Thursday, June 14, 2012

Going Down With The Ship

Last night was absolutely the worst time I’ve ever had in a sailboat.
My crew finished the first race ninth out of ten.  We didn’t finish the second race.  We didn’t finish the third race.

We have a crew of mostly talented sailors.  And even the weaker ones aren’t actually detrimental.  However, any of last night’s crew could have taken a boat of beginners on the water and done a better job than we did as a team.  Honestly, I didn’t want to have dinner and drinks at the clubhouse afterwards.  I did because it’s traditional, expected, and I’d have looked like a whiny bitch if I just slinked home with my tail between my legs.  And eating and drinking with friends afterwards was a bit therapeutic.  But didn’t erase the frustration of the race.

I’m not particularly competitive.  Normally I’m happy to just know I’ve done my best and had fun.  This year is different – we’re constantly in the last couple of places (if we finish at all), but can’t figure out the problem.  The first time we blamed the boat.  The second time we blamed the boat. At this point, it’s obviously not the boat, we have a different boat each night.

Really, I’m thinking it’s the management.  Not because I know what he’s doing wrong, if I knew that I’d tell him and we could fix the issue.  But when the staff are able, but still consistently failing, the leadership is the only other variable I can identify.

We’ve got a plan to identify our deficiency next week, and I hope it works.  I love sailing, but am starting to hate the races.  I considered possibly quitting the race team, just attending the casual sail nights, but would feel bad about leaving my team solely for poor performance.  This year, I may simply be going down with the ship.  Literally.

3 comments:

  1. It's a sad fact that someone has to come in last. Racing is why B quit sailing - not the losing, just the overall competitiveness of it all.

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  2. I think as long as your coming home on the right side of the water, it's all good! Try to have fun out there!

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  3. It's really not the competitiveness, although i could see how that would get annoying. I can handle coming in last if I sail well. It's the fact that our boat isn't moving how it should, and it's not the boat's fault.

    My issue is with our weak problem-solving capabilities.

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