Dear BYC MSSF,
I would like to start by first staying thank you for all the support and funding you have given me to experience one of the most memorable sailing events of my life.
Over the course of the two weeks I spent in Medemblik, Netherlands, I learned so many amazing skills that will carry me through the rest of my sailing career, regardless of the boat. The first five days were training, getting to understand better how the wind and the water worked at the venue. The wind was very co
nsistent, and the shifts were about 10 to 15 degrees. It was very flat in most wind directions, which made downwind sailing a little harder. This is because we were unable to surf as much without getting penalized by the judges. Once I had completed my training days, I prepared myself physically and mentally for the six-day regatta that I knew would be intense.
Although I did my best at the event, I knew that with a couple of small adjustments here and there I could easily have done better. Some of these included starts, downwind, and clear air. Starting is always hard when you have fleets of up to 70 boats. My biggest problem was that I wasn’t aggressive enough and was accelerating too late. This left me in a bad position off the starting line and left me with minimal options up wind. Second, getting clear air after a bad start is as many know very challenging especially in big fleets. This posed problematic because I was unable to make up the entire deficit from the bad start in one tack because the shifts were so small. Once you were in the back, you weren’t going anywhere. Finally, downwind in a laser is the most challenging part for me. If you don’t have a lot of time put into the “downwind”, you won’t be able to keep up. This was very difficult for me to do in the heavy wind conditions because of my lack of familiarity. On the flip side, in the light winds (which I practice often) I was passing boats left and right. All in all, I need to gain more exposure and time on the water doing downwind sailing.
All sailing aside, without the funding provided by the Foundation none of this would have been possible. I would never have been able to learn as much about sailing competitive laser regattas and meet such amazing people. Thank you so much for this opportunity of a lifetime!