Tying the laser radial onto the roof of the car at Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club in preparation for heading to ILCA Atlantic Coast Championships in Bellport NY.
I recently made the trip down to Bellport, NY for the ILCA Atlantic Coast Championships. The overall experience was good but was not without its downsides - including an 18 hour round trip drive that involved coming through traffic Sunday night in New York City and a major equipment breakdown.
I was looking forward to the opportunity to measure myself against a broader pool of competitors. Faced with a good fleet of 42 boats and difficult conditions I managed to finish up 10th overall. On Saturday there were varying wind speeds and some big shifts, at one point a large cloud brought 20+ knot winds and a furious downpour. I managed to end the day with a 11, 3, 14, and 18. Sunday brought equally challenging conditions. In this case it was extremely high winds gusting up to 30 knots! Unfortunately on the way out to the course for the first race, my bottom section broke at the deck.
Bottom section... busted.
Lucky for me the race was postponed due to high winds and the fleet was sent in giving me time to find a spar to borrow. About an hour later the race committee sent us back out and raced us twice where I secured pretty consistent results of a 9th and a 10th. Although capsizing because I missed my hiking strap at the first windward was pretty frustrating and didn't help my results. All in all a good learning experience and I look forward to improving on these these results a lot before Atlantic Coast Championship is hosted next year in Carolina!
Big thanks to my dad for driving the whole 9 hours there and 9 hours back and to Chase Burwell for lending me a bottom section that allowed me to continue racing on Sunday!