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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… (more…)
Light Air for Day Two of Holland Regatta
May 22nd, 2008 in Regattas.
Three more races took place on the Laser circle today here off Medemblik. Light air was the dominant factor for today’s sailing. Never really getting above seven or eight knots, we never spent much time in the hiking straps and were instead subjected to a mental battle trying to find the next shift up the course.
With three decent starts I took a 10, 5, 5 in the three races bumping me up the results page into 5th overall. Thankfully lots of racing left to sail this weekend. With coach Charlie McKee on board for this event we’re looking to put a few more experiments on the table and try and continue the good sailing that we’ve had thus far.
Full results at: http://hollandregatta.org/2008v2/results/
Thanks to my faithful readers for helping me out with the link.
Holland Regatta Three Races on Day One
May 22nd, 2008 in Regattas.
Rarely on our schedule do we end up sailing more than two races a day. Yet, the organizers of Holland’s Grade One event have scheduled us for exactly that for the entire event. Three races per day starting at 1300 hours each day. Yesterday, day one of five we started at two o’clock with about sixty boats split between two qualifying fleets. The sun doesn’t realistically set until well after 9 o’clock thanks to our northern latitude, so starting races at 430 seems like a mid-afternoon affair, and hitting the beach at 615 is no sweat.
We got all three, efficiently started and smartly run races off, each taking almost exactly the target time of 60 minutes to finish. Luckily for the race committee we had a left-trending, but relatively steady 8-12+ knot northeasterly pushing us around the course.
I started off the day with a bang winning the first race and taking a fifth in the second race, taking pin-end starts into impending left shifts and crossing back to the middle to good position within the fleet. The third race was likely my best start of the day, and yet no such lefty made itself available until we were nearly on layline. I hedged my bets and ducked through 8 or 10 boats back to the middle under the port tack layline, but the right-hander that would ultimately dominate the rest of the race was still in its weak filling stages. I managed to catch a few boats on the runs and reaches, but not to get out of the 20s where I initially rounded the first mark. I’m not unhappy with the day though considering the starts and first beats were generally better than the last few events that I’d sailed.
Today we’re scheduled for three more starting at 1300. With an easterly already filled in, I’d imagine we have all three races finished right on schedule, and if not I’m sure we’ll wait until 8pm or dusk (whichever comes first) to sail any remaining races.
Best bet for regatta scores is to link through www.sailing.org
Delta Lloyd Holland Regatta Set to Start
May 20th, 2008 in Regattas.
Medemblik greeted me with an apparently standard Dutch greeting: a rainy, windy, cold slap in the face. The reality of why I have not been to Holland in five years since my first Olympic-circuit Laser regatta hit me as I pulled into the boatpark and the rain started coming down and the temp struggled into the upper fifties. And yet, here I am, ready for action. The sailors are the same and the boatpark is different. The dependability of having good sailing when you show up in Europe is so rare and, in reality the reason that we keep coming back. The regatta here starts tomorrow. Updates will show up here at CampbellSailing.com.
In the meantime check out the recent article in this year’s final edition of Georgetown’s Hoya Newspaper: http://www.thehoya.com/node/16089
Series Ends in the Dark
April 25th, 2008 in Regattas.
Streaky and light seabreezes dominated the final day of racing in Hyeres yesterday. Little did we know that the three hours of on-shore postponement would ultimately lead to us getting off the water at just after 830 pm with the sun settling behind the hills of the Riviera. Because we didn’t get off the dock until about 3 o’clock the day felt quite long. The glare worsened through the afternoon making marks and mark changes difficult to interpret. (more…)
Crazy Day to Start Hyeres Final Series
April 23rd, 2008 in Regattas.
Photo Credit: http://sof.ffvoile.net/ (more…)
Third Day of Hyeres Blown Out
April 22nd, 2008 in Regattas.
Yet another day of breeze greeted us here in Hyeres, (more…)
Hyeres Day Two: What a difference a day makes…
April 21st, 2008 in Regattas.
The rain stopped and the sun came out providing us with a picturesque day of racing today for Hyeres SOF. Southwesterly winds filled across the racecourse starting around 1000 and built to a steady 12-17 knots bearing about 250. The Hyeres peninsula of salt ponds juts out into the Mediterranean making any breeze from any westerly direction offshore and flatwater. Only a short chop was able to pick up under the clear blue skies and great conditions.
The Laser course is tucked quite close under the peninsula with our windward marks only about a quarter mile off the flat coastline. We waited for the Radial women to finish up their two races this morning before we headed out and sailed two of our own starting around one o’clock in the afternoon. With steady wind, there were fewer general recalls than yesterday and we got off with only a few boats on the course side (OCS) of the starts.
Smaller waves enabled me to have better speed off the line and up the first beats today. Compounded by slightly shiftier, brainier conditions I was able to scramble into a couple of top ten-ish finishes today taking a 11, 9. I was never quicker than the top ten or fifteen guys upwind, but I was able to take a couple boats on each of the reaches and runs.
