, it is a true pleasure to race with these people. They have such a great attitude and it is a blast to get to know everyone on shore.

I recently raced the Easter Laser Regatta with a brand new boat and I am now starting to get it tweaked to where it feels comfortable. Suprisingly, each Laser feels a little different to me and it takes a while to get used to the feel of a new boat, even though they are as identical as you can make them. Every time I go for a sail, I try and make one improvement to the boat.... rigging, smoothness of the foils, etc. Incrementally, I want to slowly get better and better.

My fitness is not nearly where I want it to be yet. I haven't been able to get out and sail as much as I would like and I am now going to have to really work hard to get at least 5 more good sessions in before I leave for North Carolina.

Most of the time I have been practicing by myself which is kind of hard to do in a Laser. It is difficult to muster up the intensity for long periods of time while sailing against yourself. When I am not on the water, I am trying to spend some time in the gym and practicing yoga as a way to improve my strength and flexibility. Unfortunately, there is no real substitute for time on the water and I need to take it up a couple of notches in the next two weeks.

2009 Easter Laser Regatta

This year celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the Easter Laser Regatta at Austin Yacht Club. The father and mother of the regatta, Fred and Sally Schroth continue to pull it all together for the benefit of Laser sailors from around the country.

This year's Easter Regatta was sailed in varied conditions. Saturday was overcast and cool all day with a light to moderate easterly breeze. This wind direction is always challenging (and at times frustrating). There really isn't a good pattern to the breeze and you have to be disciplined to pick a side of the course and stay on the side you pick. It is very difficult to cross over the middle of the course for some reason which in past years has always haunted me.

In the first race, the pin end of the start was quite favored and I managed to get off the line with a decent start and went on to win the race. In the second race, I picked the opposite end of the line and thinking I saw more wind on the right. It looked good at first but it was always hard to get off of the right side of the course. I fought back into the top 5 or so boats and eventually got into a good battle with Eric Faust. We went back and forth passing each other and I managed to get a little left of him got a lane that he didn't get and was able to open up a pretty decent lead to get the win. Brad at one point had been pretty far back but was able to rally strongly back for a 2nd in the race.

The 3rd race of the day called for a leeward end start and I got an average start but was able to get off on to port tack pretty quickly. I eventually was able to work my way back into a good position and again was lucky to pass Brad on the last beat to win the race. I was really quite surprised to have won the first 3 races in conditions that normally don't suit my style of sailing.

The 4th race of the day was more of the same. I recall having an average start again and getting ping ponged around after the start and rounded the first weather mark well behind. In fact, every effort I made to pass boats was resulting in the loss of boats. I think at one point I was in the mid teens during the race. On the last beat, I was able to tack to the left right after the leeward mark and I worked the right side of the course to rally back to a 5th. Brad again had a good race and I was only a few points in the lead over the 45 boat fleet going into Sunday.

Going into Sunday's racing, Brad and I were pretty far in front of past champion and former Master's world Champ Doug Peckover and Bruce Martinson from Minnesota. Doug had started slowly and was starting to string some good races together and Bruce had sailed a very consistent series so far to they could not be counted out. A front came through early in the morning on Sunday and the skies began to clear and the wind had a very westerly angle. Usually this means big left shifts going up the western shoreline near the club with an occassional right shift that could not be ignored. The breeze slowly increased and conditions were perfect.

I was focused on making sure that I stayed near Brad and kept and eye on where he was going. I managed to sail a pretty good first weather leg and was in the top 3 at the first weather mark. Doug and Bruce were both sailing well in the increased breeze and it was difficult to get around them. I tried to stay focused on beating Brad though and didn't gamble too much on trying to win the races. After the first two races on Sunday, I had managed to increase my lead over Brad to about 10 points going into the last race.

This is where it gets interesting!! About 1/2 way up the first beat of what would prove to be the last race, I was in a pretty good position....near Brad and not too far out of the lead. I saw a big puff coming and leaned into the boat to pull on some cunningham and outhaul and the second I did this, I got auto-tacked and I wasn't quick enough to scamper up to the new high side of the boat and capsized. I fell in the water and had to swim around to the other side of the boat to right it. While this was going on, a huge left shift came in which allowed a lot of the fleet to almost close reach into the weather mark. When I finally got situated, I was near last place and Brad was in the top 5.

