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The last attempt at a post-regatta debrief went nowhere. I’ll give it another shot with two twists.

Since I’m not at the top of the fleet, I’m not comfortable attempting to lead such a discussion and I’m pretty sure most of you wouldn’t want that either ☺ On the other hand, my skills are enough to recognize mistakes, and I’m OK with admitting them.That got me thinking that if you have hard-earned techniques which have moved you up the fleet, you may justifiably not want to give them up. So rather than a discussion of “what I did right” maybe instead we can get some traction with a discussion of “what I did wrong” ? I’ve also invited John Jensen to share his observations from the shore.

Additionally, I’m concerned about generating too much traffic on the mailing list. So I’ve started the discussion on the message board at the Svendsen’s Grand Prix website: http://svendsens-grand-prix.myfleet.org/msgs/?f=1 This will make the content a “pull” for you rather than a “push” at you. You don’t need to authenticate to post there or otherwise identify yourself, although I have and encourage you too as well. You just to enter a CAPTCHA intended to thwart spammers. I have not included my email address on posts, also to avoid spammers. I'm confident we can track each other down through old D24 list messages if need be.

Finally, why do a debrief ? The local J/105 fleet instituted this fairly common practice due to a high frequency of expensive collisions ! Other fleets debrief to raise the general level of competition, which should force everyone to improve. And also for reasons nicely summarized by Mark Halman:

I think the Masters Laser group has a lot going for it. Masters Laser sailing is a life-style choice. We are all trying to slow down the aging process and Laser sailing rewards fitness. We are generally a friendly bunch and although we go-at-it on the water the fleet has good camaraderie ashore. There are a lot of people who want to train and learn to sail better. We need to ensure that we keep a culture of openness and sharing and non-emotional discussions of on-the-water disputes.