Andrew Campbell

Holland Wrap-up & Full Medal Race Report

May 27th, 2008 in Regattas, Monday Morning Tactician.

Photo: Delta Lloyd Regatta. Thanks to: Sperry Top-Sider, Magic Marine, Kaenon Polarized

(note: the GPS attached to the lower mast, see bottom for race link)

First Impressions: Sailing a great qualifier series followed by an ugly day of gold fleet racing at Delta Lloyd Holland Regatta this past week was almost an opposite image of the Hyeres regatta scores that I put up a few weeks earlier (where I had a tough qualifier series and a stellar couple of days in gold fleet to end the series). The big difference in Medemblik this week was the overall positioning going into the last day being vastly different. After five days of racing in Hyeres I was only able to come back to 15th or so, whereas in Holland I fell only three spots from my high-point in the regatta and was able to enter the medal race in 8th place. 

Gold Fleet: The Gold fleet day of our event was a fair amount breezier than the previous three, but the results stumble cannot be attributed to simply different conditions, but instead to just having a tough day on the water in terms of picking first beats. Where I was able to get off the line and into the first pressure about 80% of the time earlier in the week, I missed on all three first beats of the Gold fleet day leaving me in positions where I had to scramble to come back in order to maintain my top ten standing in the regatta.

The Medal Race: 

The medal race day was significantly windier… 16-20 knots out of the same easterly direction that we had been racing in most of the week, but with a significantly ramped up sea-state and 3+ foot waves made the downwind sailing a bit dicey and lots of fun. Going into the race I was three points behind Canadian Mike Leigh and comfortably in 8th with a nice gap between me and the boats behind. I could conceivably been 6th had the race gone well, but there are only so many aspects of the race that you can try to control with 10 boats on the starting line. Before the race, coach Charlie McKee and I talked about potential strategies to make an improvement in my scoreboard position during the race. I had to put a boat between Mike and I in order to pass him in the regatta. This of course is no easy task with a breezy downwind finish, and a three lap windward leeward in big waves and 20 knots. Not only would I have to control him the entire race, but then be able to pass one more boat than he would on the final run. Our approach was therefore as basic as necessary: to start on the favored side of the line, preferably to windward of Mike and then tack on him when the opportunity made itself available and try and drive him back in the race early and try and create forced errors on his part. Again, this is no easy task when we’re talking about a guy consistently ranked top five in the world.

The start was about fifty yards off the Dutch National Sailing Center’s breakwater in plenty of breeze and plenty of chop with significant boat-end bias to the starting line. With about 45 seconds to go before the start I repositioned myself to be the windward-most boat of the fleet at the gun. Rasmus Myrgren of Sweden flushed out and tacked up on my hip with about 12 seconds before the start and with the waves bouncing us around I was not able to cut him off and catch him barging at the starting pin, but was just as happy with my starting position to the right of Mike. The start went off without any boats on the course side (OCS) and we pounded away up the beat towards the left-hand side of the course. About three minutes later we were nearing the port tack layline and only three boats had tacked and ducked out right. Mike had been about three boats to leeward of my position and with about ten lengths to go to the port-tack layline he looked over his shoulder, tacked and started to duck Xavier Hernandez, the 10th place Spanish sailor who was to leeward of me on starboard tack. As soon as I knew Mike was going to duck through, I hitched and ducked just behind Rasmus and positioned myself directly in front of Mike now on port heading straight for the windward mark with about five boats to the left of us. The execution was exactly as Charlie and I had talked about and perhaps with a little less breeze might have been a bit more powerful. I was completely in control of Mike’s speed because he would be reluctant to break off and sail to leeward of me because I would give him a heavy dose of bad air, and he could not get his bow up into a clear lane to windward because I was pinching to close off as many options as possible. With the fleet bearing down on our windward hip my only chance was to make a break around the top mark and hopefully get around a couple of the guys right in our group and hopefully put Mike in a position where he could not.

Unfortunately, the windier the conditions, the less effect bad air really has on the Laser fleet. Mike was able to ride my transom wake the rest of the way into the starboard tack layline until he was able to make a break out to leeward and then tack into more of my bad air going into the windward mark. We rounded close behind the fourth and fifth place boats and then the abundance of big waves and clear air on the run allowed Mike to get away and round just ahead of me at the leeward mark. The next four legs of the race were essentially follow-the-leader with me trying to grind down one of the quicker guys in the fleet. Sailing down the last run into the finish, I made a silly error of finishing at the unfavored end of the finish line chasing one last wave and lost Luka and Vasilij the Croatian and Slovinian sailors.

I took 8th in the medal race and 8th overall in the results book for the event. I have to admit that I’m happy with the level of execution of a lot of details throughout the week. My goal from the outset was to bring in a coach that could help me with ensuring that my decision-making process was sound and that my execution was on a level where I could give myself a chance to win a medal late into the series. I was in second place in the standings with four races left in the series. Three mistaken beats in three races in Gold fleet, and one medal race with mixed levels of execution are overshadowed in my mind by eleven of the twelve other races being solid efforts.

Full results and photos: http://www.deltalloydregatta.org/

GPS Race-Tracking for Medal Race: http://spectator.sport-track.com/

The GPS track is very cool, but unfortunately Mike and a couple of the other sailors didn’t have the devices on their boats so you can’t see the cat and mouse that I was talking about. You can see the first stretch off the starting line where Xavier (ESP) and I drag raced out to the left-hand side of the course, etc. Enjoy!

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