Experiencing my first national level laser event was incredible. Competing in the Orange Bowl was an eye-opener for the level of competition there. Whether it was learning starting positioning, lanes upwind, picking the correct shifts to sail on, or sailing super high to not get rolled on the reach. These are just some of the sequential lessons I gained from the Orange Bowl.
The gorgeous, lush green environment. Water so translucent you could make out everything below its surface. Traveling to Florida was an experience of a lifetime. The weather was sunny with eighty degree temperatures until sunset.
My first day of regatta was the windiest, with moderate winds and persistent lefties coming throughout the day. All you needed was a decent start, and it guaranteed you with a top-15 finish. Though the second day was desolate and light with 5 knots of breeze. Divided up into gold and silver, the significantly harder fleet made it difficult to sail your best course, always having another boat tacking on you. Then, you end up tacking out and just trying to straggle by in a lane was most of my sailing day. Finally, the third day was nearly impossible to sail in, gusting 5 knots with a stable 3-4 knot breeze. The immense chop and dirty air made it feel as though you weren’t even sailing up the course. Having quick boat handling to get by and maximizing pressure was the only way to make it through the race.
During the regatta, the incredibly light winds combined with boat-wake from two-hundred plus lasers created excessive chop. Combined with the geographic shifts and current that swept you off the course. It inevitably improved my straight-line boat speed, teaching me to always sail bow down with speed and never get stalled out. The geographic shifts of sailing towards Key Biscayne Island in order to receive the left shifts and slightly better pressure were critical to having a decent race. While setting up on starboard lay early was deadly and always resulted in the catastrophic effects of dirty air all around. Developing a sense of the fleet's patterns and trying to mitigate yourself to be positioned in an optimal spot going towards the mark with a lane was key.