Lihan Sailing

Our early morning start today turned out to provide the best conditions of anyone racing today.  The race committee did a commendable job of managing the Finns and Radials together on the same course, and getting in races before conditions really hit the fan.  For a little background, the predominant weather pattern has an offshore gradient in the morning that either dies completely or drops down before the onshore seabreeze (the mythical Doctor) pumps in for the afternoon.  Today, the gradient was quite strong, and we had some exciting (read tiring) times slogging upwind on a Finn-length beat in a solid 15 knots on super flat water in our first race.

In that first race, I had a solid start and strong, conservative beat that left me rounding the top mark in 2nd, which I held through the run.  I missed a puff to leeward that put me back to 5th or so around the bottom gates, but that was only the beginning!  By this point, the gradient breeze was becoming more and more unstable, thus leaving our course with very erratic conditions.  The name of the game was keeping one’s head out of the boat and always scanning for the next puff.  At times, it felt as if the breeze was ‘sticking’ to land, only reaching offshore a bit, just enough to get into it out on the left side of the course.  The balance, though, came in managing the hot right angle with this better left pressure–tough to decide which was more important.  In the end, pressure won out, which seems to be a recurring theme here during the times of change from gradient to seabreeze.

I continue to struggle with starting execution, and my exits from the leeward mark certainly need work on holding a lane, but overall I’m pleased with how I’m sailing.  Every day is a new, exciting challenge, and racing, quite frankly, is really, really fun.  It’s great to be back on the circuit, training and sailing full time.  I’m looking forward to the next few weeks down here, but my focus for now is catching up the few points I need to move up into the medal race!  I’ll have the opportunity tomorrow to climb from 14th up to the top ten.  Wish me luck!

Results can be found at http://www.perth2011.com/pir2010/results

Day 2  put us out on the Owen course, the furthest from our launching beach and in an area of the bay we hadn’t done much training previously.  That seemed not quite that big a deal, however, as the breeze again behaved ‘like it never does here!’  After a rodeo tow out courtesy Marit Bouwmeester (NED) through the gorgeous clear turquoise water of Cockburn Bay, we found a solid 10-12 knot breeze on our course.  This wind, however, quickly died to 6-8, and got quite shifty and confused.  Several general recalls/postponed starts later, our first start went off.  My hole was sniped by a late approacher in the last ten seconds before the gun, thus decimating my hopes for holding a lane out to the left side.  About halfway up the beat, the seabreeze began pumping in from the left side, and I, sadly, was battling it out middle right.  The leftie filled only about halfway across the course, so not only were the right side boats on the wrong side of the shift, we also never got the 12 knots of pressure the left side was seeing.   By the time I reached the wing mark on the outer loop, the first boats were rounding the leeward gates to come back upwind.  I sailed the entire race by myself, no boats within reach neither ahead nor behind.  Because the course was set for the lighter air we started in, the race committee had very little time to reset for the new breeze direction and strength, thus leaving very few options to catch up.   I picked off a couple boats on the final run to finish a laughable 32^nd in race 3, which, god willing, will be my drop for the series.

Race 4 took its sweet time to happen–today, we were sharing our course with the Finns, and our beats are of slightly differing lengths…. about half the distance it seems!  While we were sailing an outer, the Finns were sent on an inner, thus forcing us to wait for them to finish all their upwind sailing before we could begin our second race.  By the end of the first race, the breeze had freshened up but was still all over the place velocity-wise.  We again suffered through several generals/postponements, watching the orange flag go up and down, up and down.  Around 4.15 we finally got out of the starting box and sailed a very, very shifty race.  My start was again subpar (I got ‘Torm-ed’ by Team Denmark, one pinching below, one footing above, USA shot out the back) but I did a pretty good job fighting my way up the middle of a frequently oscillating beat.  I rounded 15th or so, lost a few on the downwind, but fought back hard on the upwind to round 10th after our second beat.  I held that to the finish, losing one boat just at the gate marks to finish 11th.

My strengths remain the same: excellent speed and height upwind, sound tactics (once I get off the line, at least) and the ability to stay focused and making good decisions even at the end of a long, hot, dehydrating day.  Downwinds were better than yesterday, but still need plenty of work, and of course, the dreaded super crowded starting line continues to taunt me.

Tomorrow is another day, and a very different one at that.  We’re back on our original course just off our launch beach, but will (hopefully) be racing in a light offshore gradient breeze, very different from the afternoon seabreeze we’ve had the past few days.  Our start is at 9 am local time, so it’s off to bed for me!  Results can be found at http://www.perth2011.com/competition/PIR2010/SAX103000/results

The Doctor came in, then out, in, out, in again!  Today’s conditions were unlike anything we’ve seen in our training thus far– for the first time, the seabreeze pumped in and then died, got super shifty, and finally, by our last race, was solidly locked into its normal pattern.  This made for some very interesting racing on the Radial course this afternoon, as our delayed 2 pm start put us smack in the middle of the craziness.

In our first race, I was leading at the top mark after a conservative start and straightforward beat in moderate breeze.  Unfortunately, I proved my boneheadeness once again and sent it high to the outer loop gates rather than to the inner that we were sailing–oops. That little gaffe then sent me to the wrong side of the run in less breeze and on the incorrect side of the skewed waves, leading to a net loss of ten boats or so.  After that, we turned back upwind for our second beat and The Doctor’s confusion was fully playing out.  I maintained position playing middle left, but gaining boats was tough.   The rest of the race was more of the same: unstable direction and velocity all around the track.  I finished a disappointing 11th, never recovering from that initial mistake.

By the second race, the breeze had stabilized in both velocity and direction, oscillating sensibly.  A rough start put me around 8th at the top mark, and though I struggled a bit with the misalignment of wind and waves downwind, I was able to rely on my speed upwind to grind back.  After our third upwind on the inner loop (I3 course, up/down/up/down/up/over/down/ finish on a reach), I was sitting comfortably in the top 5.  However, a tragic conflict between my mainsheet, toe strap, and left boot wound up with me in the drink around the wing mark and a lot of expletives shouted.  I lost eight boats to drop back to 13th, where I finished.

All in all, a disappointing day on the scoreboard but beneficial to highlight what I need to work on most.  It’s sometimes frustrating to think I’ve finally learned a lesson in training only to screw it up in racing, but eventually, I will run through all the bonehead mistakes and sail a clean race.  In the meantime, number one at the top of my list is to improve downwind speed.

Results can be found at http://www.perth2011.com/competition/PIR2010/SAX103000/results