In Tune with Your Laser

Some of you are already nodding your head in agreement that you know what I mean. But if you’re new to Lasers you may not have gotten to the “Aha!” moment yet.

I was out an hour early for the Wednesday night series. I had warmed up and spent some extra time running circles around a leeward mark. The routine began to lift my spirits and I sailed off to an empty patch and began to sail 720’s. A coach looking on might have found something to improve, but I had one of those moments when I began to play “out of my head.”

I was dancing with my Laser. There was a choreographed flow of motions from me and a perfectly in time response from my boat. After a few turns I got wild and began to swoop, and jib, and roll tack like I was Luke Skywalker dodging through the canyons of the death star.

It was all the results of time in the Laser, time to become intuitively tuned into the balance and the responses. I was sucking up mainsheet with big soaring hand gestures, easing again with plunging feeds to the spinning ratchet block. I stepped to the high-side as the leeward deck slid into the grey water and leaned onto the new side with such assuredness that I pumped the sail upright like a windsurfer. My hand floated on the tiller extension like fingers on a dance partner’s spine.

I tacked. I reached. I ran. I jibed. Never a hint of an out-of-balance moment. Never a thought about where my hands or feet or weight were going. And when I stood the hull on its ear and sailed downwind with precious little surface to balance on, I knew I couldn’t be tipped.

 Spend enough time in your Laser and you will find moments when the two of you dance your way around the water. Alas, the preparatory horn sounded and the dance ended. Still I did win the first race.