Racing and Blogging

If you are a sailboat racer and you write a blog about your racing, does the blogging impact your racing performance?

And, if so, is it in a positive or a negative way?



When I first started blogging about sailing, I naturally assumed that there would basically be a one-way flow of information from the sailing to the blog. But now I'm not so sure. I've become aware of all sorts of ways in which there might be feedback from blogging to sailing.

But does blogging make me a better sailor or a worse sailor? In what ways might my blogging affect my sailing?



1. Goals. If you set yourself goals for your racing and publish them on your blog, then you are pretty well committed to making a serious attempt to achieve them. It's one of those commitment devices I wrote about a few years back.

Personally I'm pretty good at NOT telling the world about my racing goals. At least not before the actual racing. But I did slip up back in 2008 and write about my goal to sail my Laser 100 days in that year. Going public on the goal certainly did serve as a motivator to get out there and sail more days. Holy Shit - it's the end of April and I've only done 23 days! But in the end I failed. Only made it to 94. So what does that prove?

On the other hand, in 2007 I did blog about my goal to finish in the top half of the fleet at a world championship. And I did it! So what does that prove?



2. Learning new skills. If you are trying to improve a certain skill and you write a few blog posts about that skill, like say "how to do a kick-ass Laser roll tack", does the mere act of writing it down help you to learn that new skill? Does it implant the technique in your memory? Does even just doing the research for those posts help you to learn how to do better roll tacks?

You would think so, but given my total failure to become a better Laser sailor in the eight years I've been writing this blog I somehow doubt how effective this method really is.



3. Mental attitude. If you read any book about sports psychology, you will learn that self talk is a big deal. What you tell yourself you are is what you become. Tell yourself that you are confident at doing killer starts and you will start doing killer starts. At least that's the theory.

My problem is that I like to write self-deprecating humor. Laugh at myself. Tell the world I am fat and old and unfit. Make fun of all my crazy mistakes on the race course. It makes for some amusing blog posts (I think) but am I sabotaging my racing performance? Can I portray myself as a clumsy, incompetent, accident-prone sailor on a Friday, and then go out and be a top-notch racer on the Saturday?



But let's turn that one around. Another thing that those sports psychology books always talk about is how to overcome an error in a performance. Apparently if some people make a major mistake in a race, say blow the start, or capsize, or hit a mark, they have enormous difficulty in putting it out of their minds. They become angry at themselves and start sailing even more atrociously.

But not me. If I do something really bad  like getting strangled and pulled out of the boat by another sailor's sheet or breaking my gooseneck when I am winning a race my immediate reaction is to laugh and think, "This will make for a really funny story on the blog." I'm so happy to have such a disaster to write about. Much more interesting than winning the race. So then I can forget about the incident and get on with actually trying to win the next race.



There are probably all sorts of other examples of how blogging feeds back into sailing but Tillerwoman almost has the dinner ready and it's Toad-in-the Hole!

Got to go.

Please feel free to complete these thoughts in the comments.

Where am I?

Wickford Regatta 2013

Sometimes events surprise me. In a good way.

Last weekend was our Laser District Championship. A two day event in Wickford, Rhode Island. Part of the multi-class Wickford Regatta.

Here are what the winds were on Saturday and Sunday. (On Saturday we raced from noon to 4pm and on Sunday from 11am to 3pm.)

I basically had one main objective for the regatta. Finish every race.

That may not sound very ambitious but, as regular readers of this blog will know, last year I had a very pathetic racing season. I hurt my back badly in early May, and had to take about six weeks off from any exercise including sailing. Then when I did start sailing I was very tentative, easing myself into it very gently so as not to hurt my back again. The result was that by the time I started sailing major regattas again in August I didn't have the stamina and fitness to complete all the races on a heavy air day. It wasn't until the Fat Boys Regatta in late October that I actually finished every race in a regatta. And that was only a one day event.

Pathetic!

So I hoped to do better at Wickford.

And I did. I finished all seven races.



Not only that, I felt strong and relatively fresh right up to the end of the last race. I wasn't just going through the motions, somehow struggling around the course, as has been true by the end of some regattas in previous years. I was sailing as hard as I could in every race.

So that was all good.



I think all the practice I have been doing since coming back from Florida in early March has paid off. Not only was my stamina better than at any time last season, my boat-handling was also pretty smooth (by my standards.) No bungled tacks. No catastrophic gybes. No death roll capsizes. No getting the sheet tied in a Gordian knot.

So that was all good too.



I am still not as fast as the good sailors upwind in 15 knots and waves. That too should improve as I get fitter and practice more. I can hope, can't I?

But downwind I was passing boats on almost every run and every reach. And we had a lot of those as we were sailing trapezoid courses. I must admit I do get a lot of pleasure of blasting past other sailors on a reach. Children can be so cruel at my age. I credit one simple tip that I learned at SailFit in March. Never knew before that I had been doing reaching wrong all these years.



All in all a good weekend. Gave me a lot of confidence and enthusiasm for the coming Laser regatta season.

Maybe there's (some) life left in the old dog yet.

Oysters and Beer and Crabs by the Sea

Well, I didn't complete many of the 33 things on my to-do list of items to prepare for this weekend's regatta.

