Monday, May 28, 2012

Icebreaker has come and gone and it was an excellent regatta, well attended, with great social activities and catering and wild wind directions that kept competitors on their toes.  A west wind made for a shifty off-shore breeze the cats paw type puffs that would land with baffling irregularity mixing up the placings and capsizing whoever was unprepared.  Krzysztof M confirmed everyone's suspicions when he proclaimed that the shifts were impossible to predict.  Reacting quickly to surprises, changing gears and ability to recover from bad situations were the order of the day, making strong mental game of focus and emotional control invaluable. 

In the Full Rig fleet, Ian H started strong with a bullet in the first race, but at lunch Simon S was in the lead.  By the end of the first day, I had taken the lead on a tie breaker with Issac B.  In the Radial fleet Maura D and Leslie R were in a fierce battle for first with Leslie R ending up in the lead at the end of the day by one point.

That evening there was a very nice catering job, tasty dinner and a great atmosphere at the club with wine tasting, a Bocce Ball tournament, slack lining and a music trivia/dance contest.  The Bocce Ball tournament had as a prize free entrance into next year's Icebreaker regatta.  Phil P put his landscaping expertise to good use and with a long lob backspin throw, he was unstoppable, running away with the final game leaving me scoreless.  In the Music contest mediocre trivia knowledge was made up for by fancy dance moves as the DJs pushed sailors to hit the dance floor with style.

Icebreaker Bocce Ball Champion Phil P looking in good position at the 2010 Laser Midwinters West Regatta
Sunday brought similar conditions with slightly more wind in the morning, but the wind diminished and became even less stable as the day went on.  Issac B showed impressive consistency with finishes of 1, 1, 3 to take over the lead and win the regatta by seven points.  Issac B was unable to attend awards because of his long drive back up to Fort McMurrey.  He said that his drive down took 8 and a half hours!  Thanks for coming down!  I wasn't able to seriously challenge Isaac B on Sunday, ending up in second place after getting stuck in a hole in the second race and then spinning as I joined the many people who fowled starboard tackers at the windward mark this regatta.  Krzysztof M looked to be in great shape, Sunday, with a second in the first race of the day and a bullet in the last race, but he too had a rough second race and having already used up his drop race, he ended up one point shy of third place.  Nick H and Simon S had strong showings on Sunday and both ended up a point ahead of Krzysztof M, tying for third place.  Simon S won the tie breaker and took the bronze.

There was other action in the full-rig fleet, however.  In Sunday's second race, Dave E was having his best race of the regatta, speeding downwind on the second last leg of the race, when a puff caught him at the apex of his turn to leeward, at about the position shown in the thumbnail of the Capsize Recovery video in the last blog post.  His leg was caught under the hiking strap as the boat accelerated into a death roll and Dave E was caught hard on his rib by the gunwale or the edge of the cockpit as he stretched upward to save from dumping.  Ian H, following close behind, saw the expression of pain on Dave E's face and asked if he was okay.  Dave E immediately knew that the overly painful impact was not okay and Ian H gave up his position near the front of the pack to see to Dave E's safety.  In the end, at the hospital in Strathmore, an x-ray showed that Dave E had a cracked rib.  In the regatta, Ian H was given redress under Rule 1.1 and 62.1 (c) and received a score of 4 points, his position when he stopped racing to help.
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At the awards, Ian H was also recognized for his sportsmanship.  Thanks Ian H for being there when needed and for setting a great example of safety and sportsmanship.

In the radial fleet, Maura D had a very strong day and finished the regatta with a good lead.  Finn G also had a strong day and snuck past Leslie R by one point for second place, leaving the Masters World Champion in third.

There were also several other fleets, but I have already gone on long enough and this blog is focusing on the Laser fleet, but thanks to all who came out, many opties, young sailors, older sailors, multi-hull, doublehanded and larger crews as well as a strong showing of, paraolympic and mobility classes.

It was an exciting and eventful regatta with great energy that will poor over into CYC's season and the rest of the regatta season.  Upcoming events include:

WSC Open regatta          June 2nd, 3rd  (the second Albertan Dick Degner Grand Prix event)
EYC Intercity Regatta    June 9th, 10th
GSC Driftwood Regatta June 16th, 17th

See the calendar in the first blog post below for more detail.

I would like to gauge interest in a Waterton Wind Clinic, SALSA style.  One date suggested is July 7th and 8th, the weekend before Newell.  Contact me!

Regatta season has started!
Ian

Friday, May 25, 2012

Here is a video to inspire you to be patient and never give up as the boat goes over.  Steer with the heel of your boat and get your weight on the inside of the turn... or float your weight in the water!


