Brockville Gold Cup
There is some much to say about the Brockville regatta this year, and precious little time to say it. So, in recognition that if you are reading this you are probably most interesting in improving your sailing game, I will go straight to the lessons learned:
This sounds bad, and for the sake of getting your attention, I made is so. I simply mean that I need to stop making such a big deal about my mistakes and, at the same time, I have to expect others to make mistakes. I am sure I am not the only competitor that, when he makes a mistake, gets down on himself, and looses concentration. In race 2, I was 4 at the first bottom mark of a trapezoid. After a 9 in the first race, that felt pretty good, so I got amped to hold on to the leaders (younger, bigger) on the upwind in the strengthening breeze. Before the rounding, I checked for weeds (there were plenty all weekend) and saw about three strands on my rudder. I leaned back, to brush them off, got hit by a gust, and crashed. I popped up 11. The following beat was not a happy time, and I berated myself for being such an idiot. I am sure I didn't sail well, did not pick shifts and generally did not go fast while I was doing so.
In the last race, I needed to stay close to Bill Fuller to beat him but ended up two boats back on the last run. It looked like there was no way I was going to catch him, but it turned out I didn't have to. In quick succession, two boats crashed and there I was just behind him.
Afteward, I thought about both incidents, and realized that sometimes I think I am the only guy on the course that makes mistakes. The fact is, mistakes are being made all around you all the time, and you should be aware that it is so. And when you are chasing someone, it is not a bad thing to hope he makes a mistake. Sometimes I say to myself when I do well, "yea, but he made a mistake. If he had not done that, I would have lost." That's silly thinking. Why should we diminish our successes if they are in part the result of someone's error? The reality is, all our successes are the result of someone else's error.
2. Trust you gut.
I am getting to the point where I actually know what I am doing, but am still inclined to defer to the other guys that I respect as great sailors. I am getting better, however.
I won the first race of the second day. I rounded the first top mark 3, and held downwind. Upwind, I was almost overpowered, and just tried to stay in phase. The top two guys went toward the shore halfway up the beat, and crossed me about 25 yards ahead. I was clearly on a lift, but almost followed them because I wanted keep my 3 and I figure they know something I don't. Then I think, screw that, I KNOW I am on a lift, and they are wrong. Next tack, I cross them by a few yards and hold for the win. A year ago, I would have followed them.
3. Transits in an adverse current and a square line are very good.
I always get transits where I can. It mostly has to do with the fact that I have a hard time visually with start lines and I need to reassure myself that I know where the heck they are. In the second race of the second day, the line was square, so a group started at the pin because they liked the shore, and a group started at the boat because they were expecting the right to be favoured. I just wanted a good start, so I went for the middle. I watched my transit, and was two boats lengths ahead of anyone around me. There was a huge sag, and I knew exactly where the line was and crossed on the gun, at speed with clear air. It was a beauty.
4. Equipment matters-to me
I used a borrowed board the first day, and my old sail. On the second day, I had my own newly finished board and my Hyde sail. Maybe someone else can say it made no difference, but I don't go well unless I have full confidence in my equipment. I think it mattered, and I did much better the second day.
5. Don't conform.
I like sailing. I really just discovered that a little while ago. I thought I liked competing, and sailing was my avenue for that, but the truth is, I like sailing and am finally not afraid to admit it.
Both days, I was the first guy out by a long shot. Normally, we all wait for someone else to launch, or the committee boat to leave the dock. But I just hopped into my boat and went sailing.
As I left the channel, I heard someone call out, "keener!!" as a tease. Actually, I know exactly who it was; it was that punk Sam Fuller, son of the older punk Bill Fuller from Britannia YC in Ottawa, two of the best in the fleet and two of the nicest as well. I knew I might get that reputation, and it's a bit uncomfortable, but hey, if the shoe fits...
I remember reading an interview with Robert Schelt. He said he would go out by himself all the time just to see if he could make the boat go faster. He loved to go out by himself. He loved sailing and did it when no one else did. It served him well.
I love sailing, and if it becomes the butt of jokes, that has become okay with me. I love sailing. I'll bet you do, too.
