Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Stress Comes Off, 2010 ACA SL Trophy

Tonight, Saturday January 30th was the first day of a two day racing series to see who would walk away with the trophy. Lets get it out early, I lost. I went into the day confident of victory and walked away with nothing, and I'm glad I did. I started preparing myself for this race in April of last year, 8 months ago I bought an ACA and started racing waiting for the day when this race would come along. Since this event is tied in with the real life America's Cup we were left on pins and needles waiting, when we got our date we all ran with it and got ready. When January came the courses were announced and everyone who wanted to take parts focus was moved into training for the race series.

This meant for me abandoning the yacht club and race line I consider home for a nearly foreign line that I had little or no experience on. I spent a month in various groups and solo preparing for this race. The closer the day got the more my nerves came into play. I was given a little relief when I saw my opposition a few days before the race, I was ready and I refrained from extra practice as not to let people see how I did things so it couldn't be used against me( yeah I know paranoid).

Race day came and the heats were packed but as the day progressed things eroded away till the last few rounds boiled down into match races. One on one with a racer I have never seen before now I'm back on edge. After losing a best of 3 match race after 3 races I took a deep breath. Hey I'm done, I can go back to having fun. Not only that, the races that I lost were the closest that I have ever taken part in, I had the greatest time. To me those races that I finished within a second of the winner were better then any trophy someone can offer, I finished both races out of my chair willing on my little digital boat for an extra ounce of speed, laughing at the outcome.

Now I'm out, I have a person I'm rooting for to win the cup( the man who beat me of course) and I get to watch with no stress. A few hours after the line and (small) crowd left I went back to the line I had recently lost on. I stood and looked at the area for a few minutes, it didn't feel right I felt out of place. That's when I looked to the west, home. I returned to a race line and yacht club that has been my playground for most of my SL sailing time, a place where if you want to win on a Friday night in an ACA you have to beat me to do it. Yes this feels right now, I'm back where I belong, a place I call home, no stress, no trophies, just great racing.

Yes I'm home come and get me.