Mid-Winters West Day 2

If only I could get a good start! . In case you couldn't guess I had bad starts all day long. I did get one good start, only to have it destroyed by a port tacking boat that I could not avoid and I managed to hit it. Proceeding the contact, I found myself at the back of the pack yet again! We had three races today the first two were in light winds out of the North and the last race was in moderate to heavy conditions, all three of my finishes were in the mid 30's.
The good news is that other than my starts the rest of my racing is going great! I am pointing higher and faster than most of the boats around me, my downwind speed is still strong I am making less tactical errors and I am consistently passing boats on every leg..
My focus right now is obviously on starts, if I could get a decent start I might actually have a chance at finishing a race in the top half of the fleet. So I have come to the conclusion that I have a mental block with my starts. In past season my starts have been my bread and butter, not the case this season. So I have narrowed it down to two theories: The first being that I am way to focused on what is going on around me and not focused on what I am doing or what I need to be doing. My second theory is that every since I got my brand new boat I have become very protective of it and I am worried that it is going to get damaged if I am to aggressive at the starts. My goal for tomorrow is to work on these issues and hopefully I will have some great starts and get back to focusing on sailing away from the pack and not trying to catch back up!.