When we think about racing, whether its sailboats or other sports we normally think the objective is to win.  After all winning is everything, right???? Well, yes it can be.  However for me, at least at this stage of my life it is just one of my goals when I am out on the race course.  Don’t get me wrong, I love winning.  But I also love the sailing when out racing.  I love making the small modifications to trim to see if it improves the boat performance.  I have a love/hate the relationship with tactics.  When we find all the right shifts and sail into all the pockets of wind, it makes for an amazing race – win or loss.  When we always tack into headers and somehow find all the holes on the lake, the love relationship starts to have some issues.

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I also love the competition.   The more we have to work to win a race the better the win feels.  And if we don’t win, but still have a close and exciting race the disappointment in not winning is a little easier to swallow.  Ok, sometimes it’s not that easy, but it’s a lot better than losing by a mile.  And believe it or not, winning by a mile is not always that fun.  Sure, it a high when it happens on that rare occasion.  But in some ways it feels like there was no competition, and thus not as fun.

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For me, BFSC racing has always been for learning.  And to learn the competition needs to be there to push each other to be better sailors/racers.  For the BFSC Spring Series I am implementing a handicap system which I hope will encourage sailors who struggle on the race course to get a feel for the close competition and will push racers who normally are some of the lead boats to fight even harder to get the wins.  It won’t be perfect, as no handicap system is. I do hope it adds some fun and excitement to the racing.  Check out section 5 of the “BFSC 2019 Fall Series Sailing Instructions” for details on the handicap adjustments that will be made throughout the Sprint Series.

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Tedd Meinersmann

Racing Captain 2020