The BYC Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation gave me an opportunity that I will never forget. Laser North American Championships/North American Singlehanded Championships on June 12 -15 was one of the most exciting events that I have ever gone to. My expectations for the event were mid fleet in Laser Radials which had 111 boats entered. After setting this goal it turned out that the fleets would be divided into a gold and silver fleet. Well, this threw everyone off a bit because of the plain and simple question of “How are they going to make this fair?” It turned out that after the first and second days they divided the fleets into a yellow and blue fleet; (yellow = gold, blue = silver) though the fleets were applied on the first and second days as only flights for starting order.
DAY ONE – The day started out with me driving up with my dad to Alamitos Bay Yacht Club where my boat was already waiting. We weren’t allowed to store the boats inside the yard, we had to store the boats on the beach. As we arrived at around 0830 I quickly ran over to the ABYC snack bar to get one of their terribly delicious breakfast burritos for myself and my friend Porter Killian who was there racing with me the entire weekend. We then had a coaches meeting with my two coaches Allie and Michael. We had a quick talk and went on to the skippers meeting where everyone was excited to hear just how they planned to do flight selection. I ended up in yellow for the entire regatta, the flight that had the first start. After that exciting talk we all ran to our boats and got rigged. The awesome part of rigging on the beach was that you were just a few feet from Olympic sailors like Bruno Fontes of Brazil and Paige Railey of USA and sailors who were trying to qualify for the Olympics such as Charlie Buckingham and Chris Barnard of USA.
After rigging we launched off the sand and sailed out into the harbor. That day was special. Once we got out there the wind was already ten to fifteen knots and building. The race committee started the first race for the Laser Full Radials and then by the time our gun went off it was a good eighteen knots. We rounded the first upwind mark and by that point I think almost everyone was exhausted. We did a quick reach of about ten seconds then dove downwind. The wind kept building. Thankfully many people capsized on that first downwind, but I was not one of them. I rounded in mid fleet, about twenty-sixth and started the long trek upwind again. The wind kept building. By the time I rounded the top mark it was blowing twenty to twenty-five knots. On that three to four minute reach it became very evident that I was going into survival mode on the final downwind.
Unfortunately that plan did not work. On the first capsize about half way down the leg I caught a little wave which turned out to not be so little. I surfed down the face and then I looked behind me just as I started to fall out of it and saw this massive wave behind me about to break on my stern. I then told myself, “your only chance here to make it, is to surf out of it” which did not work at all. The wave broke over my stern and washed me out of the boat while my boat death rolled. I got the boat back up and started carefully sailing again. Unfortunately, that did not work either. On the second capsize I was surfing down the face of a wave and slipped to the leeward side of the boat – the boat turned up almost flipped, but I saved it. The boat did a very sharp turn down from a side chop, and death rolled on top of me. I got the boat back up and rounded the leeward mark to a mile long reach in about twenty-six knots of breeze. I then turned around the final mark to the finish and managed to finish the first race.
The wind kept building and I just said there’s no way I can finish the day in this wind because my legs were shaking uncontrollably and I was weak from that first race. I sailed in only to find that there were already about forty other people with the same idea as me. We all shared stories. There were many snapped masts, sails ripped in half, and one sailor even came in with nothing except his hull and boards because everything ripped out of his boat. I went home and enjoyed a peaceful sleep that night.
DAY TWO – That morning was the same as the first day except we had no skippers meeting. The breeze was lighter and for me that was a good thing. We rigged and headed out. The first race was about ten knots and it built to about fifteen knots by the end of the day. I made it around the courses this day easily but still did not finish as well as I had hoped I would for those conditions. I still had no problems other than coming in with all 200 boats into a little harbor mouth that I am sure you all know of very well. After that I took a nice long shower in the ABYC showers, ate some chicken and watermelon that was provided for the racers. It was a great day.
DAY THREE – Today was probably my best day at the regatta. In the first race I had a great start hitting the right, came back to hit the lay line and rounded the mark inches behind the first place boat. I had actually been leading the race upwind but kind of failed in a tack for lay line. The girl from Bermuda just barely edged me out all the way to the finish. I ended up in second in that race. After that race, something really special happened. I was talking with Porter Killian between the race when all the sudden Olympic sailor Paige Railey came up to us and talked to us about sailing. She was here from Florida training and she asked me to give her some pointers on where to go surfing while she was still here. She said she had wanted to get into long boarding. That was really cool to me that out of the crowd she came and talked to us!
In the second race I had another great start and went out right again, this time in about twelve knot winds instead of the seven to ten in the first race. I ended up giving away the secret about going right in the first race because everyone else did also making me get around just in front of mid fleet position. The third race was more of the same except it was just slightly windier.
DAY FOUR (final day) – The last day of the regatta is usually the most fun and the best. For my predicament it was. I finished the first race with an eighth and the second race with an eighteenth. I threw out the two races I missed on the first day and ended up in twentieth overall in silver fleet! At the end of the day my dad hopped in my boat and sailed it the three miles back to the harbor. Since I was sailing with Team ABYC, I got to use the ramp which was so much nicer than the beach de-rigging, because all your stuff is clean after being sandy from the last four days. Overall it was one of the most fun regattas I have ever done and I will remember the opportunity that BYC MSSF gave to me for years to come.
-Christian Rosene