Getting Warmed Up

The lake was empty as I glided out with the sail gently flicking around as the wind came whispering by me from many points. It climbed over the trees around the mooring area behind me and then switched and swirled in from across the lake; I took in a couple of arm lengths of mainsheet and the flag down by the beach sent a small puff racing along the shore and my close-hauled sail stalled and heeled the boat a bit. Once I got out past the small point to my right a steadier breeze filled in from up the lake and I began my warm up.

I start with a slow series of gentle roll tacks. Each change of heading is followed by just enough pause to build my boat speed back up and then I encourage my Laser to round-up onto the other tack. After ten to fifteen of these relaxed turns I pick up the pace and become a bit more physical, using stronger kinetics in my roll tacks to work out the last stiffness in my muscles.

Through each of my choreographed maneuvers I try to stay acutely aware of the placement of my hands and feet and the timing of each piece of the turn – use my weight to begin the turn, steady myself so that the boat has all the time it needs to take a bite to windward, flick the leach over with my body weight to pull the stern over a bit faster, encourage the Laser to take a deep bow to leeward, ease the main, cross and push the high side firmly back into the water to leverage the sail into creating a kick-started flow. I’m warming up my body and warming up my boat handling.

Now I need to warm up my courage, so I ease the vang and cunningham, grab a long arm of sheet, hike the boat past flat, let out the arm length of sail and round down onto a run. Unless it’s blowing like crazy I demand that I just jibe and jibe without more than a brief pause between. I take huge sweeping turns to go from by-the-lee on one tack to by-the-lee on the other, and when I’m comfortable with those I sail dead downwind and pull the sail across to one side and then the other.

By now I’m often back to where I need to start back up wind and so I prep and round the Laser up onto a close hauled course and almost immediately bear off onto a reach. When the far shore demands a turn, I jibe around and reach back across the sailing area looking for a buoy I can use as a mark.

A half a dozen close rounding of the mark warms up my protest reaction and positioning for turns at the mark. And I’ll admit, it’s July, but I’m still testing my judgment of the three boat zone. When I’ve had enough, I then stop the boat to warm up my holding-place and acceleration maneuvers.

Now my old masters body is ready to really warm up the abs and quads, so I begin to work my way back up wind with easy transitions between 50% and 90% hiking. While I’m holding the position I remind myself to warm up my awareness routines and I begin to really notice the wind shifts and puffs on the water along with the sounds of speed and angle of heel.

I’m ready for boat handling drills or a race to begin.