Last Night's Thursday Night Racing was an interesting series of weather conditions as a big rain cloud approached with strong wind, passed with rain and continued on its way leaving us with light wind.  I came out ahead in the races tonight choosing the pin and the left side of the course for the most part.  The oscillations were wild but it seemed to me that the median was coming out of the left.  Mike H joined us tonight and came in second until the cold got the better of him.  Mike W took his place in the last race as the wind lightened.

Don't miss CYC's Icebreaker Regatta this weekend, the second of the Dick Degner Grand Prix Series.  The Notice of Race is posted here, come out tonight (Friday May 25th) for registration from 7pm to 9pm.  Otherwise registration is 8am to 9am Saturday morning, May 26th.  But I would recommend coming out tonight.  We are expecting at least two excellent sailors to be coming out this evening after long absences (Krzysztof M, Dave B...) and they will be looking for training partners to help knock off the rust.  I'll be out, join us!  Also I have heard rumours of aperitifs and wine. 

In other news, the CYC Laser Race Team has managed to get a discount on a monthly gym memberships to the gym at the Chestermere Rec Centre.  So if you can build in a workout to your trips to Chestermere Lake or if you live nearbyse enough, join up!

Speaking of fitness, plans are being made for Laser North American Championships at the Columbia Gorge Racing Association in Cascade Locks, Oregon.  Here is a link to the Notice of Race.  There are also some cool camps and events leading up to it, but if you want to leave the day before and get back the day after, I currently have carpool spots.  Royal Victoria Yacht Club has rented a house, which I expect will fill up quickly.  I would recommend this as an event to gear your fitness training towards because it is a warm and windy venue.  But your upwind grinds are well rewarded by long down wind blasts because the Hood River flows Up Wind! 

Having plugged the North American Champs, I will remind you of Newel's Prairie Wind Regatta the weekend before with a training day on Friday.  Lake Newel is one of Alberta's best sailing venues and the club is situated in a Provincial Park so book your campsite early.  This is the Western Canadian Laser Masters Championship and a regatta of the Dick Degner D5 SeriesFind the Notice of Race here.

I know of at least one trailer leaving straight from Newel to CGRA North Americans if you are looking for the full deal.

See you on the water this weekend for the Icebreaker  Windfinder is currently predicting sun and 7 knots for Saturday.  15 degrees and 6 knots for Sunday.
Ian

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Light Wind Laser Overhand Gybes

The gybing video is uploaded and ready for viewing at last!


Thursday night we had about 16 boats out for three races in a nice light, shifty South wind.  Robin S. stepped up and won the first race after no practice in the boat for over a year, go figure.  I won the second race squeaking past a very fast Mike W. on the last upwind leg.  In the last race my father Dave E was first across the line to showing Robin that his training and time on the water actually do improve results.

A right-biased line with shifts coming more often than not from the right made for a competitive (pushy) start line.  So competitive, in fact, that in the last race the race committee put up the X Flag (individual recall flag) for the entire fleet except for two boats.  When the individual recall flag is up on a normal P Flag start, it indicates that at least one boat was On Course Side (OCS).  So everyone has to guess whether they were the ones who were over and decide whether they should go back and start again.  If the race committee is not sure who was over the line and who was clear, they can put up the First Substitute Flag (general recall flag) to indicate that there has been an error in the starting procedure and the starting sequence can be restarted.  If, however the race committee is certain that all boats are OCS at the start, they can put up the X Flag and penalize every boat that does not come back to restart.

(Check out rules 26, 29.1 and 29.2 in The Racing Rules of Sailing 2009-2012, or download it from ISAF here.)

In Race 3 all but two boats were OCS, so those boats and the boats that went back to restart would be the only boats to be scored with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.  The rest would be left with fleet scores.  I say 'would be' because when we came in I found out from the race officers that the first of the Thursday Night Twilight series will not be counted towards the series.  They are also sending a strong message by counting nearly everyone OCS instead of letting us off with a general recall.

Join us next Thursday for the first Thursday Night Racing that will count for points in the series!
Also come out for this weekend's Saturday and Sunday Training Camp and of course Tuesday Night Race Team so that you are primed and excited for the upcoming Icebreaker Regatta.

Ian

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Dave Tulk on a screaming broad reach after a squall hit during his lesson.



We had an excellent Tuesday Night Race Team Practice with Maura Dewey joining us for the first time this season to share her expertise and keep a good coach-to-athlete ratio as our group grows.  On the first Tuesday we had 9 lasers show up, the second Tuesday we had 10 Lasers and this past Tuesday we had 13 and we were missing some regulars!

