A few of you have emailed me and inquired about my boat set-up, tactical decisions, etc. . . . which led to some good finishes, allowing me to win the the frostbite regatta. So what are the secret(s) of my success? Nothing, I had the flu and felt like crap!! Seriously, therein lies the answer . . . I did nothing, I did not think about winning the starts, I did not try to dog-fight w/ people on the line and get myself in trouble or have to do penalty turns, I did not try to adjust every piece of string I have on my boat, I did not look around to see who was doing what and try to figure out why (in fact, I did just the opposite, I wanted to get away from people because I had a headache). In short, I did NOT do all the things that I usually do that creates mistakes and makes me lose boats. If there was any subliminal thoughts going on (doubtfull) they were: 1. I always started at the boat end because I wanted to immediately tack off to port and get into shallower water w/ less current . . . I cannot ever remember seeing the current rip that fast on the Potomac. 2. I always started at the boat end because I always found a nice open lane with clean wind, even if I had to start in the second row. 3. The first race, I started on stb., tacked immediately to port and stayed on that tack (going to shallower water) all the way to the VA. shore. I made one tack to the mark, laid it, and found myself in second or third place. Since I felt like crap, I thought to myself . . . "gee, I can do no work, not have to tack a lot, not worry about others . . . I should do this all day." My results were good in the first race so I did it another 3 times - same exact thing. Brilliant, eh? 4. * The only thing I really concentrated on was keeping the boat flat and moving, not pinching, and adjusting my weight so I had "absolutely zero" weather helm. Also, I noticed that I was one of the few, if any, that were sailing by the lee downwind . . . much faster than dead-downwind in a Laser. I attribute my success to being braindead and relying on "the basics" Regards, David. |
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