Tomorrow is rumored and forecasted to be quite windy. The debate around many of the boatparks is whether some of the fleets will even venture out to race in more than 25 knots. Of course there isn’t any chatter like that in Laserland, where regardless of how windy it is, I’m sure we’ll be sent out as guinea pigs to see if the more fragile classes might be able to handle it. Tomorrow will be the last day of the qualifying series after which the fleets will be separated into Gold, Silver (and Bronze for the Lasers). I know a couple of people in particular looking to get some more races off to compensate for some shocking scores in yesterday’s sailing. From a training perspective, I’m happy to get as many races in as we can regardless of the conditions. More to come from CampbellSailing.com. Full results at: http://sof.ffvoile.net/results/laser.htm
Wet, Windy and Wavy Day One in Hyeres
April 20th, 2008 in Regattas.
With the sun shining in my eyes this morning I thought that I was dreaming of sunny, warm and moderate conditions. The sky had managed to stay clear of clouds for a full 24 hours. And yet, by the time we started our first race at about 11:45 darkness had reasserted itself and foreboding rain clouds swept across the sailing area. The wind picked up from a delightful 15 knots to an overpowering 18-20. The swell began to generate under a short difficult chop. By the time we started our first race… we were reminded of the fact that we were still in Europe and it was still early spring.
I was in the third fleet of three to start on the Laser course. Several general recalls and black flag starts made for a large number of disappointed sailors as they checked the results pages later after arriving on shore. Oddly and unexpectedly, the race committee decided to send all three fleets on the outer loop of the trapezoid racecourse making mark roundings explosive. I was lucky enough to have a young Italian sailor turn over just in front of me at the first leeward mark of my race. Because I was sailing down a big wave at the time I was forced to try and duck down the extra boatlength to clear his sail at a very high rate of speed and consequently capsized. So there I was, turtled three boatlengths to leeward of the leeward mark contemplating whether it was even worth yelling at the other guy, also capsized for being only slightly more of an idiot that I had been. I was not able to get back in touch with the top ten guys whom I had sailed the first three legs and ended up with my first tough score of the day.
The second start went off in similar fashion and I was not entirely unhappy with my upwind speed against the good guys in the fleet, but I still was nowhere near the front row by the time we made it to the top mark. The conditions were such that the fleet generally sailed off the line on starboard, went for 4 or 5 minutes and then all tacked together hiking like heck for the next 4 or 5 minutes until they got to the top mark. So little brain power gets used on the Laser racecourse it is incredible. I managed to tack a couple more times than the rest of the fleet, say maybe 4 times, and made a couple of decent gains back into the top 12 by the first top mark. After a reach and another beat, I found myself going down the run in decent shape but nothing stellar. When gybing half-way down the run my mainsheet somehow got pinched between the outer block on the boom and the eye that attaches it to the boom. I was sailing down 3- and 4-foot waves in 18 knots with puffs well into the mid 20s with my sail essentially cleated in a severely overtrimmed position. In my violent attempts to get the sheet unstuck the jury boat came zooming up apparently thinking I was attempting to cheat somehow in these monstrous conditions and even went to so far as to question me after the race about the circumstances of my troubles. Realizing that I probably wouldn’t safely get to the gate without fixing the problem I spun up into the wind quickly and undid the pinch losing two boats and a lot of distance by the time I could get back down to the run.
It was a frustrating day today. And in reality could not have gone any worse considering I finished both races, wasn’t over the line and didn’t break anything. While we were getting put away on shore one of my buddies commented: “You think you had it rough, check those guys out,” and pointed to two 49ers under tow entering the harbor. One of the boats had no mast to speak of, both sailors just squatting on the deck of an empty skiff, and the other had a rat’s nest of torn mainsail and shredded spinnaker wrapped more times than you could count around their forestay. All things considered it wasn’t too bad a day, but most things considered I have massive room for improvement. More to come from Hyeres tomorrow. Results at: http://sof.ffvoile.net/results/laser.htm
Hyeres - S.O.F. Ready to Go
April 19th, 2008 in Regattas.
The 40th annual Semaine Olympique Francais is primed and ready to go this Sunday after two weeks of battling Mistral and Easterly winds. The training over the last month has seen extremes of weather with weeks of 25+ offshore Mistral winds blowing cold air off the mountains from the north as well as wet and chilly spring Easterlies that jack up short waves. Both breezes make for challenging and entertaining wind conditions, and it seems as though they will continue through the upcoming regatta. Today, the day before the event’s official start has proven to be marred with almost unsailable patchy seabreeze. Tomorrow could be another buster with rumors of strong easterlies filtering through the boatpark pipeline.
After having spent hours of boat work fixing leaks, re-rigging lines and re-riveting spars to ensure my equipment will hold up for the regatta. As soon as I arrived on the training course two days ago my boom broke into two pieces at the first mainsheet block and I promptly turned downwind for the dock. Because the breeze was in the teens and the waves were up, the snapped aluminum spar was bit dangerous swinging essentially out of control off to leeward. As I neared the harbor entrance I lucked waving a coachboat down and pulled the boat and scratched my head for a while wondering how in the heck I could have broken a piece that I had just fixed, realizing that it was only 5 months old to begin with. So, 350 euros (about $550) later I put a new boom and new top section up yesterday to make sure I was going to last through the SOF.
The last minute details are all falling into place here though, I’ve spent the practice race day ashore sorting coachboat charter and I’ll run to the airport in Nice to pick up my coach flying in for the event. The action is non-stop and I’m excited to try a few of the new techniques developed over the last month as well as start getting a feel for the same boat at slightly lighter bodyweights in anticipation of lighter air in China in August. Please keep up to date for Hyeres here at CampbellSailing.com. I’ll be posting regular daily reports about my humble perspective of the Laser course.