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Paying Attention to the Course
At the start my bow was just below the line and I was three-quarters hiked with good speed. All the boats to windward were holding the same line I was and I was matching their speed. The boat to leeward had pulled in below me at the last minute and at first looked like he could keep his air clean, but he was only half hiked and began to fall back where my wind shadow was going to threaten him. He had lots of room to bear off and kick his speed back up, but instead he pinched up until his sail luff started breaking. I had to eke up to stay clear and by the time I adjusted my head to the need to force the boat above me way up, three boats were rolling over both of us. The best I could do then was to hang in until I had a clear lane to tack toward the right side and clear my air.
By playing the right side and the generally backing puffs I worked my way back into a nice position and rounded the top mark first, four boat lengths ahead of two boats who pin-wheeled around the mark behind me. I took off for the jibe mark and held my position as I rounded the mark with my two closest competitors hanging right in there. We all started to run the rhumb line and I crept ahead a bit more.
¾ of the way to the leeward mark they jibed over to port and dove quite far to windward and I got confused. I couldn’t understand their tactics and finally decided that they were just messing with each other. I began to set up for the mark feeling good about stretching out my lead another few boat lengths and then I saw another boat coming in from leeward, I would round ahead of him but again I couldn’t figure out why he had gone so far off course.
I began to round and l looked like I would accelerate out of the rounding with great speed when one of the boats that was following me yelled, “It’s a port rounding!” Of course it was, and it was sportsman-like of him to reorient me as the cobwebs cleared for the season. So, why was I doing a starboard rounding?
I let it go at the time and just laughed at myself, but once I straightened out my course string and got back on track I had to settle in for a long hard beat to windward following the group I had been leading. I played the right side again and made up a good bit of my loss but ended up fourth at the finish.
What happened? I have been practicing quite a bit this spring, but have only sailed one regatta. I had spent the morning helping new boats get rigged and I hadn’t ever stopped and settled into my racing mind set; I was essentially winging it, and it showed. My usual pre-start pattern is to read the course board and then sail the course in my mind to see if I have any doubts I need to clarify. Before this race I had read the course in just the last minute before the start and had never thought through the course or set the roundings in my mind. I’m still not sure why an unusual starboard rounding seemed like the thing to do.
What makes me sure that this failure to follow my usual routine was a major factor was that in the second race I rounded the leeward mark correctly and chose a course to miss the restricted start line as I began the course repeat. The problem was, there was no course repeat and I was lucky to pull out a third when I realized I was flying off halfcocked again. For a second time I hadn’t stuck to my pre-race pattern and had inadvertently skipped the visualization of the course we were racing.
It may be true that Master racers have poorer memories, but I have never been good at remembering courses. In big boat racing I would always write them down; in the Laser I find that visualizing the course usually does the trick just fine. Like so many other things, when you’re working with less than optimal practice and experience, you need a good system and you need to be very leery of trusting an instinct that says, “This is easy!”
I rig my boat and then review each line, knot and accessory, I go through a pattern as I warm up and I visualize the course before I sail it. Each of these routines allows my mind to let go of the effort of remembering and permits me to free my mind to be an observer, not just a rememberer. The routine also is a cue to slip into the correct level of focus and emotional pitch to bring me up to my best performance.
New sailors need to establish patterns to cover the myriad of crucial details. Experienced sailors need to review their races and consider routines to help them plug holes in their performance. And, when in doubt, do a port rounding.
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