Beercan June 11th

Had another fun beercan to the Wilson Crib and back. Unfortunately there were two many boats for a mass fleet start, as I really enjoyed the last one, but we did have another Shields to play with. We won the race by a good bit, but lost the rock/paper/scissors at the bar, so the rum was awarded to those miserable bastards on 45, so a pox on them. We had good crew tonight, with me, Niki, B Shaw and Jennifer W.

It was a fun night, I learned a few things, and relearned one big one. The lesson I should know by now is: although it annoys the wife, it's definitely better for me to be down at the boat early! 1) I make sure everythings led right, tuned etc 2) knowing everything is ready with the boat makes me sail better. Most times I have the boat rigged before we go out, but not last night and we had a couple little line/lead/gear issues that shouldn't have happened. This is probably just me being a control freak, but at least I can rationalize it, right?

Anyway, onto the new stuff. Last year was all about getting the gear right, this year I'm working more on crewwork/communication. One thing I picked up from a Dave Perry lecture was the notion of "speed loop" and "Tactical loop" as being 2 separate conversations with the driver over the course of a race. Brian Shaw and I usually make up the speed loop, mostly talking about helm feel upwind, and sheet pressure downwind. Last night we had Jennifer calling puffs (and she is very very good at that) and all of a sudden we had steady reliable info going into the speed loop, so that we had a little more preemptive trimming. It worked very well, except for the couple times her input and mine differed; not as contradiction but as different priorities. ie, she would say puff on (required an ease of traveler) just as I'd say traveler up (to climb a wave.) This was definitely the exception, and as a whole it was extremely effective, and opened my eyes to another way to manage info on the boat. In the future I'd like to get a set of eyes working on calling puffs upwind (Niki already does this downwind) and integrate that info into the speed loop.

Another interesting note from last night was the benefits of cross training on the boat (no Brian, you can't drive.) Jen is our bow for Saturday, and she's never really done that spot on a boat before (usually main trim or helm) so we had her doing the bow last night, with Niki on pit. Niki was able to talk through the gybes and sets, and it was beneficial for both. I'm really glad Jen asked for a couple practice gybes after the finish, as you could see her figuring out the nuances of the Shields (every now and then I forget that it's a weird weird boat) and it was cool to see Niki working through bow manoevers from another spot, as I think seeing it from back in the boat showed her quite a bit. I've always thought one of the best ways to improve skills you've already got is to teach someone else, as you always pick up a thing or two.

All in all a good night; comparatively warm (50's!) and good people always make it fun. Only black mark on last nights race was no taco's at CYC. WTF??? The Taco's are definitely the winner on the wed night menu. The offer a combination of quantity (3 tacos vs 1 burger) and versatility (both Niki and Jen do the Taco salad, which essentially means you fill up a plate with taco shells, meat and all of the condiments.) The lack of tacos last night, and possible lack of future tacos, means we'll have to make some adjustments in our tuning guide. Maybe a bratwurst substituion, or we take a flyer and head towards Broadway for sushi or mediterranean. I think we need to hire a coach to help us sort through issues like this.