But I did complete #14 today. "Take Tillerwoman out to lunch to let her know how much I appreciate her letting me go sailing all weekend."

As I wrote in The Meaning of Wife, we men will never understand women. Their minds work differently from ours.

Several days this week I asked Tillerwoman if she would like to go out to lunch. She always had some reason why she didn't want to go.



But today I found the secret key. I didn't ask here if she would like to go out to lunch. I said, "Let's go and have some oysters." Worked like a charm.

So we went to the Boat House and had a dozen Powder Point oysters on the half shell. From Duxbury. Plump, salty-sweet with a remarkably clean finish. (It says on their website.) But they were good.

I've even sailed at Duxbury. I seem to remember the water was salty-sour and my race finishes were remarkably unclean. Oh well!



I've been reading on Mitch's blog and in other places how bad the blue crab harvest is in the Chesapeake, and how expensive soft shell crabs are becoming. So imagine my surprise when the waitress said there was a special... a soft shell crab sandwich! And very reasonably priced.

I asked her where the crabs came from. Maryland, she said. Delivered to the restaurant live, she said. And then she launched into an explanation of how the chef chops the eyes and gills out himself and would we like him to come to our table and explain how he does it in even more graphic detail...

Ummmm. No thanks.

Just bring the sandwich.

It was delicious.

As were the two pints of Smuttynose IPA.



I came home and turned my boat over. I think it's the first time I've looked at my bottom in 5 years. Not a pretty sight. I cleaned it and polished it. Good for another 5 years, I reckon.



OK. I'm done.

I'm ready for the regatta now.

Bring. It. On.

Dambusters!

70th anniversary this week.

Spot the Difference

Photo of "Kirby Torch" on the Torch website earlier today

What the same photo on the Torch website looks like now

Kirby Torch Sail

Here is one of the first pictures of the brand new Kirby Torch sailboat released today on the Kirby Torch website.

Here is a close-up of the sail on that "Torch".

And here is a picture of Robert Scheidt sailing a Laser in the 2000 Olympics.

Photo: Katrina Butler - Sail-World.com

Notice anything?

Does this mean Robert Scheidt is endorsing the Kirby Torch?

Or does it mean that we will all be able to buy Kirby Torches with replica Olympic sails like those used by our favorite Olympic Laser sailing heroes? Can I be Anna Tunnicliffe?

Torch

This is a Torch.

"The Torch is an ideal boat for the family. Children can learn to handle her quite easily."

There is a 1961 original Torch dinghy for sale on this forum.

Here's one that was for sale on eBay.

According to this forum thread, the The Torch was designed by Bert Keeble, a metalwork teacher at Maldon Grammar School in England, in the early 1960s. It was meant as a boat that could be built in schools and used to teach pupils to sail.

Here is another picture of the Torch...

The designer, Bert Keeble, died in 2008. Here is his obituary.

Thanks to Scuttlebutt for breaking some of this news a few weeks ago.

Carpe Diem

On Monday morning I posted 33 Ways to Prepare for a Laser Regatta (most of which was written on Sunday) and then asked myself, "Which of these 33 things am I going to do first today?"

It was almost like the Monday mornings when I used to work for a living. After a refreshing weekend sailing or spending time with the family or skiing, I would go into work on Monday and start to get my head around what needed doing that week. Usually it was a list at least as long as the 33 Ways post, and with the similar depressing realization there there was no way I could get them all done.

How to choose what to do first?

I think there used to be some guidance about the difference between "urgent" and "important", but I forget what it was.



In the end I decided to go sailing first.

I trailered my Laser over to Bristol and set sail in a shifty, gusty wind from the WSW coming off the Poppasquash shore. There are more boats on moorings in the harbor now than there were a few weeks ago. One of them was called Carpe Diem. So I made that the title of this post. Why else?

I had planned on sailing some short windward-leeward courses and then doing some tacking practice. And that's what I did, but what I was actually practicing was getting used to sailing in a crazy, unstable wind that was so different from the afternoon sea breezes I've trained in on most of my outings recently. Gusts splashing down on the water and creating huge shifts. Slam dunk headers. Unexpected lifts taking me above the layline. Hey, that's the kind of wind we race in as often as not, especially on the lakes. All good stuff.

And then after a shower and lunch I did a few of the less appealing chores on my "to do" list.



It struck me that going sailing first made a lot of sense. (If there's any wind in the morning.)

Sometimes by the time I've done all sorts of other stuff in the morning, I am too weary or not in the mood for sailing by the middle of the afternoon.  And then later I regret that I didn't go sailing.



I've always hated that hoary old quote, "When you look back on your life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did."

I think it's nonsense. There are so many things that you can't do in one lifetime that focusing in old age on what you didn't do is simply a recipe for misery.

I'm old now. I never climbed Everest. I never became an astronaut. I wasn't one of the Beatles. I didn't marry Angeline Jolie. But I don't "regret" not doing any of those things. I prefer to reminisce about all the wonderful experiences I have had in the last 65 years... not to mention what I still intend to do.

But as a guideline for what to do first each day I think it's not a bad guide. "Do first what you will most regret this evening if you didn't do it."

Especially if that thing is going sailing.

Youngest Water-skier in the World?