The Buffalo Canoe Club hosted a great event at their beautiful club on the shores of Lake Erie, just 15 minutes on the Canadian side of the border. Big thank you's to Cam for lending me his boat for the weekend, to Kate Pearce for lending me her Forester to drive up and back from Ithaca(since my boat and car are in San Francisco), and to the Jordan Family for the fantastic housing! Meghan Jordan is a current student at my Alma Mater Hobart, and her parents, two sisters, and wild little brother may have given us the most fun housing ever!
I picked up training partner and friend Emery Wager at the Buffalo Airport on Thursday, and headed to the regatta site to get oriented and have a quick practice session. Emery is a recent graduate of the Stanford program (where I coached during 2005-2006) and is the 2007 Collegiate Laser Champion! It is essential to have talented and fun training partners in singlehanded boats, because you can push each other, share ideas, and stay motivated much more easily. I'm psyched to have Emery and other great sailors to train and race with, because it makes me better.
The conditions were great for the event, with 3 races sailed in a puffy offshore breeze of 15-22 knots, 3 races sailed in light winds of 6 knots or less, and 3 races sailed in a perfect thermal breeze of 10 -18 knots with great waves. In sailboat racing, the weather conditions play a central role in what techniques and strategies you employ in order to sail well and win. Interestingly, Emery won all three races in the thermal breeze of 10-18 knots and waves, while I won all three races of 6 knots or less. That makes me quite excited to practice and race with Emery in the future, because he is fast!
Emery ended up winning the regatta with 18 points in 9 races (3,6,1,5,1,1,1,2,4), while I had 21 points (4,4,5,1,3,5,2,1,1) and Third place Evan Lewis had 47 points. For you math wizzes out there, each competitor is often allowed to discard their worst score from their overall score, and low points win!
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