Training

What a week! As a crew that is split up (me being in Alberta) we needed to spend as much on-water time together as possible this week and we certainly managed to accomplish that. We haven't sailed together as a crew before and there was some trepidation as to how well it would acutally go. I knew putting the crew together that everyone was competent in their intended role, but you never really know how it's going to gel until it does. And it did.

Sailing Sunday on a Tanzer 22 gave us the opportunity to talk through responsibilities. It was clear immediately that everyone was on the same page.

Tuesday we were short our skipper so I got to helm a white-sail race so a major goal of my season was accomplished.

Wednesday was interesting - full rig race with full crew. I think it would've gone better had we managed to get to the start line on time. But, due to a not-so-fantastic experience with the outboard, that didn't prove possible so we started DFL and also finished DFL.

Thursday gave us an opportunity to re set some things on the rather tired boat we were sailing; grateful as I am to have been lent a boat by a generous friend, I'm sure he'd be the first to admit the thing is slightly less than race-ready. All the lines are the same color and stiff as old lines get. The blocks are mostly seized or about to blow up in heavy air and the sails have all seen better days. So we spent some time re-rigging things to make our lives easier for the 3 races that lay ahead on Saturday. Thank God for basements full of extra gear.

Well, Saturday did not go all that much better than Wednesday. If you could name a problem that can go wrong on a sail boat, we encountered it. We sailed 3 races Saturday. DFL in all 3. One of the races we finished, doused our spinnaker, hoisted the Genny and were in the start sequence for the next race trying to catch the 4 minute gun having missed the 5 already. It was like one, big 7 leg race.

I'd be amiss to blame all of the problems on the boat - certainly as a crew we had our fare share of mishaps. Tacking through a gybe and gybing instead of bearing off (the latter done in front all of the rest of the boats who had finished already and were watching - how embarassing is that?). However, as a crew through it all we have come together and that was the whole point of spending the week sailing with each other. We know what to do and when to do it. We are clear about our responsibilities. Cathy, our skipper, and I, the trimmer, are on the same page entirely in terms of what decisions need to be made and Jen and Holly worked very well together. And we all had plenty of problem solving to do along the way to test that. Everyone has to work well together to make anything work and we did.

Our confidence grew and we are gelled. And we are excited. And, we are pretty good at solving problems, fixing motors and re rigging boats. That's a lot to accomplish within a week.