Easy come easy go

All packed and ready to head back up across the alps. Going to pop up to the Ammer See for a little race and then home sweet home.

More than twenty sailing days and roughly 600 miles on Garda. So many details, so much honing to do, so much to learn - can I say: "workaholic"?

There is still loads to do.

Big Bang

Yesterday the mast came down while peacefully sailing upwind in about 12 knots; spreader bracket failure. By coincidence a volunteer rescue team was out practicing so I gave them something to do. They had a landing craft and they just lowered the front and we pulled the boat in. Last time I had that kind of service was at the 1978 Laser North Americans in Kingston. I had forgotten my stern plug and it was pretty disconcerting to get caught up by the leaders of the silver fleet who had started 10 minutes later. I was only 16 and I went through an uncomfortably long bout of self doubt before noticing that water was sloshing over the deck at every tack. Ian Bruce had organised a fantastic championship and a landing craft was on standby for quick on the water boat repairs. Pulling a fully swamped Laser into the boat required a bit more effort than hauling the Moth in. Draining it must have taken the better part of thirty minutes. They had a spare stern plug and didn´t charge me for it!

Today I buzzed down to Malcesine to strafe the M32s as they were waiting for a start. Easy come, easy go. About 20 miles of water covered down and back up the lake – just a short session. It´s Sunday.

Privilege

Air temperature slightly above 10° C, water temperature slightly below same, breeze-fickle; on standby for seven hours in order to get three and a half of good sailing. Sky overcast and raining most of the time. Pit stop required to change AOA as conditions go from light marginal to 15+ in the gusts. All this is to say that no other sailing project I can think of would motivate me to this extent.

The Moth is a truly exceptional machine. There were Melges 32s out practicing – state of the art keel boats crewed by a mix of professional and semi professional talent. Nice platforms from which to view some Moth action. And this crowd´s nowhere near as cruel as the Opti kids: they don´t laugh when diving is on the program. My body felt a little rebellious but all I had to do was look at the guys hiking the big boats down with the life lines in their gut to totally get over it and thrash myself up and down the lake.

Imagination

Garda has been unusual so far. The wind has been mostly light and I´ve only had one afternoon being bucked by the Torbolean waves which I came to tame. I whisper to them but they are not listening...yet.

Today my light air take off speed was in the low fives and just three weeks ago it had been in the high sixes. I´ve been imagining possibilities instead of limitations.

Road Trip

Driving down the highway with a boat on the roof conjures memories of North America and Laser sailing in the very distant past. Now the car and the boat are quite a bit faster but the autobahn despite, being the holy grail of motorheads world wide, doesn´t quite evoke the limitless freedom of the Trans - Canada Highway. The sound track has changed too. Feels like a time warp.

The destination ends up being Torbole, Malcesine is running too many regattas and there´s no space in their dinghy park for my Moth. Just as well, the breeze will be a little stiffer...

The trip doesn´t end here. I head down to Florence to see my sister and drive my wife to the airport in Pisa before heading back to Garda. I cross snow capped mountains three times. Italy looks beautiful to me this time around.

T.I.B.

Time in the boat has always been the single magic ingredient of speed and solid results. I had planned to head to the South of Spain for a long training session but I've changed my plans. I'll stay closer to home and head for Lake Garda. I'll be there most of April and May and perhaps a few days in June too. I will be splitting my time between Malcesine and Torbole to get the full spectrum of breezes.

Anyone interested in joining can just drop me a comment with contact details. I'll be happy to help you organise your stay - I do speak the language after all.

Other than that all I have to say is that the last couple of sessions have been way above expectations. The boat is becoming almost boringly easy to sail. Light air take off has improved markedly and so has control in the breeze not to mention going round corners. 100 hours on Garda should buff things up a little further.

Photo is from Belfagor flying on Lake Garda. Note the massive bow wave coming all the way to the stern! Very innefficient way of doing 20 knots. Prehistoric monster.

Caterpillar

Last week end was a case of back to school. After a year away from the helm and back with my teammate from three years ago I ventured back into the very competitive Belgian Snipe scene. More than thirty boats on a short start line (If you were to scale the fleet size to the course size it's the equivalent of 100 boats on a normal course) and then very short up and down courses.

If the lessons learnt are proportional to the trouncing experienced then much was learnt. This sort of racing puts a premium on boat control on the starting line and boat handling in general. It should have come as no surprise that after spending all my time on a Moth weighing 15% of a Snipe my time on distance would be a little off.

But the most valuable lesson had to do with boat set up. And it can be translated to the Moth or any other class. I have a special traveller system on the Snipe which allows me to accurately control the leach. However, unlike the standard system it is not self tacking. In medium size fleets and long courses this system is an advantage (and there are results to prove it). But in tight spots it degrades boathandling and distracts from tactical awareness. That means it is no good for the type of racing we were doing last week end and it is questionable for a continental or world championship where sooner or later you will get in a tight situation. No one needs distractions while trying to get out of jail.

Boats need to be kept as simple as possible and as automatic as possible or at least have a simple default mode that delivers 95% of potential performance. When I am steering an offshore racer I don't look for peaks in my speed, I try to keep my average as high as possible by not slowing down much in a rough patch or light spot. I have my trimmers set up the boat for accelleration and try to keep the groove as wide as possible while still being fast. Similarly a dinghy should be set up to never slow down. It's the best average speed that wins a race.

By the way a big thanks to Max and Jan for their superlative organisation of the Antwerp Snipe Cup. Now I'm going back in the cocoon and when I come out I'll have wings.