Karl getting the rig ready for downwind after getting out the tackline.
The truth of it is that this summer I have been doing a lot of coaching for the Edgewater Opti Team in Cleveland. It has been great to help bring up the next generation of sailors who I sailed with before I left and started off on my crazy adventure for Rio. It has showed me how to be more responsible and how to manage people out on the water, and has given me much needed experience for the campaign. As I was thinking about how much of coaching I have been doing, it made me question how much time I spent sailing myself and not just helping other people get better. After looking deeper, I realized that my time on the boat verses coaching was still a strong ratio and realized that I have learned a lot about the boat this summer. I figured out how to make the boat go fast upwind which has already started to play into this weekend of racing in Wisconsin. I have gotten better at parking the boat and getting the boat to accelerate after hours on the
Me and Karl rolling downwind at 14 knots
water sitting next to marks.
All of the time on the boat played into a 56 mile sail from Cleveland to Put-In-Bay Ohio 3 weeks ago. Me and Ryan Bennett left Whiskey Island at 10:30 in 10-15 knots, which should have put us into PIB in 4 hours or less. We were cruising along at 10-12 knots upwind when all the sudden, the wind started to shut off on us and we watched as our speed went from 10 to 8 to 5 and then hovered there for about 2 hours before it completely shut off to under 2. Luckily for us, by the time we came to a dead stop, we were close enough to the island that we could be towed the rest of the way by one of our friends on the island. The unfortunate part was that by the time we had gotten to shore, it was 8 hours after we left Cleveland… 4 hours after our expected arrival time. After battling storms and bad winds, I finally left the island after 2 days and started over to Sandusky Ohio, 12 miles from the Bay. It was a much more enjoyable sail over with 14 knots of downwind speed with no spin.
So there is no question that my fear of the wind is gone for good. I have figured out how to make the boat move fast and be competitive in the national F-16 fleet. Although after today’s experiences here in Wisconsin I realized that there are still things that need to be worked on this week with Robbie at the clinic. One of them is tacks and getting off the wire, and another is keeping the boat loaded up and the hull flying on the reach from the windward mark to the offset mark.
Now for a recap from today’s racing in Racine. I was sailing with Karl Broger on his next to new Viper. He is a very experienced crew and has sailed vipers for many years so the fact that I get to sail with him is truly a good thing. I have learned a lot from just one day of sailing with him and am looking forward to 8 more days of sailing with him. We had really good starts today, usually crossing the line in first. We would loose boats due to my pinching which is something he is working on me with to fix before the big event next weekend. We have been consistent in the F-16 fleet getting 2nd every race, which translates to 4th or 5th against all of the A-cats and F-18s we are racing against. Things started out rough on my skippering side in the first race, but by the end of the race, I had gotten dialed back into the boat and was hitting around 17 knots downwind and 9-10 upwind the rest of the day. We still have small adjustments to make to my boat handling which will be taken care of this week during the clinic.
We managed to flip once downwind during the first race after a puff came through and knocked us down faster than we could react. I started to turn down as soon as it hit, but the hull got kicked up so fast that by the time that i started to turn down, it was too late and the bows got burred and we flipped. As of right now, the winds look to be around 20-25 so Karl is debating on weather or not to take out his next to new boat and risk breaking things.