Restarting blog, Nationals 2010 (very) post game wrapup

Restart! Apparently my trying to blog from my old blackberry at nationals looked (to Google) like someone trying to hack said blog, and it locked me out around day 1. Since unlocking it required a phone call, and Nationals, or at least our performance, wasn't really worth writing about, I'd left it dormant without thinking about it too much. Well, spring is right around the corner, we've got boat work coming up and some big plans for sailing this year, so it's time to get back online. Unlocking the blog was embarassingly easy, so look for a few updates over the next couple weeks on boatwork projects; including a backstay upgrade, some control line tweaks and the high performance combination of spectra sailcloth, kevlar rope cover and teak: all in the same object.

For now, heres what I wrote down from Nationals.

Race day 1:

OW OW OW. Well, at least we're consistent, with an 18, then an 18th place, and finally we finished 18th. Pretty light air and lots and lots of current definied the weather, and going slow in the wrong direction was our play today. We really really should have prcaticed as a team before the event, as it's taken all day to get our handling down and speed back, and even so we feel pretty slow. Had lots of exciting racing, but always found ourselves losing in the end. There was one finish in which we lost, within 100' of the line, the 5 boats we'd passed downwind. As Skip says, tomorrows moving day, and we really need to get out of the neighborhood.

Friday

Improvements were made, and we're getting aroudn the course better, going faster and starting well. First race was looking awesome, we were approaching the mark in about 4th, but overstood (thanks HL) on port layline. Had an ugly "room to tack" situation in which a leeward boat tacked and we had to crash tack, right at a boat we had already started to duck. At one point in the tack I kind of thoguht to myself" pick which boat to hit, because we're getting at least 1 collision here!" but amazingly we cleared. Less amazing was the gybe we had to do, followed by the reach away from the mark, followed by us rounding last. Ouch. In analyzign the situation, we've figured that the boat to leeward could have hailed for room to tack (as they say they did) but that since we were already ducking a boat together, they owed us room to keep ducking. That said, I guess the lack of collision is evidence that we had room, but man, it was inchhes. Finished a sullen 21st. Lets make that our drop! Second race less dramatic, with a similar gain on the left, followed by a top 5 rounding. Lost 2 boats over the course of the race to finish 7. Better, kinda.

Final day of racing.

Glorious day to sail LIS. Little more breeze, and we tend to go better when theres wind. First race we got a7th, which is about what we deserved. Race was pretty much decided one the first beat, and we finished around the same boats. Tough call to make on second race, as the marina said they might not be able to haul all the boats on Saturday, and Barb and Skip had to be back in Chicago monday. We ended up retring from racing and sailing in early to make sure we made it out. Had a really fun sail back in, down the river and past lots of neat boats and shorside scenery. Had a chance to reflect a bit. The regatta was initially very disappointing, mostly the first day when we pretty much sealed our fate with 3 bad results. The next day I kinda stopped thinking about it as a regatta, and just a series of races, which took the sting out a bit. Our preparation for this regatta and mindset just werent right. That coupled with some light air speed issues (as in, we're slow in light air) kept us from doing as well as we'd hoped. If I could do it again, we would definitley have done more practicing with the whole team together in Chicago, as we did too much figuring out on the first day. The light air issues are tougher to figure. While out there, we learned what the sailmakers are doing to their mains, essentially recutting the luffs a bit to better match the newer masts which have a forward bend at the hounds. This sounds like exactly what we need, to get that top telltale flying in the light without adding a ton of backstay. In the end it was a fun regatta, the highlights being some good competition and meeting some great people, notably our hosts who were a blast.

Well, that was nats in 2010. Looking back I had fun, especially once we got it through our heads that we were not going to do very well overall, and just went out and sailed.

Nats this year is in Seawanhaka, which was probably my favorite nats ever, about 10 years ago. We've got a lot to figure out if we're to go, but we've got some time yet. The crew seems interested, but along the way we've got the pull together a trailer, tow vehicle, and possibly some decent sails.