There was a "thunder storm watch" in effect for Toronto. The wind was heavy but not over powering. Jack Rabbit was the only other boat that raced in our fleet. So an easy 2nd?
Elizabeth from the crew bank replaced unwell Chris; Janet did foredeck.
We had a pre race hoist which was interesting. I think the wind shifted 45 degrees as we prepared to hoist. I was confused about where the wind was coming from. We accidently gybed through the boats waiting in the starting area. I could 'hear' some people's thoughts: "That crazy J!". The wind died and we replaced the foresail: jib with genie.
Our start was good. We started level with Jack Rabbit (who had a nice new genie!) and drag raced them to the windward mark. We were to windward and covered them. We slowly gained and may have been a couple of boats ahead at the mark. Our hoist at the offset did not go well. We had to take down the chute and untangle it. We reset. Our gybe also did not go well. About half way between the leeward mark and the club, Dragon Lady came over and asked if we were withdrawing. What? Why! "This is just like the Kiwi's in the Americas Cup!" It was easier to douce on port gybe. We sorted things out and sailed back. At the offset we rounded and gybed hoisted and gybed again. Everything went well. Of course we were way off the pace. We hung in there and did not allow mishaps to lead to defeatism. How do you learn to ride a bike? When you fall off, you get right back on. That's in effect what we did and it paid off psychologically. Failure is part of the process.
Fortunately there were only two boats out. It was an easy second but we got it the hard way.
No comments:
Post a Comment