Laser District 12

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  ResultsHey Doug! Where do I start?  Lugging a hard case to France is no easy feat.  It weighed almost 50lbs. It had everything I needed from my sailing outfit to all my lines and my new RADIAL sail.  Turns out getting it to France was the easy part. Getting it from the Antibes Train station to Port Hyeres was the hard part, not much accommodation on two passenger trains and a bus ride for a big case. I arrived Wednesday, the “breeze” was up, a few boats were out, not many.  It looked like victory at sea, but only brightly blue and with snow white whitecaps 10 feet across.  This made it inviting to go blast around the bay that is about 5 miles across and protected from the Mediterranean Sea by two large islands.  I take my pick of charter boats, an 08’, with good spars and blades, sweet no worries with the boat. I prep it with hiking strap, traveler and all the usual stuff.  The marina where we launch from is huge, maybe 1000+ sailing yachts abound, the wind in the rigging is deafening. I finish prepping by about 5:30, plenty of time for sail but there is also a list of things to do for the regatta, registration and sail measurement to name a couple.  The line for sail measurement was out the door. I spent hour in line only to have the chief measurer eyeball my sail and put his stamp on it. I ask if he has seen any other Americans and he replied “no, no Americans”.  OK so no sailing today, and with this breeze in the 30+ knot range I’ll need my strength for the races tomorrow.  RC divided us up into three 63-64 boat fleets, 193 in all just in Radial.  They give each fleet a color; mine was pink for the first day.  1st Race.  Light light air, beginning sea breeze 3-6knots, no hiking shifting through about 20 degrees.  I get a good line sight, “I” flag is up from the get-go, pink fleet is the third start.  We run a trapezoid course all four days.  We start, first impression on the beat is man these kids point!  Here I am in light air footing mode and some of these kids are almost two-blocked and going fast.  I failed to mention earlier this regatta is a major one for sailors 19 and under as it qualifies them for the youth worlds; it also is a major deciding factor for about 15+ countries which girls make their Olympic team.  So no less than 70 coach boats are buzzing around before the starts.  As we reach the windward mark I am in about 20th, round the leeward mark and I’m in about 30th, what just happened?!2nd race, sea breeze builds to about 8 and gusts to 10 knots; I can get in the hiking strap on the puffs. I get a good start midline way down the line really taking advantage of the midline sag.  I round the weather mark 1st and maintain my lead through the reach and into the downwind leg.  Thinking to myself this is more like it.   2/3s the way down the leg, the breeze dies and the fleet compresses and I round the gate about 5th.  As I head back up I apparently chose the wrong side and round the top mark in about 20th.  I maintain my spot downwind only to rear-end another person at the leeward mark.  I take my turns and lose another 8 boats for another abysmal finish. Result for the day have me in a 3 way tie for 75th out of 193.Day 2,  RC redraws the fleets and I am now in the yellow fleet, I make friends with an english speaking Czechoslovakian and a kid from Turkey.  They have been “around” this circuit a while and know all the best sailors, turns out they are two of them, each representing their country and defending titles all at the age 18.  I tell them of my lack luster races and they said I was in the “hard fleet”, but that I had drawn the yellow fleet and it was also the hard fleet for the day.  I guess that was supposed to make me feel better.  I had dozens of young women literally kicking my butt all around the course.  Races 3-5 light sea-breeze again 6-9knots, no real hiking for me.  I am getting good starts but still finish around 30th out of 64 in each race. Day 3, light sea-breeze 5-7-knots OK the regatta known for big breeze is really letting me down, but the sun is shining and it is about 70 degrees, life could be worse.  We get in one race after a 3 hour postponement on shore. I have my best finish yet at 27th and a protest to deal with.  I file on time and am told to come back in 30 minutes. I got to thinking, the only American, protesting a Frenchman in his home turf, with an international jury with no Americans around.  I show up but the Frenchman doesn’t, easy case right, right!  Yeah I win the protest and he gets a dsq.  Day 4, I wake up in our beach front hotel to see white caps!  Nice breeze in the 15knot range.  I will surely do better today, I can hike, I can foot, no problem.  1st start, decent pin start or so I thought, as Suffa (former women’s European world champ) out hikes the crap out of me, she won the pin, I was two boat lengths up on her hip.  She pulls out from under me and within five minutes is 10+ lengths in front of me and a little to weather.  Wow I say!  I was working my butt off. I round the top mark in maybe the mid 20s, Suffa was top 5, the fleet was really tight. I catch waves immediately along with everybody else.  It was amazing to see all these “juniors” surfing the waves like no tomorrow.  I probably lose 5 boats on the downwind leg, to finish about 30th.  We have two more races with about the same result.  I have come away with a new found respect for European sailors in general.  I learned most are very talented sailors and are truly focused. French sailors don’t care about the rules and bank on you not filing the protest form.  And the race committee is top notch setting 1 hour courses for each race.  At the time of this writing I was sitting in about 105th place give or take a few places. GW

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