The Good, the Bad and the Brutal- Laser Worlds

by Andrew Campbell on 12 Feb 2008
After two days of Gold fleet racing the fleet is rubbing their eyes looking at a third day of breezy and wavy conditions flushing across the racecourse this morning for the 6th and final day of the championship. Two races are scheduled and should go off without delay as the post frontal southerly steadily progresses down the Central Coast this morning.

The first day of Gold fleet racing was ultimately the lightest day of the regatta. We had 8-15 knots of onshore seabreeze with scattered clouds and puffy oscillations that caught most of the fleet by surprise. The regatta leader Tom Slingsby suffered two races in the teens while most of the fleet took a throwout score scratching their heads as they bobbed around headed and in a lull. Managing only to find less of those lulls than the other guys, I eagerly grabbed at the opportunity to use my brain and snagged a 6th and a 12th for the fourth best day in the fleet. My American compatriot Brad had another outstanding day to go along with his opening series, taking a 7, 8.

Unfortunately, my luck did not carry through to yesterday. The fifth day of the regatta showed us again that the old addage is true: if it were easy, everybody would do it. Laser Worlds Gold Fleet Racing in more than 15 knots is a festival of boatspeed where one mistake will quickly spit you out the back. After a mediocre score after a decently sailed race in the first contest of the day, the breeze bumped up to about 18 knots with puffs higher. After an unremarkable start with clear air and a spacious lane, I found myself being rolled and squeezed out the back in an uncomfortably fast rate. Figureing I could clear out and get another lane somewhere further right in the group, I tacked out only to look at 40 transoms in unison on starboard tack. I did get clear out to the right of the fleet to find that I was still on the left side of the center of the racecourse and the entire feet was to the left of me. The grind-fest was on, and I scrambled to get my speed back up so that I could at least make the best of any right-hand shift that showed up on the course. The seemingly shiftless conditions of yesterday’s northerly didn’t grant me any righty gifts and I sped into the windward mark 47th ahead of the six or seven stragglers who were spat out of the freight-train-like parade back from the left-hand corner. For perspective, those stragglers included the ‘03 World Champion and another two-time Worlds runner up. After battling through the reach and the first run, I managed to catch a couple of boats and put myself in a place to get out to the left figuring that the fleet must have had a least a tiny angle advantage when it came across last time. Apparently that thought process was completely flawed. There were no lefties to be found and after hammering my way on port back into the windward mark, I rounded in last. The absolutely brutal part of Gold fleet is that the back of the fleet is going just as fast as the front, and maybe faster because they are so desperate not to be last. Keep in mind that the entire fleet takes only a couple or three minutes to cross the line after more than an hour of racing. So, catching up is no easy task. The only guy in the pack to turn over chose to do so going into the leeward mark and I caught one more as we sped down the last reach. And that was it. Fifty-second place.

I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time writing about such a terrible score, but I thought it pertinent to a decent account of the Laser Worlds. As if you needed more perspective, two north american guys: the most recent US College Sailor of the Year as well as the current Collegiate Singlehanded Champion are both in Bronze fleet slogging it out in some decidely difficult racing for 100th place in the regatta. These guys are phenomenal sailors and yet the boatspeed advantage or disadvantage is so great that they are perrenially frustrated by the racing.

But today we will head out for our final two races. I know that some of the guys are more tired than I am. There’s nothing else to do but lay it all on the line. I still haven’t managed to be over the line early, or made any stupid fouls, or glaring tactical errors, so today must be redemption day. I sit in 29th place, the same exact spot as I finished last year. I would very much like to improve on last year’s score, and today will have to be the day.

More to come from www.CampbellSailing.com

Results at http://aus08.laserinternational.org