Tag Archives: 2025

Frostbite, Lasers, Frostbite, Lasers

25-26 PRSA FROSTBITE #6

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A great winter day of sailing: steady, consistent wind from the south; cold but not freezing; and gray! Tom and Mike ran 5 Windward/Leeward races, with a relatively square line. We were joined by three sailors from other clubs, which made for a strong fleet. I’ve been slowly but steadily moving up the fleet this year, thanks in good measure to the two sailors – James and Steen who offer sage advice is you listen carefully.  So, here’s my secret to improvement:

1) Imitation – If you can’t beat them, copy them! While still slower, I used either James or Steen as a test boat, with the goal to try to lose less distance than I usually do. I’ve given up on playing with the outhaul but work the downhaul and vang much more aggressively.
2) Be on the line and in a good place to get clean air.  If you don’t have a good start, it’s nearly impossible to make up that many boat lengths when sailing in bad air. I ended up tacking quickly to port on a few races to find good air.
3) Ignore your windward telltale – learned this from the clinic a few weeks ago with James. Makes a huge difference.
4) Do not let a gust go to waste – I’ve leaned hard into the keep-the boat-flat-school of sailing! I played the mainsheet more aggressively to keep the boat flat, even in gusts.
5) Don’t make dumb mistakes – suffice it to say, hitting the mark, not seeing a boat on starboard, getting a line tangled in your leg all slow you down!
-Brian Joseph

 

Frostbite, Lasers, Frostbite

25-26 PRSA LASER FROSTBITE #3

Happy late Thanksgiving everyone!! It was wonderful to have our first foul weather frostbite of the year. Ten sailors braved ~40-degree weather, off-and-on rain, and 10-20 mph wind. Congrats to Kaitlyn, Tom, and Tyler for winning today’s six races.

Today’s courses tended to have long starboard tacks, which was unfortunate for me – I accidentally brought two left gloves out with me and had to spend several minutes fighting to keep my mainsail sheeted in with a backwards glove on my right hand. This also meant that most of the passes took place at the marks, so boathandling during roundings was at a premium. In medium-heavy air, it’s crucial to ease the vang on approach to the windward mark and use your body weight to turn the boat. These actions relieve weather helm and help turn the boat more efficiently. Tom and Tyler seemed to a particularly good job of cleanly rounding the weather mark and getting a good jump on the downwinds. At the leeward mark, it was important to preset your controls for the upwind and doing a wide and tight rounding. I passed more than a few people today by making sure I was on the correct (port) gybe approaching the mark and going wide-and-tight around the mark to make sure I got inside position. Every time I messed this up, I got passed.

After the races, I had a brief conversation with Tyler about heavy wind downwinds. The first thing I told him is that I prefer to reach, rather than sail by the lee in breeze over 12 mph. It helps keep the boat upright, makes pumping and planing easier, and allows for more maneuverability on short notice. We also discussed body position in the cockpit. As a rule of thumb, you want to be at the front of the cockpit in a Laser any time the hull is not planing. On lighter downwinds, I try to have by center of mass even with the daggerboard. Having weight further forward in the boat lifts the largest surface on your hull (the stern) out of the water to reduce drag. In heavier breeze, I try to move back to the widest part of the hull to use my weight to more effectively prevent death rolls.

Thanks to Brian Joseph and his daughter for setting excellent courses and taking care of us on the water. They did an excellent job of setting up pin-favored lines, which made for more tactically interesting starts and fewer clumps at the boat end of the line. See y’all next week.

-Connor

25-26 PRSA FROSTBITE #2 REWORKED