If the race ended now, Brad would win the regatta. I tried to stay patient and ignore the primal instincts to try and take big gambles to pass a lot of boats at once. Unfortunately, the shift lasted so long that the course was now turning into a game of follow the leader. Eventually, the wind began to clock to the normal direction which gave me a chance to start trying to claw my way back. I had to assume that Brad would win the race and I knew that I needed to get back to at least 10th in order to win with a tie breaker. I started gradually picking up boats at mark roundings, catching a shift here or there. Finally, in the last 100 yards of the race, there was one more pack of boats I had a shot of passing to get me into the top 10.

Luckly, I was able to pull it off and ended up with an 8th in the race and was able to win the regatta by 2 points over Brad. In the final analysis, I was a little ticked off at myself for getting caught off guard by that puff. It was probably a combination of fatigue and a little bit of trying to get comfortable with a new boat, control lines etc. Brad Winslett sailed a great regatta and was fun to compete with. Bruce Martinson had and unbelievably good day as did Doug Peckover. Here are the final results:

Here is the link to the final results:

http://schrothfiberglass.com/easter%202009%20results.htm


And here are the abbreviated results Laser Open:

Scott Young--22 points
Brad Winslett--24 points
Bruce Martinson--32 points
Doug Peckover--40 points
Chris Alexander--51 points

Many thanks to Fred and Sally for the great job that they do and to Barry Bowden and his crew including Claude Welles who loaned his boat to Bruce Martinson and did race committee for the weekend instead of sailing!!

2009 J-22 Austin Circuit Stop

Mark Salih asked me to steer his boat in the recent J-22 Austin Circuit stop held over the April 4-5 weekend. We recruited my trusty sailing partner John Morran to round out the crew and we were excited to get back on the water. We really hadn't raced seriously since the Mallory Cup finals in September so naturally, I was a little worried about the rust accumulation.

We got out on the Friday afternoon before the event for a little practice and shook off the cobwebs of not having been on J-22 since the 2008 Midwinter's a little over a year ago. Since the forecast was for strong winds on Saturday, we decided to use some older sails to preserve our new sails for the North Americans which will be held at Rush Creek this fall. Mark, John and I plan to enter that event and we wanted to use this regatta as a tune-up.

The J-22 Class in Texas always has a strong turn-out and the competition is very tough. I would venture to say that the top 5 boats in Texas make up at least 5 out of the top 15 boats in the country. If you can win in Texas, the odds are pretty good that you will do well on a national and probably international level.

Regrettably, I didn't get a copy of the final results and don't have the registered boats so I will have to operate from memory. I believe there were 22 to 25 boats registered with most of the top guys there. We were missing Terry Flynn, Kelson Elam and Jeff Progelhoff though. If those teams had been competing, the competition would have been mindbogglingly. J-22 veterans like Rob Johnston, Marvin Beckman, Max Scott and Eric Faust were going to provide a tough battle for us.

On Saturday, the breeze started out quite strong from the typical southerly direction. The forecast was for the breeze to slowly die during the day with a strong cold front coming in later that night. Saturday certainly looked like it was going to be a great day of racing. We got out early and got the rig tuned for the conditions. I have reached the conclusion from years of racing J-24's, J-80's and J-22's that the boats sail best when the leeward shrouds are just starting to go loose. And, for what it is worth, it is usually better to be caught with your rig too loose rather than too tight.

With the wind cranking pretty hard prior to the first race, we had the rig tuned pretty tight. As time went on, it seemed that the really strong puffs were fewer and farther between so we started gradually loosening the rig. On the J-22, I always make sure that the back stay bridles don't get too tight or too loose for the given wind conditions. If the backstay bridles are too tight, the headstay and jib luff will be tight in the lulls and the jib won't be able to sag enough to keep the boat powered up. If the bridles are too loose, it is impossible to get the back stay on tight enough in the big puffs. So...it is imperative that the bridles are adjusted every time the upper and lower shrouds are adjusted.

At the first start, we were near the leeward end of the line and had a pretty average start. We were able to tack out and duck a few boats and get in phase with the shifts. By the first weather mark, we were in the top 3 and were able to work our way into the lead to win the race fairly comfortably. I don't remember the specifics about the 2nd and 3rd race but do remember not having super great starts but getting ourselves in phase with the oscillating shifts and getting ourselves into a top 3 position at the first weather mark and we were able to eventually work our way into the lead for a win in each of the first 3 races.

