Sunday was the end of a long week of training in Racine, Wisconsin that ended with a favorable result.
The day started out light and variable with clouds and what felt like insanely cold temperatures. Karl and I went out early with the expectation of a short, easy day on the water. After getting out to the racing area, the fleet waited around for the race committee to come out and set up a course. While waiting, we hit speeds of around 12 to 15 knots downwind, and speed tested with winds up to around 16 knots. By the time the first race started, Karl was driving and the winds had backed off to 10 and in a heavy left phase, which means that we had to start at the pin end and sail out to the left to get the next shift. Our start was not our best; we got buried at the line under an F18. We managed to push out and roll him not too long after the start. Forty-five minutes of racing later, we were onthat same 18’s heels and coming in with 15 knots of boat speed. To our luck, the F18s owe us 30 seconds every mile of racing so on “corrected time” we just beat the other boat and earned third place.
After the race, the winds died off again and the temperature dropped, making the next race more difficult to manage. But our solid start helped us pull ahead. Adrenaline kicked in and gave us the boost we needed. Due to a heavy left shift that we missed after the start, we were set back into 7th around the windward mark and had to play catch up the entire race. We managed to pick off two of the boats by the end putting us in 5th on noncorrected time.
For the last race of the day, the temperatures dropped even lower and before the start of the race, my hands were purple and I was shivering like nothing else. Fundamentally, this start should have been the same as the others, but it had issues miles deep because of a port starboard incident at the pin end. We were forced to tack away and stall out, pushing us back into 8th after the start. We managed to pick off a few boats before the windward mark and held out position for a while until coming into the finish. We got trapped by two faster boats below us keeping us from heading to the mark and losing us three spots into the finish, pushing us back to 7th on noncorrected time.
All in all it was an extremely productive week. I learned a ton and made leaps and bounds for Nationals and Worlds in the next few months