Walker interviewed the fleet after a recent world championship. Only three people were satisfied with their performance. MOST were unhappy with performance…. It fueled the drive to do better the next time.
You cannot find out whether or not people are satisfied with their performance by asking them. The guy who finished first cannot say, "I felt that I sailed really poorly," because that makes it sound like everybody who finished below him was REALLY bad.
The people who got the second- and third-place trophies cannot say they were unhappy with their performance, because that sounds like they are taking away from the accomplishment of the winner or the person who finished above them. Their politically correct response would be, "I sailed my best, but so-and-so was just sailing better."
In reality, no one-design racing sailor is EVER completely satisfied with his or her performance, even if they won every race by a leg.
When my father won a race, or a whole regatta, he would say, privately, "Yeah, I only made about 1,000 mistakes." And he was serious about that.
That's what racing is all about: Gradually eliminating your mistakes. But it is not possible to eliminate ALL of them. And THAT is what drives people to keep trying, whether they are at the top or at the bottom. There is always room to get better, no matter where you are on the ladder. And that is what is so fascinating about sailboat racing: Nobody ever completely masters it, and you always keep learning new things -- and there are always new things to learn.
