One Upmanship

We had 4 short races today and I was mediocre for the first three.  First race a poor start, jammed in the middle of the line and catching lots of dirty air. Second race was better with a decent but not great start and middle of pack. Third race better, finishing in top half.

Then the fourth race - an excellent start, just clearing the committee boat at the start and tacking immediately and before anyone else onto port toward the tidal current flowing strongly upwind.  Good beat upwind keeping the boat nice and flat and lengthening the gap with the others.  Good tack onto starboard on the lay line and a nice rounding of the windward mark in first place. Wow, that felt good.

Then, downwind, being careful, going a bit to the left to get out of dirty air and sail by the lee a bit. Then, with others building up behind,  I decided to go right to get out of dirty air and head toward the right side of the finish line. Going well, staying ahead of others and savoring the impending win.  Crossing the finish line I was surprised to see the others gybing around the mark and heading off upwind.

At which point I realized that I forgot there was another sausage to do. Oh well. I did the other sausage and finished the race next to last.  All the great technique wiped out by not thinking.

But the best was when I got to shore and was telling others about my goof and one of the sailors said - you want to hear something even more stupid? I said I couldn't think of anything worse and she replied "I saw you going off to the right and thought you had a brilliant tactic in mind - and I followed you."  I laughed and said "You win - that was stupider".

Otherwise Occupied

I have been remiss in blogging recently, but I do have an excuse - and a very good one.

My daughter got married and I had the absolutely wonderful experience that so many fathers have had of walking his little girl down the aisle. And it was even better than I thought it would be - all the clichés about how proud a father is, about how amazing it is that the little girl has grown up into a radiant woman, etc etc etc - are all absolutely true.  

Walking down the aisle, I had a very hard time keeping things together - a rush of emotions swirled around and I kept telling myself to stay composed and put one foot in front of the other so as not to take anything away from her.

And the amazing thing is that my other daughter will be married in a few weeks - so I get to have the wonderful experience all over again !  How lucky can a guy get.

No Grits?

With the recent surge of blogs about NJ food, bacon (crispy and otherwise), chowder, crabs,  scallops, corn, tomatoes, etc, I thought it only appropriate to alert readers to a mouth-watering blog on 50 of the world's best breakfasts.  It has some scrumptious looking dishes, many of which include a generous dollop of cholesterol as a bonus.

A number of the comments criticised some of the entries as inauthentic.  I must say that the choice of blueberry pancakes for the American version was curious.  I like blueberry pancakes well enough but for a true stick-to-the-ribs, hearty breakfast balm one must have grits.  Of course the other goodies - eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon (crispy of course), etc. - are great but they don't soothe and nourish like grits, especially with a little butter and just a hint of salt on the top.   When my Mom would serve some up with a smile on her face, everything was right in the world.

Since the best American dishes are regional, labelling something as "American" is inevitably arbitrary unless one chooses the lowest common denominator of some sort of IHoP generic fodder. So, I can accept that a compromise must be made, but neglecting grits for America (while featuring them in the Bahamian breakfast) is a serious faux pas.

Eid Mubarak

During the Eid holiday about 10 of us got together informally for some practice on 2 afternoons. We had a great time and  learned a lot.   Our Kiwi sailor -  a talented young Laser sailor - teamed up with our Danish sailor - an ex-officer of the Danish Royal Yacht Club -  to set up a small course for us and then followed us in the RIB giving advice and hints.   They even followed it up with a written debrief the next day. And all that just because they are great guys and want to help.

Needless to say, we have a lot of room to improve. Let's start with the starts -  as our Kiwi noted in the debrief "Overall I would have to say good and bad."  At our skill level,  we do not easily stay stationary just behind the line for a minute as he urged us to do, especially with a current flowing. At the first race we all tried it, without too many collisions, but unfortunately after that we too easily resorted to old ways of timing a run away from the line and back, which may be okay for a few boats but is utterly worthless in a larger fleet.  

He tried to be positive when he noted that "a number of you were over the line in several of the races, which for training purposes is a positive. It means you are pushing the boat and yourself and need to perhaps work on time on distance." Very kind.

Since the course was intentionally very short, we all tended to stay relatively close together and mark roundings were “interesting”.   We had several tangles as port tackers arrived at the windward mark, tacking just in front of starboard tackers, completely oblivious to Rule 18.3.  

We had a gate for the leeward mark  and on one of the runs our petite Radial sailor apparently thought it was an obstacle and insisted on pushing several boats outside the gate until several of us explained to her at high volume that she needed to go between the buoys. 

At any rate, 2 lovely afternoons with a fun group and 2 guys who embody the spirit of what makes an all-volunteer sailing club a great place to be.

(The title of the blog is what Muslims say to greet each other during Eid and means Blessed Eid.)