Each race, the breeze and backed off a bit and it was starting to look pretty light and sketchy for the fourth race of the day. The pin end was quite favored for the 4th race and we were fighting for it with Marvin Beckman. As it turned out, we were both over early and had to restart. The wind then began to swing to the East and die even more leaving the race to be a bit of a one tack fetch on each leg. This did not bode well for our chances of a full recovery from our premature start. We sailed just an okay race and eventually finished 8th in the race. At the end of the first day, we held a 2 point lead over Rob Johnston after our less than stellar 8th in the last race of the day.

In retrospect, there was really no reason to risk a premature start. We were sailing well enough that if had just gotten an average start, the odds are pretty good we could crack the top 5. The 8th place finished made our 3 bullets seem not so amazing! On Sunday, the front that was predicted had arrived and the wind was gusting to 40 mph from the north. After postponing the start for a couple of hours to see if the wind would lay, the race committee eventually decided to cancel racing for the day and the regatta was ours. It is always a blast to race the J-22 and John Morran and Mark Salih did a great job as always. We can't wait to sail a few more events this summer in preparation of the J-22 North Americans this fall.

2008 Mallory Cup--US Men's Sailing Championship

I had the great fortune to sail with my good friends and fellow AYC members John Morran, Doug Kern and Mike Haggerty in the finals of the 2008 Mallory Cup held at San Francisco Yacht Club on the Tiburon peninsula of San Francisco Bay. The finals this year were held in evenly matched J-24’s with 11 teams competing which represented most of the regions around the country with some entries competing via the resume route. The championship consists of 11 races with a round-robin format and no throw out races.

The four of us last competed in the Mallory together when we won in 1987 in Beverly Massachusetts. As a team, the four of us have only sailed together a handful of times since that event. We managed to get one practice session in on Lake Travis on Stephen Burke’s J-24 (thank you Stephen!) the day that Hurricane Ike was coming ashore in Galveston. Even though the northeast wind was extremely puffy and shifty, just having a couple hours together on the boat was a big help. We had so many years of sailing a J-24 together that our teamwork came back very quickly.

Fortunately, we were able to sail a practice race in San Francisco the day before the 1st race. We were sailing on the Berkeley Circle which is located in the lee of Angel Island. It is an excellent place to race and typically there is a 15-20 knot breeze blowing. The tide / current can be a bit of an issue but nothing like sailing along the San Francisco City Front where there is a huge difference in the current velocity depending on the depth of the water. On our course, there was very little current in the shallow water where the starting line was set up but the current increased in strength as you got closer to the weather mark which was anchored in substantially deeper water.

The practice race was held in fairly strong breeze. As would be the case during much of the regatta, the left side of the course usually had an advantage when the wind was from the normal direction. We eventually concluded that both the wind and the current tended to bend in a slightly counter clock-wise direction around Angel Island which made it easier to approach the weather mark from the left side of the course, particularly late in the windward leg, even though the right side of the course often looked like it a stronger breeze and a better angle to the weather mark.

The practice race certainly followed this pattern as the two boats that got left of us on the first beat, led around the weather mark. We were able to gain a lot of ground on both boats downwind (as would be the case through much of the regatta), but each time we let them get left of us, they would make gains. We finished a close 3rd in the practice race and coincidentally, the top 3 in this race would end up as the top 3 in the regatta….but not in the same order.

Going into the 1st race, we were wary of the teams that had a lot of J-24 experience as there were 3 teams that had placed highly in major J-24 events over the last couple of years. We were also concerned about the team from the Gulf Coast which was helmed by Ken Kleinschrodt, a top Flying Scot sailor with his crew Dave Bolyard who had been the winning crew on four Mallory Cup wins and who finished a close 2nd to us in Marblehead in 2006.

With the memory of the OCS we received in San Diego at the Mallory finals last year, I wanted to be fairly conservative with our starts. I felt like we would have the crew work and boat speed to make up for a cautious start. The first race was a little overcast and the breeze had not really filled in yet. We started pretty conservatively near the middle of the line and were forced to tack to the right. The Gulf Coast team hit the left corner of the course pretty hard and they were way ahead at the weather mark. We rounded in top 3. Over the course of the race, we were able to leg-out on the rest of the fleet and ground down the leader. We were eventually able to whittle the Gulf Coast team’s lead down to only a couple of boat lengths by the end of the race. We came on so strong at the end that I think we got inside their heads a little bit. I think they knew we were going to be tough!

After a 3rd in the second race, we walked away with the third race as the breeze increased and then won the most important race…..the race to the keg (which the regatta organizers conveniently placed on the dock as we arrived each afternoon). After 3 races, we were in second behind the Gulf Coast team with a 2,3,1 compared to their 1,2,2. Third place was held down by Paul Wilson who has been a top Mallory Cup competitor over the last 3 or 4 years.

