Laser Midwinters East

It is Monday morning and I am sitting in Denver airport on my way home after Laser Mid Winters East. The regatta was sailed between February 23 and February 26. There were 48 boats entered in the Laser and I finished 16th. The full results can be found here.


I took the day before the regatta off. This felt great after the busy training schedule that we had been on. The morning of the first day of racing we woke up to solid white outside of our apartment windows. We got to the club at 9 for the 11 o’clock start only to be postponed on shore due to the fog. The fog started to clear around 10:45 and we were racing by 11:30. We did three races on the first two days of racing. With hour long races and 18-20 kts of wind out of the S they were tiring days. Day two was a lot like day one with fog and an on shore AP in the morning.


For the third day the wind did a 180 and we got even more of it out of the N and with the current going S it made for some BIG waves. It was a day when not tacking too much and putting the bow down paid.


On the last day the wind started out looking a lot like the day before but as the day went on the wind started to swing to the E. However with the waves still rolling N to S it made for some really interesting sailing. It was easy to lose track of where the marks where when sailing downwind if you started to sail with the waves. I was able to make some gains by going what looked like high road but really was the rum line.


I am happy with the way that I sailed. I am still going fast up wind in breeze but I think that the biggest improvement for me is the fact that I am not losing on the runs.


As for now it’s back to Vancouver for some time at home. After almost 2 months away I am looking forward to my own bed. I will be doing some sailing in Vancouver and a lot of gym work. As always after a windy event one thing is clear, you can’t be too fit. Then around March 14 I will be heading down to LA for laser Mid Winters West.

-Kyle