Forgot to mention...

elishacat

September 11th, 2006

I set a new time record in the beginner's regatta at... at... heck, I don't even remember the name of ... oyeah, Starboards Yacht Club yesterday. It's a simple thing, just the running start behind the start/finish line, sail out almost to the curve of Hollywood Island where the marina ends, around the buoy next to this really cool derelict ship, and then back to the line. This came after me actually taking a sailing lesson... I mean, I've already been sailing for the little while now and I did race at Mowry Bay the other Wednesday but I haven't really done anything official, and I -did- pick up a lot of knowledge about reading the wind and trimming the sails and so on, but...

Not that Starboards counts the beginners as anything, but on the first run of the race I came in at almost a tie with one of the other student boats, at +00:01:46. I think it was maybe the difference of maybe half a second that she beat me by.

On the second running of it I had a much worse start, but somehow I got a better line on things on the way out to the buoy... I didn't realize -how- good until I passed both of the other student boats going in the other direction (still outbound) on the way back... I could have done the hare to the tortoise but I didn't... and cruised past the line at +00:01:38. And my instructor said that's actually a new record for the beginner's regatta and if I kept that up I'd probably be beating some of the better sailors around there, at least be the best of the amateurs. (The other two boats came in about four and nine seconds behind me).

Class disbanded after that, but I kept doing runs, timing myself (stopwatch) by drifting, starting a two minute count just like a real race, and circling behind the line after raising sails until zero before crossing the line...

I beat my own time, at +00:01:24.

Pity nobody was there to see -that-.

I was glowing the rest of the day. And a few beers at the Blarney Stone (and some flirting with a cute kitty who may or may not have been female, but it doesn't matter really) kept the glow there until it was time to go to bed.