Going into the second day, we began to feel like the Gulf Coast team was going to be the team to beat. We kept an eye on them at all times and were always looking for opportunities to make their life a little more difficult. We remained careful on the starting line and again, tended for mid-line starts instead of fighting for the pin-end of the line which would have helped us get to the left side of the course. This strategy definitely hurt our ability to win some races but our conservative approach helped us avoid any major miscues. Starting near the middle of the line also gave us the ability to go either direction up the beat and gave us the flexibility to stay close to our nearest competitors and not allow them to get too much leverage to either side on the race course.

Even with this conservative strategy, we continued to sail well, especially downwind. We were usually able to pass a couple of boats on each of the runs by staying in phase with the wind shifts and working the waves well. At the end of the second day, we had finishes of 3,2,1 compared to Kleinschrodt’s 4,4,2 finishes. After two days, we held a slim 3 point lead over Kleinschrodt and Dave Klatt, the 2007 J-24 North American Champion was beginning to get untracked and had worked his way up to 3rd place overall.

Going into the 3rd day, we decided to attempt to hurt the Gulf Coast team if we got the opportunity. The first start was delayed by a couple of hours while we waited for the wind to fill in. When the wind finally started to fill, it looked like it would be the typical day on the bay, but soon, clouds came in and the wind was very puffy and shifty with many wind lanes spread out across the race course. Every so often, we would get teased to go to the right side….sometimes it would work…but eventually, the left would pay at the end. In the first race of the day, we again started conservatively and were definitely keeping an eye on Kleinschrodt. He didn’t have a very good start and was forced right early in the leg. We decided not to let him get too far away and found a couple of opportunities to tack on him and force him further right. In doing so, it forced them to the wrong side of the course and they rounded the first weather mark pretty deep. Meanwhile, even though we were playing the wrong side of the course, we were still in touch with the leaders and were able to sail a decent race to finish 3rd while Kleinschrodt had to take a 7th. A four point swing with the scores this tight was huge!

The 2nd race of the day was started in similar conditions. Our strategy was going to be much the same. Soon after the start, we tacked to starboard and our jib halyard broke in the middle of the tack. We immediately pulled the jib down and hooked up the spinnaker halyard and re-hoisted the jib. At this point we were last and in bad air. We radioed the race committee to see if they wanted us to withdraw so they would have the time to repair the halyard for the next race. They told us to keep racing. At every mark rounding, we had to drop the jib (or spinnaker) and hook-up the spinnaker halyard to the sail that we needed to use for that leg of the race. Even while doing this dance at each mark rounding, we managed to catch three boats and finished 8th in the race. We just assumed that we would file for redress and be awarded average points and got ready for the last race of the day.

In the final race of the day, we again wanted to get a conservative start and thought we were setup pretty well with boats slightly covering us from above and below. At the gun, the individual recall flag went up and the race committee started hailing boats. We were completely surprised to hear our number as the last one called. By the time we got back to the line to restart, we were dead last. To our team’s credit, we didn’t let it get us down and we just started sailing as hard as we could to try and catch boats. At the finish, we worked our way back to 6th, just a few boat lengths out of 4th. With our so-so day, things had gotten a lot tighter in the standings. The 2nd place Kleinschrodt team was now only a few points behind us in the standings (subject to what our final redress award would be) and the two California team’s and gotten back into the thick of things. Klatt and the Pat Toole team from Santa Barbara had taken advantage of our conservative starting and the attention we were paying to Kleinschrodt and had both put together a string of good finishes and was now suddenly in the hunt.

Meanwhile, things began to get very interesting on shore with our redress hearing. We had only asked for our average points for our jib halyard breakdown. As the judges began to read their decision, they spoke of seeing our halyard break and that they were keeping track of the time we had lost associated with the broken halyard beginning with the initial break, and then added in the time we allegedly lost at every mark rounding while changing out the halyard. I did not like the direction this was going and started to interrupt to remind them that we were in bad air the entire race, etc. etc….thinking that they were going to award us a place based on our elapsed time as opposed to average points. The judge politely interrupted my objections and asked me to be patient and let him finish.

