Brunei National Laser Champs

Brunei held it's annual Laser Championship on the 6, 7 & 8 June and being the keen sailor I am, I entered. We had a record number of entries, over sixty entrants in all, requiring two days of heats to be sailed to end up with a final fleet of thirty-three boats for the four finals races.

My expectations were modest, having only learned to sail in April of 2007. My goal was to finish in the top fifteen, in what would be only my second regatta, having sailed in the Harvest Regatta the week beforehand at the Kota Kinabalu Yacht Club in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

The heats had me in a group along with arguably three of our top RBYC sailors. With only six going through from the twelve boat, two heat race, I decided that staying out of trouble and sailing a little conservatively would probably be sufficient to make the top six. As it turned out I sailed somewhat untidily by my own standards, with some poor tacking and decision making, as I felt the pressure of making the cut. However, the end result was sufficient to see me through comfortably, with two fourth placing behind some of the best sailors in our club.

Finals Race day.

Being in a sheltered bay, we don't get much wind until the sea breeze kicks in around 1pm. However, up until about 1030 - 1100 we usually get a light land breeze and the Sailing Instructions were such that we would have the first race in these light conditions.
I was determined that I was not going to start in the pack in these light conditions, with the risk of getting trapped and elected to start about halfway down the start line, away from the committee boat, which was the favoured end. It turned out to be a good decision, as I hit the line right on the horn with all the speed of a homesick snail given the 3-5 knots of wind we seemed to have.
Up the first beat, and two of us clear away from the fleet as I unbelievably rounded the top mark in second place onto what then turned out to be one of the lightest runs I have ever sailed on. We increase our lead over the rest of the fleet, with only our top laser sailor catching me about two thirds along the leg. And so he should have done, he's a top French sailor and he weighs all of 72kg's, whereas I'm about 88Kgs!
So, around the second buoy onto a light reach of what was by then a shortened course of a triangle to the start/finish line. Around the bottom mark and and two easy tacks to cross the line in third place.
I'm ecstatic! I've beaten some of the best sailors in our club in conditions that I thought I wouldn't be that competitive.

We break for lunch and tell war stories about the just completed race. Right on cue the sea breeze comes in, nice and steady at about 10-12 knots. We push off the beach out into the bay for the remaining three races. I'm nervous, as I ponder the morning result; was it just a fluke or have I really improved that much? Prior to this regatta I've been doing lots of reading about how to handle the Laser in the conditions I expected to sail in this weekend and I have been doing a little practice as well in the two weeks or so leading up to it. I've also tried to improve my personal fitness by shedding a couple of kg's, and running, so I can hike longer and harder. Is it all starting to have an effect on my overall performance? Or am I over analysing?

The second race begins, on a triangle/sausage/triangle course, and I'm late to the line and I spend the rest of the race in catch up mode, sailing well but disappointed in my lack of aggression for not making the start on time. I finish in twelfth place, vowing to do better.


My third race start is fantastic, and I hit the line at full speed about two seconds late and I'm right there with the big boys, who have also started well. I hike hard, tack tidily, following these guys up the beat to round the top mark in sixth place and blast off on a freshening reach, as the six of us open a gap on the rest of the fleet. Little separates any of us as we gybe around the second mark and continue on the run to the bottom mark.
Onto the beat, and I seem to be in the "grove" as I start to catch the guy who won the morning race and we end up in a tacking dual all the way up the beat until I get starboard advantage on the layline to the top mark and he is forced to dip behind me on port tack just before the buoy. I increase this advantage on the reach and we gybe onto the run. Now I'm starting to gain the fourth place guy, one of our best sailors, but he still rounds the bottom mark ahead and onto a port tack. I'm too close, so I make one of my best decisions of the day and tack off to starboard, going almost out to the left hand layline, before tacking back onto port. We start to converge and the crossing is going to be very close but I think that I can clear him. I hike harder, trying to get every knot of speed out of the boat as he yells at me for right of way, but I hold my course, clearing him by about one meter. No protest, and I've moved up to fourth which I manage to hold onto until the finishing line. Again, I'm ecstatic, proving that the morning race result was no one off result.

The fourth race sees the pin end being favoured slightly, but there is not much in it. The committee boat end is congested, with quite a few inexperienced sailors, including myself. I elect to use the same tactic as the last race, but I time my run on starboard to the line a bit early and am forced to bear away down the line in the last few seconds and I loose speed.
As I cross the line, I'm slower than I would like and get trapped between a faster boat just ahead of me and one of the slowest boats to make the final on my starboard. I have nowhere to go. Eventually I get to tack onto port and clear out of the mess. To make things worse, several boats are over early, so it's chaos. Again, I spend most of the race playing catchup and finish in twelfth and sail back into the beach, disappointed at my lack of nous at the startline, some of which I attribute to lack of experience in big fleet starts.

