It's so easy

 Recently competed in the British Keelboat League event in Cardiff Bay. We got in 18 short (12mins) races over the two days. 

We finished 10th out of 13, not as good as I would have liked but ahead of Cardiff Sailing Centre. We could say we would have been 9th, if we hadn't gone trawling with the kite, which probably cost us 3 points but that is the point. It is so easy to focus in on this one incident. The crew didn't intend to throw the kite out before we were ready to hoist, and I took my time before adding my strength to the hoist.

The crew were young and inexperienced and would not have noticed the mistakes the helm made. Had we fought for first place in the first race, instead of gybing away on the run, would things have been different?

In a couple of races we allowed ourselves to get held out past the lay line instead of ducking and getting back into the middle. If we hadn't tried to go dead downwind and fallen into a hole in the wind.

Still there were little victories, crossing on port 3ft ahead of the starboard tack boat, tacking off and ducking by 6 inches. You could feel the disbelief from the crew.  

Its an interesting format but does need a different approach - stay out of trouble and keep your options open.