The conclusion was that we had lost approximately 3.5 minutes around the race course due to the break-down. At the finish however, we were only 1.5 minutes behind the first place finisher. Therefore, we should be awarded 1st place points. I was in shock and at first…I felt like we had won the lottery. As it sunk in for a minute, I realized that this was going to be a very unpopular decision with our competitors. I decided to try and privately talk to the judges and asked them to reconsider their decision and award us the average points that we had requested (which would have been a 2nd based on the protocol they had been using for calculating the average points). The judges would not consider my argument and insisted that we were deserving of 1st place.

Justifiably, the Kleinschrodt team immediately filed an appeal to re-open the hearing. I did not fault them in the least. I fully expected that by the next morning, we would be dropped to average points in this race. The next morning, the judges announced that they were not going to hear the request to re-open until after the races were completed and the racing was over. We immediately strongly objected and we argued to the judges that all of the competitors wanted to know what the points were before we left the dock. The judges claimed that they were one judge short and could not have a hearing until the end of the day. At that point, I approached the 2nd and 3rd place team and coordinated an informal meeting with the judges (that were there) and the competitors. We suggested that as a way to bring closure to this issue, we would voluntarily take our average finish if the Kleinschrodt team would drop their request to re-open. After about 30 minutes of discussion, everyone agreed that this would be the best outcome considering the circumstances and we were awarded 2nd in that race.

As a result, going into the last day, we had 23 points and a 5 point lead over Kleinschrodt, 7 points over Klatt and a 13 point lead over the 4th place Santa Barbara team with two races to go. With no throw-out races, anything could still happen.

The first race of the day was in fairly light to moderate conditions. We got a pretty decent start again in the middle of the line and stayed with Kleinschrodt. As the race developed, we were narrowly in front of Kleinshrodt and Klatt in 3rd place while the Santa Barbara team was able to win the race. This was a good result for us in that we increased our lead to 6 points over 2nd and 9 points over 3rd. The Santa Barbara team was now in the hunt for 2nd or 3rd overall with their win.

For the final race, the wind began to increase to the normal San Francisco conditions. With a 6 point lead, we elected to hold back at the start and not risk an OCS, knowing that we would be able to stay near our closest competitors in the increasing breeze. We were able to round the first weather mark in the top 3 and just sailed conservatively to finish 3rd in the race which gave us the overall victory by 5 points over Kleinschrodt. By virtue of winning the last race, the Santa Barbara team jumped into 3rd place overall.

I can’t begin to express enough thanks to John, Doug and Mike for the job that they did. Doug sailed almost the entire regatta with an injured knee (that he is getting ready to have surgery on). He never once complained and did an incredible job tacking the jib and flying the spinnaker. John handled the bow to perfection and in tandem with Mike, called brilliant tactics.

This win may have been our sweetest Mallory Cup win ever and we are extraordinarily proud to have represented Austin Yacht Club in this prestigious event. Additionally, many thanks to the Austin Yacht Club for the wonderful recognition we received at the Mallory Cup Homecoming held during the Leukemia Cup weekend.

2008 Laser Master's North Americans

2008 Laser Master's NA's

Recently, I had the opportunity to compete in the Laser Master’s North American Championship. The Columbia River Gorge is one of the most amazing places I have ever sailed. It has long been known as a windsurfing mecca due to the strong, reliable, westerly thermal winds in the summer when the land heats up in the desert east of the Gorge and pulls in the cool, moist Pacific air from the Oregon coast. The reliably strong wind, coupled with a strong river flow that runs from east to west (against the normal wind direction which will keep a stranded windsurfer moving upwind) usually results in great high-speed racing conditions in the summer.

Cascade Locks is the sailboat racing venue on the Columbia River and is just upstream from the Bridge of the Gods, which connects Oregon and Washington, and is about 20 miles west of the well known Hood River community. It is remarkably easy to get to from Portland and the scenery is amazing.

I approached the North American’s this year with much less preparation than the year before when it was held in Austin. For me, it was a relatively last minute decision and I was able to get a few Wednesday night races in beforehand, but nothing like the preparation I usually like to have going into a big Laser regatta. Due to the large number of competitors from the Pacific Northwest that I knew would be racing, I really didn’t have a good feeling as to how I would stack up against the competition.

I was able to charter a relatively new boat from the local Laser dealer and I arrived the day before the event. I managed to get out and practice for a couple of hours and did not feel especially fast. In the Laser, little things like not having your hiking strap the correct length can really affect your comfort in the boat.

