Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Training

It's spring! Thanks to the time change Jen and I are now able to train in the evenings after work again, which has allowed us to sail for the last 4 days in a row. Thursday evening we had a photo shoot of sorts, with two photographers chasing us around Oak Bay. Bob Hewitt was taking some pictures for an article about sailing that will appear in PageOne's YAM magazine in May; and our friend Chris Davis was taking some photos for us. It was pretty hilarious and a lot of fun, as wind angles and lighting angles don't always work together!


Friday we worked on our downwind speed and coordinating our pumping in the light to medium breeze. Saturday we had a really good session with lots of short races which allowed us to practice our starts. Training with the single handed boats makes starting a challenge, as they sit closer to the line and can point higher then us right off the start. Then we went for a long sail out of the bay and had to paddle part of the way back when the wind completely died!


Sunday Jen and I got up early to run 16 km with our running clinic, which was very soggy to say the least, as it was pouring rain. It was definitely not the most enjoyable run ever, but good training nonetheless. After this we were pretty sleepy, but headed to the Yacht Club for race team practice. There were actually more double handed boats then single handed on the water, which happens very rarely! It was really nice to train with the 420's and be around other boats with spinnakers. The weather was variable, to say the least. Inside the bay the wind was from the NW, but outside the bay it was from the SW; there was alternately sunshine and big storm cells. We worked on our acceleration and then did some short windward/leeward courses. I think Jen was getting bored of sailing around in circles after awhile, but I was fairly excited as I felt my spinnaker hoists and douses were improving a lot with all the repetition. I managed to get the spinnaker down and packed away in time to round the leeward mark properly almost every time.


Since Miami I have been re-learning how to tack facing backwards, and I feel like I am finally starting to get the hang of it. It's an interesting challenge, trying to re-train my body to cross the boat facing the opposite direction, as I have been tacking facing forwards for approximately 15 years! The amusing part is when I think I'm going to go through the tack backwards but my body reverts to going forwards. This usually involves me falling over in a tangled mess of legs and arms in the bottom of the boat and apologizing to Jen while she prevents the boat from capsizing. Thankfully this has been occurring less frequently and hopefully my bruises will heal soon. The reason for tacking backwards is it enables me to keep my weight farther forward in the boat, which makes us go faster!


So all in all a very good weekend of training, and now back to work!

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