We arrived at Miami Airport late on Christmas Day and went to the hotel right away. We woke up in the morning and headed down to Coral Reef Yacht Club. We checked in and rigged up for practice. All of the sudden it started pouring rain like I had never seen before. We all ran for cover. A huge gust of wind came through and my boat blew over. I ran out and faced it into the wind. The rain gave us a break and we launched and went out. As soon as we got out it started pouring again and we could hardly see our coach. After just a couple of hours we had to go in and derigged as it was hard to keep track of everyone in the rain.
The next day we woke up bright and early for a nine o’clock skippers meeting and a ten o’clock start. We headed out to the course. The wind was more shifty than anything I have experienced in Southern California and going on and off. In the middle of racing my ears started hurting. I couldn’t focus. As a result I did not sail my best that day. After racing we went to the doctor and I found out I had double ear infections.
On the second day I was feeling much better. The breeze was on so it was a good day for me to learn how to sail in the short chop of Biscayne Bay, the huge fleet of Orange Bowl and improve my scores. I improved but I knew I could do better. Unfortunately, I got an OCS because I was pushing the line too hard one race.
The next day I came out with an aggressive mindset and in the first race got a great start and the first shift off the line and was up with the really good sailors. I came up on port layline but had a hard time finding a spot on the train on starboard layline. I got caught up at the mark and lost a lot of boats. This was my best day, but I had been to aggressive and ended up with two black flags in four races that day.
On the last day there was no wind so they ended up postponing and eventually canceling racing for the day due to no wind. We had been looking forward to this regatta for months so we were all disappointed when the flag went up and we realized that our Orange Bowl experience had come to an end.
This regatta was a great learning experience for me. I got to race on tough race course with small chop and shifty breeze. I learned to be resilient and pick myself up after a bad race. Thanks to MSSF for their help and support.
Jack Joslin