It was the first start of the day and it was looking bleak with the wind dying. Nabeel and I started at the pin on port looking golden, what a start! As we sailed up the river the wind shut off oh no! Nabeel was to the left of me and we were some of the furthest left in the fleet. As the wind filled in from the right everyone sailed away from us never to be caught. Nabeel got a 16 and I got a 15 not a way to start the day but looking back on it I should have sticked with my game plan. So this time I will talk about preparation and starting. Preparation I usually will watch the weather as most people do before racing. This weekend I watched one of the local channels and they give a pretty good weather report. I have noticed that most of the local channels will show the weather progression throughout a day with the wind direction which they don't do in NY. This is a nice way of seeing which way they are forecasting the wind to change direction. As I watched it this weekend the arrows went from a NE wind direction to a SE wind direction for Sunday. It looked like it was going to persistently shift to the right (And the weatherman was actually right!). So even before going sailing I said I was going to play the right side which I failed to do in the first race. I usually go with what I see on the water keeping in mind the weather report but in the first race I went with what was right at the beginning of the race but was not right in the middle of the first beat. Starting For most starts I have about five things that I check: Wind Direction Wind Pressure Line Sight Line Length Current Now these are not in any order and in fact the order in which they are prioritized changes every race. With the wind direction I check which end is favored (which end is closer to the windward mark). Wind pressure which side looks like it has the most pressure. Line sight- I look through the boat end of the line (wherever the line it being called from the boat end through the pin to a point on land.) From this point on land it is easier to tell where in relation I am to the starting line when I am setting up to start. I will usually time how long the line is just so I know how long it takes to get to one end or the other. And which way the current is going. Getting back to the first race I knew in my mind that I wanted to go right but I went for the knock out punch with starting at the pin which would have worked but I did not plan for the middle of the beat. By starting at the pin I had positioned myself on the left side of the course with the fleet to the right of me not where I wanted to be. But hindsight is always 20-20 right. Checking the five above things during a 2-minute sequence is almost impossible so most of the things have to be done before the sequence starts. So the moral of the story is to prepare and stick to the game plan. Erich Hesse |
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