Racing....I don't do it anymore. But when I raced, I raced mostly with
a core of 5 good friends, one my brother.
I learned a lot over many years, on different boats, doing different
jobs, full crew and short crew days, in all kinds of conditions. Over
the years racing, I have spent some time on the foredeck... no one else
wanted do it. Some days I thought that was a good thing, some days it
was not so great....a sail change down in a heavy building breeze
bouncing around up front in the spray...yea, this is fun.
Now doing a spinnaker peel right felt really good.....especially in the
middle of the fleet where everyone gets to see it done, and done
smoothly. Head sails changes are done regularly but changing a
spinnaker under sail could only be done smoothly if you had practiced
it. We had some good races and we had some bad races. And we spent time
practicing. We practiced to the point where, for example, where I
could put my hand on a halyard and the pit man knew exactly what halyard
and what to do with it without me shouting me back a command.
After a race, the beers were open for the passage home. After the boat
was docked. sails packed, etc. the first half hour was spent talking
about the race....what did we do wrong, what went right. After that we
normally got juvenile.
In 1995, I wanted something different from racing....bought a Kirby 25
that we raced against as our main boat for boat competitor, the J24
fleet with 4 of the 5 original amigos....me and 3 of the amigos left my
friend's C&C 34R to race the K25.......racing is totally different when
you are on the helm and not on the foredeck when you get to a mark and
there are 15 other boats there compared to normal handicap racing where
twenty minutes after the start the fleet spreads out.
No matter how you choose to race, it helps a lot if the crew can size up
the competition, decide where they expect to place in their respective
fleet....bottom 3rd, middle 3rd, or top 3rd. If you can get the crew to
talk about this and agree, saves a lot of different expectations among crew.
Racing is 50% boat, 50% crew and 50% luck on any given day. I have had
the good fortune to have benefited from all three, and in a few races,
all three!
Robert Abbott
AZURA
C&C 32 #277
Halifax, N.S.
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