Tuesday 24 August 2010

Sail for gold

Its not about the end result! Well, sort of. Sailing out of Weymouth is not the most pleasant of experiences when you're used to an open bay within easy reach of a sheltered beach. The long delays between races and the long sail out/back each day certainly challenged my enthusiasm and reminded me of the reasons I stopped sailing back in 2003.

However, I was there to get some race tuning in and I certainly did. My results weren't anything to write home about but it was still an extremely useful exercise. I was yellow flagged for sculling on my first start and immediately approached the jury boat for an explanation. I learnt that sculling could only be performed to get the bow down from head to wind to close hauled or to get the bow through the wind onto a new tack. Sculling on both sides to maintain position was not allowed. So, the week from that point forward was all about changing my technique which was all useful practice for the worlds (even if it meant not getting a single sniff of clear air all week).

During racing, I worked myself into the top half of the fleet in about 3 of the 6 qualifying races and failed to convert any of those positions into results. Whether it be rustiness, poor decision making, poor speed or a just plain bad luck, it highlighted that I had some potential even if it was too late to make silver fleet. Having missed the cut then proceeding to collect a black flag in the first race on thursday, I decided I'd had enough of waiting around and sailed for home. Normally, I would have seen that as defeatist but I looked at it as lessons learnt and 7 days of top quality days in the boat. I was in need of a rest! I had friday off before sailing in my beloved Beer regatta and then spent the next week trying to loosen off my leags in time for Pre-worlds training at hayling.

I'm still feeling positive about my progress but there's nothing like getting a thorough whipping on the Laser circuit to bring you down to earth with a thud and focus the mind on the game in hand.

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