The end result, a best of four race series, with one result discarded, was still very satisfying, with an element of what could have been without the two poor starts from races two and four. I managed to finish sixth overall, far exceeding my personal expectations.

Last Post

With all due respect to Tillerman.....!

Was this your dingy in the Laser Worlds?

The RBYC have just taken delivery of nine ex 2008 Worlds/Masters/Radials Lasers.

Did you sail in any of these Championships?

Do you recognize any of these sail numbers?

193008 193024 193061 193064 193075 193082 193087 193109 193118

If you see one that you sailed, leave a comment about where you were from, which Championship you sailed in and how you did.




Actually, a couple of them don't even appear to have been sailed at all, and they are all in very good condition, with only one having a small nick in the rear transom. There was only one little problem - when the container was packed, they forgot the tillers and extensions.

Which means I haven't had an opportunity to sail one yet, but they are on the way.

I can't wait.

Learning Experiences - Humiliation by ISO

Tillerman, at Proper Course, decided it would be a good idea to have another "group writing project" on the subject of Learning Experiences. So since I started sailing last year I thought recently that blogging about my experiences as a forty something newcomer to this often demanding pastime might be worthy of a read....and I'd get a bit of a kick out of writing it as well. So here goes....

My local sailing club decided to run an ISO sailing course, for "experienced sailors". I must have qualified as such, even given I have only been sailing for just over a year, and almost entirely on the Laser 1, as last weekend had me learning how to rig and sail this challenging boat.

For those of you not familiar with this class, it has about three times as many ropes and lines than a Laser, as well as two extra sails, a Jib and a spinnaker, and a semi-rigid main sail that has several tensioned battens up it's entire length, giving it an aircraft wing like aerofoil when rigged. I was soon to find out that this is a potential problem in lighter winds when tacking or gybing as the sail will cross the boat with the battens reversed while you sit there wondering why the rest of the fleet is sailing off into the distance. I also learnt that if you give the mainsheet a sharp tug as the sail goes across, it will reverse the battens nicely.

It's also a two man boat, with the crew requiring a degree of athleticism as he/she is responsible for keeping the boat level, so electing to Helm, for me, was a good idea. The second issue is that you have talk to the crew, something I'm not normally used to doing in a Laser, except when yelling "starboard" or "water" to the guy who beat me last weekend. So a crash tack doesn't usually go down too well with them, especially if they are out on the wire, with the end result likely to be wet. So maneuvering has to be coordinated, which means anticipation and a good dose of situational awareness.

So, I volunteer to helm for the first part of the afternoon. We manage to get off the beach without too much trouble, but then I make my first mistake. I forget to push the rudder down and we suddenly find ourselves drifting toward the club jetty, not helped by the fact that my hapless crew, has also forgotten to lower the centreboard. Chaos ensues for what seems to be forever as I stand up and try to deal with the rudder, and the centreboard finally goes down and we narrowly miss broadsiding the the jetty. This is not a good start, as my French speaking crews English is only slightly better than my schoolboy French.

Somehow we manage to sail clear of our self induced obstacles out into the bay on a nice port tack. We then have a conversation to clarify some of the terminology and elect to speak English now that we have decided on a few key phrases. We try a couple of tacks, and it is then that I discover that the tiller extension is too long. Or more accurately, I'm not using it correctly, as I try to take it across the other side of the boat as we go through the tack and discover to my horror I can't get it past the mainsheet block. I now find myself having completed the tack, the boat is starting to heel, and my poor crew is desperately climbing out on the wire in order to prevent us from capsizing, and I have dive back down into the centre of the boat to push the tiller away in order to pinch up to help my crew level the boat. It takes two or three more of these episodes to figure out that flicking the tiller towards the back of the boat as I cross actually prevents this problem and I am able to maintain some semblance of control.

