Lets start off with some humor to lighten up the day a bit!
The name of my boat is a play on "Lorenzo Van Matterhorn" which was a scene in the Series: How I met your mother. Check out the youtube clip...We have been watches the complete series on Bora's MacBook and it definitely is funny!
Back to reality.....
Tough day on the race course for me today. The conditions were challenging with breeze in the low 20 knot range and some nasty chop at the bottom of the course. Again we sailed three races and the top guys had big smiles on their faces even before the race started! They knew it was going to be a boat handling day that would separate the boys from the men. Unfortunately I'll have to count myself to the "boys" group , still. But I'm determined to change that! I'd be looking real good up the first beat, showing great speed of the line. But then the dreaded moment would arrive: I would have to tack! and in the process lose all those hard fought meters, hiking my butt off, keeping the boat at the perfect angle, keeping an eye out for those big puffs rolling down. All of it would be obliterated within two seconds. It kinda reminds me of that movie : Anger Management with Adam Sandler. It's not really THAT bad, but I might start singing "I'm pretty, so pretty, la la la la" soon if I don't sort out some more consistent tacks.
Needlessly to say my results weren't anything worth writing home to about. After a day like today I usually force myself to find all the positive aspects of my racing, so here we go:
Good placement on the starting line, great upwind speed, good laylines, Never-give-up attitude, nothing broke, finished all races, beat the current world champion in a race, sailing upwind at 16 knots, beautiful weather, nice temperatures, great team mates that are happy to help you.
Now, how is that for some self coaching!!! OK, I'm pumped up again for some more racing tomorrow, bring it on!
For me, you must understand, it can be quite frustrating having to deal with sub-par boat handling. In the 49er with Tim, we had put a serious priority on boat handling. We had set ourselves the goal that no one could "out-boat handle" us. We were a light-weight team, so every move had to sit perfectly. Good boat handling is the basis for your confidence and confidence is needed for good decision making. Good boat handling leads to good speed, good speed leads to good tactics and good tactics result in good finishes. Pretty simple, huh?
Any ways, I leave you with two short videos. The first one introduces the team members of our Moth Air Force Team and the second one is a compilation of some interviews.
Beat up team member of the US Airforce Team out
and some interviews:
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