LASERS PRACTICE STARTS

This picture I stole from Proper Course.  I don’t know if it is Lao Tzu who is said to say “The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.”  The race begins long before the start, but in one sense it begins with the START.

I sail quite a bit by myself – alone-  just to keep from getting too much slower.  In case you didn’t know it – as you get older, you get slower.  That’s what all that masters stuff is about.  Make an old slow person a winner.  That’s dumb, but it is also OK.  Remember, this is a “game” i.e. fun—not serious--- but we still like to do better.  To sail better.

When I sail by myself, I practice tacks, mark roundings, gybes, etc. and when I get tired of that stuff I do a couple of starts.    WOW—then a few weeks ago I had a couple of good races and realized they were when I had the good starts.

So now I am really practicing starts.  Starts by yourself---YES

1.      Stop by a buoy and hold position for 30 seconds.  Outhaul and Cunningham set for fast upwind.  Vang off.  Close reach position at full luff.

2.      10 to 7 seconds to go. Reach in and pull on the vang.

3.      “Jab” the tiller to windward with the tiller extension – hard – so the bow goes down.

4.      Lean in to heel the boat to lee.

5.      Trim in the sail

6.      And hike out to flatten and accelerate the boat.

7.      Trim in to close hauled

8.      And sail fast (bow down), windward and leeward tell tails flowing, boat flat for 30 seconds (maybe you will need tell tails at the front of the window so you can always see the leeward flow.)  No reaching in to make adjustments—those were to be set up before.

Now vang off and go back and do it again and again until it flows together without thinking about the parts.

I will let you know when I get it to “ flow”.

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LASERS AND THE BIG START

 I watched a recent MC Scow race with 45 boats in the start. I was watching from just above the windward mark. The wind was up a little with a few white caps, some of the guys doubled up on the boats and one boat turned over on the way up to windward.

At the first rounding of the windward mark, the first boat came in on port tack with about a 2 boat lead on the first starboard boat and the second boat also coming in from port just squeezed by. Then the confusion really set in. About half the fleet on port and half on starboard. The starboard guys that couldn’t lay the line were in real trouble. Port tackers dodging trying to find a hole to get through.

I am thinking that the bigger the fleet, the more important the START.

I have an old book by Manfred Curry. He was an American MD living in Germany and wrote the first book about sailboat racing. That was in 1925 and in written in German. That was a long time ago. Two years before I was born. My copy in English was published in 1933, the third edition.

The first half of the book is theory and the second half is racing. He describes the “safe leeward position” and among other things getting the good start. He says that if you are not over the line twice in ten starts you are not trying hard enough. Well, maybe --- that depends on the race, the competitors, your standing, how many more races in the series, etc. I have 27 posts on STARTING. Go way down on the left side of this blog and click on STARTING and they will all line up for you.

Wonders of the computer world.

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