Hangin’ on by a thread…..

In Scott's words, yesterday’s racing was ‘tactically confusing!' He said that Andy Pimental sailed a spectacular two races (2,4) and of course, as he was expecting, Arnoud Hummel from NED was dangerous in a breeze finishing with a (1,1) Scott was 4^th at the World’s in ’07 when Arnoud won so there is a little history.  Check out the photos of Arnoud and Scott … I think I could write a blurb on, “The Anatomy of The Perfect Laser Sailor.” Arnoud stands just shy of 6’3” and weighs in at 180 lbs. Scott is around 6'1"-6'2" and currently weighing in at 186 lbs. When the breeze is up, Arnoud just unfolds into the human lever upwind and seems to go a half knot faster than the rest!

According to Scott, his 3rd and his 7^th were hard fought races. In the last race Scott found himself off the line trying to shake a guy from his hip. The two had blown everyone else out the back but Scott was flat out for 2 minutes thinking it had to be Arnoud-the hiking machine- hanging to weather. Whoever it was, was pushing him to the left side of the course and leaving the rest of the fleet to go right. Scott wanted right so he slowed down to let the monster pass. As Scott tacked to go right he looked over his shoulder and yelled, “Boner!!” Terry Neilson (you know, the Finn Olympic medalist from CAN) laughed and said, ‘You got to hike harder!’ Ok, you all are wondering, what did Scott yell that for? Apparently, growing up Scott had heard that the nickname for Terry Neilson was ‘boner’ so during one of the practice days Scott sailed up to him and asked him why people called him ‘boner’ Terry laughed and said that it was because he hiked so hard. My comment to Scott was, ‘Scott, you didn’t just ask him that? Did you at least introduce yourself first?’

Anyway…going left turned out to be a bad move, even if you can hike better that the rest as Terry sailed into a 19^th place finish and Scott managed to scrape back to a 7^th. Again, all during the Standard worlds, the talk was all “left” and even in the first half of this week it was, “when in doubt go left.” Yesterday, on the other hand, a lot of right paid off….ahhh, welcome to the fine art of yacht racing!

Photos: Scott and Arnoud