6. Don't complicate things.
I do this all the time; I know what works for the day and the course, but start making it complicated. I won the first race of the second day because I caught a shift on the upper half of the right side of the beat. The shift was there all day, and Fuller caught me twice with it. Why did I let him? Because I complicated things, and thought there was something somewhere else, and there wasn't. The National Capital Regatta was the same last year. On the only day we raced, you had to go right all day. At Buffalo Canoe Club two years ago, Bill Fuller did extremely well because the right was favoured there as well, and he just kept going right all day. In the Outer Harbour, there are very limited options in a given set of circumstances. If you race more than one race a day, what worked in the first race will probably work in the rest. It's simple. If you find out what works, do it and, unless some radical change takes place between races, make it a habit to do it all day.
Sailing is less complicated that I like to think sometimes. Sometimes is really is-start at the pin, go left, tack on the header, cross the fleet, and consolidate, then do it again in race two. Sometimes it is start at the boat, tack, go to the layline, tack and cross the fleet, and consolidate, then do it again. When it is simple, the guy who wins the regatta is the guy who figures it out first and accepts that sailing is sometimes simple.
7. When rounding the mark in heavy air, the only important thing (other than releasing the vang) is getting a jump. My roundings in this regatta were much better than in previous regattas because, once I got my vang set before the mark, I concentrated on catching the wave, the puff or the boat in front of me above all else, all else being the board, the Cunningham or the outhaul. I have a mark on my vang so I don't have to search for a setting (that idea is courtesy of Sam Fuller). I set it there, even if I have to lean in a bit and luff to do it, and then power around the mark as hard as I can. I never lost a boat around a mark in this regatta, and caught one or two.
8. Peter Culp is a perfect example of A.D.D. untreated.
They say that Albert Einstein was autistic. Apparently, Ashbergers Syndrome is one of the most common mental ailments among the rich and creative. Children with A.D.D. today get Ritaline to calm them down and make them manageable for their parents. Too bad. If those parents could only ditch the Ritaline and hang in there long enough for their babies to grow up, they would no doubt see they kids grow up to become extremely successful dentists with mansions on the St. Lawrence River, terrific sailing skills and a penchant for constantly doing things for other people.
When I arrived at Brockville YC, Peter Culp was there to help to unload boats, greet everyone as they came in, and generally expend enormous amount of energy making us all feel like we were the only ones in the world that truly mattered. I stayed at his place that night, and watched dozens of people, young and old, pass through the house and enjoy his and his family's generosity.
The highlight of the night was Peter's story of how his motor boat, complete with 135 hp motor, was torn away from its moorings in a January storm, floated past the entire town and ended up at the Iroquois damn about 30 km downriver. He laughed as he told us of the sightings reported back to him the next day and showed us pictures of the boat, half sunk and trapped in ice a week or so later when he found it. "What did you do with the boat?" someone asked. "I gave a couple of Americans $1,500 and told them they could do what ever the hell they wanted with it," he said. Along with $7,000 in insurance, that's all he got for his $45,000 worth of marine craft. And he thought it was the funniest thing that ever happened!!
I am sure he is hell to live with, so my thanks to his two daughters and enduring wife for not killing him out of frustration, because the world would be a much sadder place without the likes of Peter Culp.
9. "The kids are not that much faster."
After the first day, Bill Fuller and I had a talk at the Culp household, and in the middle of my saying that I concede the first few places to the kids we race against, Bill stops me. "The kids are not that much faster, you know," he says. I could hear my head trash talking back to him while I stood there, and had to accept that he was right. I was too quick to accept that the kids half my age were too able to stay ahead of me for me to bother trying to beat them. I was conceding places I didn't need to concede. The next day, I won the first race in winds that I normally would have accepted a 10th place in.
All the other evidence says that the kids don't necessarily kill every time. Alan Clark just won the Radial Canadian Open Champs, and won again in the Radial Pacific Coast Champs-straight up-no Old Guy Points. I have seen Andy Roy race the kids straight up many times and win. Maybe it's time for me to take out the trash.