So, I was sat out on my Laser in the bay this afternoon, the first time I have sailed in the past two months since I injured my ankle during my Level 1 training. The skies were blue, the sun was shining, and, with a southerly breeze coming off the land, the sea was flat. At 5 degrees Centigrade (41F) it was a bit on the chilly side, but I had all my winter sailing gear on so was feeling quite toasty.
Having just spent the past hour reaching back and forth across the bay in winds of 15 knots, gusting 23 knots, throwing in a few tacks and gybes as well as hiking out just for the fun of it, I was watching a group of the club’s cadets being put through their paces around the club marks. A few of them were being overpowered in their toppers and picos in the gusts, resulting in a few capsizes. ‘Well’, I was thinking, ‘at least I have kept my gear dry and so I won’t struggle to get it washed and dried before racing tomorrow’. As any sailor knows, it is quite unpleasant to put cold, wet gear on before you go out sailing, so it was a bonus that I wasn’t going to have to sort that out this evening.
Another Laser sailor came alongside me and we set off on a reach across the bay together. I got most of the way across when a gust hit and before I knew it I had death rolled the boat. If you don’t know what a death roll looks like in a Laser, it looks exactly like this:
Did I mention it was 5 degrees and this was the Irish sea? I managed to get thrown clear of the boat during the capsize, so was having to swim back to my boat as my other mistake was to not to keep hold of the main sheet. It was at this point I realised that whilst pride may come before a fall on land, in Laser sailing “Smugness comes before a swim”.