Fortunately, I was able to get a few things sorted out and began to feel more comfortable as the day went on. The other notable item of interest was that the wind was blowing pretty hard from totally the wrong direction. According to the locals, this was a pretty rare phenomenon triggered by unusually hot temperatures in Portland relative to the desert to the East. This caused the thermal effect to work in reverse. According to the forecast, the wind direction was likely to blow from this same direction for the first day of the regatta.

Friday dawned with a strong Easterly breeze just like the day before. The practice on the prior day really helped me in terms of feeling more comfortable in the boat and I was ready to do battle. I got a decent start in the first race but didn’t have a clue as to how to play the current or which side of the course would be favored. Early in the race, it looked like the boats that were working the right shoreline were at a slight advantage, probably due to less current. It looked to me as if several of the leaders were potentially at risk of over standing the weather mark from the right. I decided to work the middle-right of the course, played a few shifts and set up below the lead back as we approached the weather mark from the starboard lay-line. Surprisingly, we were not being set by the current as much as I anticipated and I hit the lay-line perfectly and managed to round the first weather mark in second. On the run, I got in a good rhythm with waves and rounded the leeward gate in first and held my place to the finish. I was just ahead of Tracy Usher from San Francisco who is one of the top rated Master’s sailors in the world, especially in heavy air. Winning that first race really helped my confidence a lot.

Gradually, the Easterly started to die and get a bit shiftier. I focused on getting pretty conservative starts and just tried to play the shifts. I finished the first day with 3, 3, 2 to go with the 1st in the first race. I was kicking myself for getting a little sloppy (greedy) in the last race of the day. I had managed to work my way into 1st and had the second place boat pinned beneath me on starboard. All I had to do was keep him pinned until there was no question we could lay the finish line, and I would have a sure 1st place. Instead, I thought I saw a right shift I could play that would increase my lead. I tacked off to go for it and, sure enough, a bigger left shift came in and the boat that I had covered easily crossed me to win the race. It was really a dumb move on my part and I should have just stuck with him and won the race. I was determined to get that point back!

The next day, the breeze had shifted back to the prevailing Westerly direction but it was clear that it was not going to have the strength of the typical Gorge conditions. The dilemma now was how to get a good start at the pin end of the line with about 1.5 knots of current trying to push me over the starting line early. Normally, the wind is strong enough to allow one to luff to slow the progress towards the line which almost cancels out the current. With the wind at only about 8 knots, the current was a major factor. This, coupled with a pretty strong tactical reason to play the left shoreline, meant that I really needed to fight for the leeward end of the line but couldn’t risk being over early. After several general recalls, the race committee put up the black flag, which meant that if competitors were called over early, they were DSQ’d for the race and could not participate in any subsequent restarts of that race, even if there were additional general recalls.

With this in mind, I had to set up almost 100 yards below the starting line with about 45 seconds to go. It seemed like I was a mile away from the line but as the starting gun approached, I was doing everything to try and burn off speed and slow my progress towards the line. My start in the first race of the day was pretty abysmal. I had a boat pinch me up above close hauled and was almost dead in the water at the gun. It took me about 3 or 4 tacks to get a little bit of clear air and I managed to work my way up the left side of the course. Half way up the first beat, I was worried that I was as far back as the mid-20’s. Somehow, I got around the weather mark in the top 5 and was able to pass the boats ahead of me on the long, slow, downwind leg against the current, and ended up opening up a pretty big lead to win the race. Fortunately for me, a lot of the guys that did well in the strong breeze the previous day were having more difficulties in the lighter winds.

The next two races were similar and I had made the decision not to risk a premature start because I felt like I could rally back from an average start with my speed. I sailed pretty conservatively and finished the day with a 5th and a 4th. With the first two days combined, I had a pretty comfortable lead. The problem was that if we got 4 races in on the last day, the fleet would be given two throw-out races as opposed to just one. The math can get pretty tricky with two throw-outs. Competitors that you would ordinarily not have to worry about due to a bad race or two can suddenly get back in contention with multiple throw-outs.

The last day started foggy and overcast and with very little wind. The locals said that the overcast conditions would not bode well for wind and sure enough, after about 3 hours of nervously sitting on shore, the race committee decided to abandon the remaining races and the regatta was mine. Naturally, ten minutes later, the breeze filled in and we could easily have gotten off a few more races. I took this opportunity to take my girlfriend Amy for her first sail on a Laser on the Columbia River.

It was very cool to sail in a completely new place for me and also really fun to race against and get to know a number of really good Pacific Northwest sailors that I might not have ever crossed paths with if I hadn’t travelled to the North Americans. I will definitely plan on going back to the Gorge soon.