Comments on: TBT: Some Notes on the Optimist Selection Trials 1988 Video

By: damian.admin

damian.admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 19:12:35 +0000

Thanks Dan.

Rob? Boring? Boasting about his moments of glory? I can’t imagine such a thing.

You’re right about the Oppies being the only class that would have raced in those conditions. Even the Olympic 470s said they probably wouldn’t have raced on two of the days that we did.

By: Dan Vincent

Dan Vincent — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 10:01:46 +0000

Damian,
I just found your blog (#fantastic) and have fwded the link to Rob who will enjoy boring my nephews with his moments of glory.
I watched a bit of ‘1988’ and reckon it is only Oppies that could have survived that, any other class would have been abandoned and been thinned out to the bowling alley.
Looking forward to going through your previous posts.

By: damian.admin

damian.admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 12:30:55 +0000

Definitely do – I’d love to read that.

It’s true, too – even though it didn’t pay off results-wise, I still got a lot of satisfaction from having battled around the course that day.

By: TIllerman

TIllerman — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 22:44:31 +0000

Yes. I guess that sometimes that last race is your throwout. But when I look back on the times I have stuck it our all the way through every race in heavy weather, it has almost paid off in the results or in personal satisfaction. I think I am going to have write a retrospective blog post retelling some of those “last race” stories from the last few years.

By: damian.admin

damian.admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 16:55:11 +0000

That’s a very good goal – it almost always makes a difference.

Although I was at an event a couple of years ago and in the penultimate race my clew strap came undone halfway through the race. I finished that race and then tried to re-attach the strap but couldn’t do it – even with the help of a rescue boat (it was blowing a 4 to 5 and we couldn’t find a position that would allow us to get it back on).

I decided to sail the last race anyway, on the basis that lots of other boats wouldn’t finish it – it being the last race of a breezy-ish day. So I struggled around the course (with the wind steadily increasing) with no vang tension upwind, and a bizarre shaped sail downwind.

And when I finished and got in I found out that my result was still my worst of the weekend and I discarded it anyway.

Bugger.

By: TIllerman

TIllerman — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 14:13:44 +0000

Great job. One of my goals this year is to finish every race. I always used to – and even won the odd trophy just because I hung in there in every race when others didn’t. But the last few years I have been wimping out early . This year will be different!