Oh, did I mention the mainsheet? I have this little technique in the Laser that helps me bring in the mainsheet quickly, especially after a gybe onto a beat. Use both your spare hand and the tiller hand in sequence, raising your tillerhand vertically as you grab the mainsheet, so that the rudder does not move too much, followed by the spare hand and I'm soon hiked out hard. On the ISO, no chance, well not yet at least, as it requires all my ability (or should it be agility) to get across the boat, sort out the damn tiller extension, get my bum up on the other side, pinch up, (if the tiller is where it should be) all as the seabreeze is getting stronger, and I'm supposed to be pulling in the mainsheet in as well. I simply don't seem to have enough hands, and in fact we end up depowering a few times due to my inability to even keep it cleated for a second or two while I scramble into a position to pull it in.

So after a hour or more of this flailing around under the pretense of sailing, we decide to swap roles and I put on the harness. Or at least I try to. This is not an easy exercise with the boat pitching and rolling in the late afternoon breeze and I very nearly end up in the water, especially when it comes to getting the second leg in position. Have you try balancing in a small dingy on one leg without holding onto anything? And my crew, now the Helm, is trying very hard not to laugh. Eventually, after a period of undignified shuffling about in the bottom of the boat, I'm ready to go.

Again we sail off on a nice beat and we try a few tacks. This when I discover that the area of the ISO I'm now condemned to sail in for the rest of the day has some nasty obstructions in the form of numerous cleats with sharp edges and far too many ropes and lines. My knees and shins get beaten and cut. I look forward to each and every tack with diminishing enthusiasm as I try to get across the boat without serious injury to body and pride, while desperately trying to unhook from the wire, uncleat the jib and then relocate it, and pull it in as I try to get out on the wire on the other side.

Eventually things settle down and a friendly race is organized between the six boats participating in the course, over a sausage shaped course. We have a good start and are leading as we go around the top mark, but a sloppy turn onto the run allows a couple of boats to catch us, and we end up desperately defending our lead as we approach the bottom mark. As a result we are under pressure as we round, and go too wide, only to have the Helm's spouse, who is also learning to sail the ISO, pass us and relegate us to second place at the finish. My Helm is devastated, and is swearing in French, while telling me in English how upset she is at not beating her husband.

The next day we went sailing with the spinnaker, don't even ask how that went....

Labuan - Miri Passage Race

I'm new to sailing. In fact I just started back in April of 2007, managing to get some time off work that allowed me to spend the four weekends required to complete the course on the Laser One at the RBYC at Serasa. Got through that without too much difficulty, was racing with a few of the other guys by the second day.
So how does someone who since then has sailed in about 16 Laser One races, helmed a 470 twice and somehow managed to keep an ISO upright for most of an afternoon end up on Ambil Angin on an overnight passage race of 110 Nautical Miles in the Borneo International Yachting Challenge?
Well, the bearded one was having a few issues getting a full crew for the Passage Race, which was not the case for the match racing on the day prior to the event in Labuan or what was planned for Miri after our arrival, with plenty of crew available as it was a weekend. So he asked one of my course buddies and myself if we were interested. My first question was our experience level, mainly the lack of it as I'd be struggling to tell a halyard from a mainsheet. He assured me we would "pick it up along the way", which was reassuring, but in practice was a whole lot more difficult than that.

We caught the Ferry from Brunei to Labuan, a long narrow steel enclosed boat that holds about fifty people and is typical of the river and sea transport in this part of SE Asia. That was uneventful, and we caught a glimpse of Ambil Angin just as she had finished her match racing, as we motored into Victoria Harbour. After checking into the hotel, we found the rest of the crew doing what probably 99.99% of other crews do after a hard afternoon on the water - drinking the sponsors products. All this socializing was followed by an Official Dinner, at the Labuan International Sea Sports Complex, where it was announced that the Marina was be be rebuilt after it's major storm damage a few years previously. The prizes were then awarded for the weekends match racing, at which we had done ok, then it was off to find another Bar to finish off the evening, before the start of the passage race the following morning.

The morning found us all in the hotel dining room for breakfast, with what would be our last substantial hot meal for over twenty four hours. Hash browns, omelette's, sausages, bacon, tea, coffee and toast were consumed in considerable quantities before heading out to the Marina to load the yacht with lots of bottled water to cope with the 32C heat and dehydration of the daylight sailing, as well sufficient provisions to keep us going for what would end up being about thirty hours of sailing.

We got a good start, hard on the committee boat end, almost right on the gun as we crossed the line and sailed out in the midmorning sun in a light breeze, which slowly freshened as the sea breeze filled into the bay. As we approached Pulau Besar, to the SW of Labuan, we were slowly being caught by one of the more modern racing yachts in the fleet on our starboard. Now it gets very shallow around this island, in fact the no go area is marked by poles.

More to come...