I Am Marshall

I don't know how I ended up with the job, but it appears that when the Laser fleet has a parade, I am the designated Marshall. At the National Capital Regatta in Ottawa, we had three of them as the wind shifted to the left and made the line impossible to cross on starboard and the mark easy to lay on port. In the parades, my results were 1, 1, 2. In the other three races, where the lines were closer to square and the beats were real beats, my results were 6, 10 and 7. It was-like the motions of the Marshall's baton-an up and down regatta for me.

In the end, I came 4th (out of 18), which was better than what I expected after the first day. There was only one race on a very light Saturday, and 6 was the best I could do. Brad Biskaborn from London, where you sail on a lake that looks like a concrete floor even when it blows 25 knots, was the winner, with local Andrew Furey 2, another local Rob Hemming 3, World Beater Old Guy Andy Roy 4, and Local Old Guy Bill Fuller 5.

After the one race, the wind died and we floated around the lake till it was time to go in, which is when the wind filled in to about 10 knots. We speculated while we watched a half a dozen boats head out for a daysail why in these regattas we can't get our heads around the idea that sailing in the evening would be just fine if it meant we could actually get some racing in. We sail in the evening all summer long on weekdays. There's plenty of light till 8:00pm. Why on weekends are we are afraid to go out on the water after dinner? I don't get it. Someone somewhere has to have the guts to change the standard SIs to allow for evening racing on Saturday in the event that the wind dies during the day.

I can think of a few regattas that would have been saved by that change. TS&CC seems to get a breeze at 4:00pm when there is none during the day. Maybe PCYC could have been saved. Certainly, we could have got another race in on the Saturday in Ottawa if there was provision in the SIs for a race after 4:00pm. I believe that, given the nature of nature this year, allowing racing after dinner would improve regattas by magnitudes. Let's do it.

The first race of the second day made my prospects worse, as I rolled across the line with a 10. Can't remember what happened, except that I was busy berating myself and banging my hiking stick against the deck on the first beat while sailing on port and Brad Biskaborn came up on starboard and had to duck me. There's salt in a wound. I did my turns, and-to reverse a common phase-never looked "forward" from there. Bill won, Andrew Furey was 2, and Rob Hemming was 3. All locals. I mention they are locals not because I resent that the homies did well (I don't need an excuse to resent someone beating me), but to say that home field advantage seems to play a big part of winning in Ottawa.

Now comes the first parade:
Race committees are a sorry, underappreciated lot. They don't get paid enough in money or compliments most of the time. To provide an even softer landing for my comments, I have to say that the wind shifted mercilessly throughout the day and made setting trapezoids a brutal exercise in frustration. As far as I could see also, the race committee had only one boat with which to move marks, which tripled the time and difficulty in getting the course squared up right.

So why not switch to sausages? Why the obsession with trapezoids? I think when race committees set them, they think it makes the regatta more upscale-more important. Sausages seem so "club racing." Yet if they serve the purpose of getting some racing in where trapezoids would mean driving four hours to a regatta (and four hours back) for one or two (or none, as was the case at PCYC) races, there is not a competitor in the fleet who would not prefer sausages.

But what about multiple fleets with a large number of boats? Maybe then a trapezoid would be better, but at Ottawa we had 18 Fulls, 11Radials and six Bytes. That's a tiny fleet and easily managed with an offset at the windward mark and a gate at the bottom. Simple.

Anyway, why should I complain? Apparently, I am the Grand Marshall of parades. I started on starboard, flipped to port and stared the windward mark in the face for the rest of the leg. I had good boat speed, rounded first, and stayed there.

Brad Biskaborn scared me, however. One of the reaches turned into enough of a run, and there were enough gusts to give him a boost that we rounded the last mark overlapped. I went to the boat, and he to the pin and I crossed with about 10 feet to spare.

The next race was not a parade as the wind shifted back to the right, so I was back to 6 and the local boys were back to the front. Bill was 1, Andrew Furey was 2.

Then parade number two:
The line is square, or close anyway, but the wind is punky, and feels like it wants to move. I am at the pin end with Andy and Bill down further down than me. The young guys are at the boat. The wind starts to roll to the pin. Bill and Andy, for some reason, head to the boat. I watch Andy and Bill pass below me on port while I am still on starboard heading to the pin. I am sure the pin is good, but can't figure out why those guys are going to the boat, and I second guess myself. But the pin gets better and I decide this time I am right and stay on the pin side of both of them. With ten seconds to go, I can't cross on starboard, The gun goes, we all flip, and there is one boat to windward of me as we race to the first mark. The wind goes WAY left, and I am reaching, and the boat to windward is reaching and Bill, who ends up just underneath me is reaching. We arrive at the mark three abreast. The windward boat flips, I flip, and Bill flips, 1, 2, 3. I pass the first boat on the first reach, Bill passes him somewhere else and that's it. The wind shifts so much that all we have left are tight reaches it seems, until the last leg that is the only leg that turns into a true run.

Nature made that one interesting:
I am ahead of Bill by about 10 boat lengths with 100 yards to go. Bill has a decent lead on about six guys behind him, but they all get a gust. It's a real beauty. I can see it like black ink on the water. They are planing. One boat almost death rolls. Bill and I are sitting in slow soup, with sailing flapping. I look back and I can see Bill's eyes get wider and wider. Someone in the pack says, "Look at Bill! He is sooo fucked!" All six (maybe there was five or four, but to Bill, it probably felt like 10) ride the gust right up on his transom. Finally the puff reaches him, but by now everyone is overlapped and rockin' and rollin' to the finish line. I am still in, like, two knots of breeze, but I know it's enough to get me across the line in time, so I have the best seat in the house to watch the fire fight to the finish as all six, seven, eight-whatever-boats spread out to cross the line. Somehow Bill holds his second, with Brad 3 and Andrew 4. I think the first thing Bill did when he crossed the line was light up a smoke.

It was close to last call by the time we finished that race, so there was no time to change the course, which meant Grand Marshall Rob would get another chance to lead a parade. This time another local, John Rae from Napean Yacht Club gets the jump and I can't pass him, so I settle for a 2. Bill Fuller looks ordinary with a 5, but it is enough to win the National Capital Regatta in full rigs again (he won it when he was a pup.) For the results, go to http://www.byc.ca/welcome/NationalCapitalRegatta.html and click on "Bravo Results."

To comment on this blog, email Robert.koci@rci.rogers.com