Four Screw-ups at Whiskeytown

First, in response to Tillerman's musings on list posts, yeah, I do think they're kind of lame. Play to both the lazy blogger and the lazy reader; but whatever, I'm going to do another one anyway. Second, I'll do this in two parts. A list of lists? I suck.

So, on with the Four Screw-ups at Whiskeytown

1. Too much (attempted) strategy, not enough tactics: I focused too much on picking (guessing?) the best strategy for the fickle lake winds and then trying relentlessly to execute. I started each race with an all-in bet. It only paid once. Only way I recovered was to dump the ill fated strategy and start picking my way back through the fleet with a sharp tactical focus taking every opportunity as presented rather than seeking ones that really weren't there.
2. My starts suffered for the same reason. I kept trying to make my own start, thinking I had some kind of strategic advantage. For example, I would run the line on port ducking boats as needed to get the the right first. Would have been better to make a more tactical start, driving others back, and staying in the mix instead of committing early to what would ultimately be a bad choice. Get a strong start, hold my lane, and see how things start to play out.
3. I misread the course chart. Race two was one of those lake tour courses where they send you off all over the place. From the weather mark three quarters of the way up the lake we were to angle off somewhere towards the upper corner of the lake. The hand sketched "not to scale" chart wasn't much help, and small white marks were impossible to pick out at such a distance. Charles rounded first and headed off on a close reach to the corner of the lake. I pursued, but by the time we were half way cross I could tell there was no mark there. I then spied a mark up to weather. Hoping that was it, I hardened up, sailed into a nice puff, and and soon had the rest of the fleet astern. That is, until I saw Charles, now down to leeward, gybe. He had seen the class behind us, Snipes and Lasers, cutting directly across the lake on a beam reach apparently lead by some locals. Extrapolating their course, the speck of a white mark appeared along the shore half a mile dead downwind from my current location. After letting fly some salty language, I headed off to take up my position now at the back of the fleet. I manged to climb back to fourth, but that score doomed me.
4. I blew a close cover on the last leg of the last race giving up second place for the regatta. I had Dean to leeward when a Snipe from another class tacked right on me. As I was sucking bubbles, Dean started to get away. I chose to tack out of there and hope for the best. Bad move. Dean got into the right hand shift to the right of me and that was the end of it. In hindsight, I should have footed off out of the lee of the Snipe and down over Dean’s bow to maintain cover even if it would have put me right on top of him.
   

OK, enough of the ugly stuff. Good stuff in the next post . . .