It’s Hard Not to Like Laser Sailors.

When you plan a regatta you haven’t the faintest idea what kind of weather you’ll have, so it was with a pretty profound degree of disappointment that the weather for our May Madness Laser regatta began to make its self known out of the long-term forecasts – rain and thunder with moderate to light winds.

The first indications of a disappointing context – weather is the context for our strategy, tactics and boat handling – was the “Ten-Day” forecast, but when the prior weekend passed and the “Weekend” forecast stayed wet and threatening, I began to see a lot of work being washed away. The “Thirty-Six Hour” weather details proclaimed the consistency of poor forecasts vs. the unreliability of good weather.

On Saturday I awoke and let the dog out into a wet, dark morning. The only break looked like the fact that the thunder might have a large window of opportunity between noon and 4:00. Nothing to do but do it.

I arrived at the club to find one intrepid soul ready to play with the weather gods. Then slowly over the next hour and a half Lasers appeared on trailers, car tops, in pick-ups and off the club racks. 20 clearly demented individuals came out in the rain and thunder to wait for a still wet but non-threatening moment when we could race; being wet is just part of the game.

During the long wait ashore while a storm cell tracked toward us but slide to the north, and then more waiting as the wind spun windward marks into leeward marks and upwind starts rotated into downwind starts, I didn’t hear any complaints. Only Laser sailors will tolerate such abuse at the hands of fate, grit their teeth and think only of improving their position in the fleet.

Jay Livingston