In July of 2016 I raced in the Laser North Americans that was held at the Gorge in Cascade Locks, Oregon. The First day we split into two fleets because of the large number of boats sailing. I started out in the blue fleet with about 40 boats on the first day. It was the windiest on the first day with puffs up to 28 kts. It started with only about 15 kts but by the second race it was blowing 23 kts. The first race I had a great boat start and I got to the windward mark in about 15th. Then, on the downwind I went course left and the first really big puff of the day came course right. I ended up in about 25th. The next two races I had very bad starts due to my inexperience in starting in a lot of breeze. I also had trouble sailing downwind because of the intense breeze.
The next day was lighter and I had pretty good upwinds but poor downwinds. The courses consisted of a start to a upwind mark to a gate back up to the windward mark, then around one of the gate marks to a reach mark, then to a reach mark under the start line, finally upwind to the finish. On the second day of the regatta I had made up the very poor downwinds by passing boats on the reach. A lot of the other sailors did not think you could pass so many boats on the reach part of the course. Also at the windward marks the current went up wind so it was very easy to overstand layline.
The third day was rainy and windy early in the morning. The biggest flaw for me that day for me was that I did not have very good starts due to the higher breeze and small startline. My bad starts heavily affected my performance that day and I did not do as well as I had hoped to. After the racing, I had a talk with my coach Bruno how the starts in big regattas like this one are really different in a sense that they are very competitive. He was basically telling me if I wasn't one of those top ten boats with a good start it would be very hard for me to have a good race and I would have to play catch up the whole time.
On the final day I was determined to have good starts. Sadly because of no wind we were postponed for about 2 hours. So we started racing at around 1 pm and the cut off time was at 3 pm. The first start of the day was a general and I was right at the pin setup for a good start. They immediately switched it from a U flag to a black flag. The next start was right at the pin first row but I could not tack off the line so it was difficult for me to have a good upwind. The final race I started at the pin waited for the first shift and tacked. I sailed the rest of the race well and passed boats ending up in 8th that race. That day I learned the importance of being in the that first row of boats on the line and being in a good position too.
This regatta was a great experience and I learned a lot about sailing, specifically in heavy air. It was cool how the Gorge was a river with fresh water and upwind current. The Gorge itself was beautiful because of how the racing venue was a narrow river with mountains on each side. I would like to thank the San Diego Yacht Club for funding this eye opening experience.