Clinic Day One and Lessons Learned

June 15… Day one of the clinic. Understated is all I can say. A relaxed morning, somewhat light conditions, and a smallish collection of sailors made things seem like it was no big deal. But as the day progressed it was all summed up by one of the coaches in a meeting after the day was done, “this group is much tougher than at trials, don’t kid yourself.” The sailing began business as usual, but at the end of the morning session a squall blew through that carried a lot of wind, but more intimidating was the intensity of the rain, prompting an urgent call from on the water to the yacht club to send help asap. To those of us on shore it seemed like an over reaction, but the locals said Argy never calls for help. The few coaches on shore responded quickly and rushed to aide, but when they arrived the crisis was over. As I said the wind never really presented too great a challenge getting to the low 20’s, but the visibility dropped to just a15-20 feet as the rain (some described it as hail) was so intense many of the sailors didn’t know what to do. The fear was they would capsize and be lost with no one to help them. Although it only lasted 5 minutes the experience was intense for pretty much everyone. Back on shore the sailors relaxed, had some lunch then were divided into Gold and Silver groups and sent back on the water for speed drills for the remainder of the afternoon. Lessons learned from the day include:

Lessons Learned from Clinic Day One:
Romain and Quinn…

1. Never start next to somebody good. How come you say? Quinn says you’ll get worked. Another question, who do you start next to? Someone you know you are faster than.
2. We learned what a squall is today. So, what is a squall? Scary! We’ll explain the scenario… it was the morning session and we were finishing race #2 and all of a sudden without warning (all you could see was a kind of dark cloud) it starting blowing 20 knots (it was blowing only 10) and pouring like never before. I’ve never seen it rain so hard. You could only see about 20 feet. WE both got scared because no one could see us and it seemed like there could be lightening and that’s bad. But then it was over as quick as it began… well not really it lasted about 5 minutes and the rain was just dumping and it was really windy. But once it was over the wind went down to about 5 knots. We all came in for lunch after that. Pretty amazing… squalls.
3. Fish hide in the reef and kayaking builds your muscles right on the spot.
   

Dane and Kristopher…

1. In chop steer very little, but use your upper body A LOT! The rhythm works you through the waves, but the trick is being quick and aggressive with your upper body so the affect is directly on the boat. Basically you’re steering with your body instead of with the rudder.

For the mom’s and dad’s on shore it was a pleasant day of exercise with some brisk walks and runs a little swimming and paddling. Mix in a little grocery shopping and that was pretty much the day. Thankfully we didn’t realize the craziness brought on by the squall until it was all over and the kids were all laughing and smiling about it. Paradise took on a whole new personality today. Dane and Kristopher were swept up by Manny et al and sped off to St. John while Romain and Quinn took on their second challenge of the day, free diving the reefs looking for urchin and schools of fish. They both paddled their way out to a couple reefs and dove overboard with their swim goggles diving as deep and close to the urchins and fish as they dare. Pretty big adventure. Swim, dive, paddle and sail. Watermen.