I missed my goal of getting the blog published before Tuesday practice, because of a series of problems with uploading this week's YouTube video.  It was not relevant to this week's theme of down-speed boat handling skills, but it was coming in reply to requests for a video similar to the tacking video that provides a skill breakdown for gybing.  After another failed attempt at uploading, it will have to come later as a separate blog post.

Today, Thursday, May 17th, we have the first Thursday Night Racing.  Maura and I will both be racing so come out and challenge the coaches!

This weekend May 19th and 20th is the third and final May Training Weekend before the Icebreaker starts off Alberta's Regatta season.  Once again the Saturday coaching roster will be John R, Krsysztof M and Ian E and Sunday Krsysztof and myself will be doing the coaching.

In Saskatchewan this weekend, the Dick Degner Grand Prix starts off with the exciting Wascana Short Course on Wascana Lake, directly outside of the Legislature in Regina.  In the past, I have been to Wascana Short Course  and there was good wind and an audience of park bench sitters and Saturday walkers with "wow sailing is cool" expressions on their faces.  The next day there was an article about the regatta in the Regina Newspaper.  So if you aren't soaking up the training time on Chestermere, you had better be racking up Dick Degner Grand Prix points in Regina.

I hope I see you on the water!
Ian

Monday, May 7, 2012

Thanks to Krsysztof for coming down from Edmonton and coaching this weekend.  We had a wide variety of conditions and got a lot of good boat handling work done.  Look forward to John R. coming out to coach Saturday of next weekend!!

I have two things to share with you today, the first is a movie that I made about the rules behind Tacking, specifically Rule 13 and Rule 20.  The Racing Rules of Sailing are available for free in PDF from on the ISAF website.  If you want the CYA prescriptions, you need to buy one of those little coiled red and blue books.

I would recommend picking up an illustrated book that spells out the Racing Rules of Sailing and they should be cheaper because we are right at the end of a quadrennial so the rules are due for an update.  Reading these books is a good way to get a good feeling for what the rules are in all sorts of situations, although they do not always explain how the RRS leads to this knowledge.  My intent with this video is go get right down to the RRS to see exactly why the rules mean what they do.  As a result this movie can be a bit wordy and technical at times, so again, bring your questions to practice and challenge yourself to take a deeper look at how the RRS work.  Once you start to understand why the rules work the way they do and you can refer to the rule book to clarify technical rule questions instead of having to ask a judge or a coach, it is incredibly empowering and it will improve your sailing because of your increased confidence.

The theme of Tuesday's Race Team Practice will be Mark Rounding, but I didn't have access to enough good mark rounding footage to make another detailed skill breakdown like I did with Tacking, so I thought that I would use this week's movie to finish up Tacking.




Correction:

I have so far found one problem with the movie, please comment if you find any others.  I mentioned that a continuing obstruction is the same thing as an obstruction that can only be passed on one side.  It is possible that a continuing obstruction could only be passed on one side, but that does not make the statement true.  Especially since for example the Sailing Instructions might specify that a big government buoy must be passed on a certain side.  That buoy could be an obstruction but is not a continuing obstruction.

The second thing that I wanted to share was a fitness routine that has trickled down through Royal Victoria Yacht Club from their 470 National Team Athletes.  I am not advocating that we all stop out routines and try this one, but I was asked to post it and if it motivates you to start working out, then go for it!  This document was written for people who already understand the workout and the nick names for the exercises involved, so talk to me if you would like it explained.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

In future I will try to get these blogs published before Tuesday Night Race Team!  I am still working out the kinks of video editing as you will see in my first production, but I think that there is plenty of good content in this, the first video for the CYC Laser Race Team.  The content is quite advanced, so don't feel bad if not everything is accessible.  Please bring your questions to practice.  My intent was to broadcast the details that I would never be able to get to in a briefing of debrief of a reasonable length and to and draw a picture of a refined skill that we will work towards.

Enjoy!  Please share your comments, record questions or insights in your LOG BOOK to share at the next Race Team event.


Housekeeping:
  • One use of this blog could be to post comments about which day you will be sailing in a given week so that we can coordinate our water sessions.
  • Video-supported private lessons are available, talk to me for details. 
  • Thursday Night Racing has not yet started this week, but I will start the rumour that there will be a few people out training independently this Thursday none the less.  Post your intent to sail!
  • How is your dry-land training going?  What are your plans to move forward on cardio, core, strength and flexibility?  I am due for another workout.  If you need another reason to stay fit and eat healthily, make Race Team that reason and peer pressure other Race Team Members to partake.