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Travel
You are looking at posts in the category Travel.
New Sponsor Announced: Go Raise Green
May 4th, 2010 in Travel, Training, General.
After a serious amount of European driving I made it to Lake Garda Monday with the boat and met our two other American boats, our training partners. Brad and I made it out for a shakedown sail today after spending the morning rigging in steady rain. When we drove in yesterday there was no wind at all, but we woke up this morning to 25 knots and chilly weather. We sailed in 15-18 knots for about an hour to stretch in the new rig. This is a fantastic place for boat racing. Even in the chilly rain the lake surpasses all expectations I had for it. I’m looking forward to a week of training here.
This week also marks the announcement of a new partnership with Go Raise Green (www.goraisegreen.com), a company that supports fundraising efforts and event promotion through sustainable products. Look out for these guys at fundraisers and regattas in the future, I’m really psyched to be involved with Go Raise Green. I’m confident that their focus on sustainability can make an imact on how regatta, clinic, and sailing program organizers approach their outreach and event planning.
More to come from Lake Garda at www.CampbellSailing.com.
On the Road, Again.
March 1st, 2010 in Travel, General.
The snow is melting slowly off the DC streets, just in time for me to hustle back to the airport and head out for the next event: Melges 32 sailing with Team Ninkasi at the 2010 Acura Miami Race Week immediately followed by Bacardi Cup in the Star boat.
It’s be hectic couple of months to start the year. With the trip to Rio seeming distant, I will have been to Rio for the Worlds, Miami for Rolex OCR, an Audi Melges 20 event and Newport Harbor YC for a speaking event. Next week Acura and Bacardi are back in Miami, then I’ll be home for just more than a week before heading west again to Colorado Springs for a USSTAG training camp, immediately followed by Congressional Cup.
The schedule is starting to fill up nicely, but there’s always more racing on the horizon.
Practice Race in Rio today
November 25th, 2009 in Travel, Training, Regattas.
We sailed the practice race today before the South American Championships starts tomorrow sailed out of the ICRJ (Iate Clube do Rio de Janeiro). Brad and I put up the new jib today to make sure it was all set to go. The distance to the race course sails literally in the shadow of Sugar Loaf mountain towering a thousand feet above the bay. Once we get through the massive wind shadows, we turn right out the harbor entrance into six foot ground swell and a funneled 15 knots of breeze. The next 3 miles upwind to the racing area the wind dissipates and steadies to an average 6-10 knots, loading and unloading as the swells pick us up and put us down.
We tuned on the way out to the course to day with Robert Scheidt and Mark Mendelblatt. Brad and I are slowly working the kinks out of the P Star, but were certainly happy with the speed around the course. We started the practice race three boats up from the pin and unfortunately led around the first windward mark and the first leeward before we turned back to the harbor (it is, after all, bad luck to win the practice race). The sail in and out
First race starts tomorrow at 1330. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Memo from Medemblik: May 26, Back to Normal Holland Conditions
May 26th, 2009 in Travel, Training, Regattas.
Conditions deteriorated, and returned to normal here in Holland. Lighting, thunder, and rain lasted through the night and today we were greeted by the elements we expected from Spa regattas past. Wind, rain, and more wind are in the forecast for this week, starting today. We had 15-25 knots as rain squalls went overhead for our final tuneup before racing starts tomorrow. Here’s what a half-hour of practice can do:
Before:
After a few practice gybes:
Registration is a bureaucratic mess as usual. Every regatta has its tricks. Some events measure sails, others just stamp them, some don’t even bother. Some events check for proof of insurance, others couldn’t care less. The trick at Holland regatta is that you can’t pay the entry fee by credit card, only with cash in hand on the morning before the regatta starts. For the starboat sailors we have to weigh in at some point before the event, but the trick in Holland is that we can only check weight between 7-8 pm the night before the regatta or 8-9 am on the morning of. Let’s just say that there are plenty of grumpy star teams going without lunch today waiting for that evening weigh-in.
Regatta Website: deltalloydregatta.org/2009
More CampbellSailing.com Videos: YouTube.com/campbellsailing
Memo from Medemblik
May 24th, 2009 in Travel, Training, Regattas.
There are few other experiences like loading boats in a strange country after walking off an airplane after a sleepless redeye. The eight hour flight between Washington and Amsterdam was shortened by a tailwind effectively shortening my night’s sleep. But, when we walked out of the doors of the airport bracing for the typical Dutch May conditions (51 and raining) we were instead greeted by cloudless skies and temperatures near 70 degrees. My crew Brad Nichol arrived a few hours after I did, so with some logistical magic, I and 470 sailors Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving hopped in a rental car and met Trevor Moore, a 49er buddy of ours already in Europe and pulled my borrowed Star and the girls’ 470 out of storage. They started the hour-long trek to Medemblik and I ran back to the airport to grab Brad and Mark Ivey who will coach the 470s this week. Sound complicated? Now try it with only a couple hours of sleep. After an afternoon of rigging I could barely keep my eyes open, so we went to get some food* and off to bed. *Please note: normal habits in my new class, the starboat are to “get some food” before everything, and often times after as well.
Today we went sailing for a couple of hours. When we first went out on the water, we managed to break the forestay under the foredeck. The thing made a bang so loud you thought somebody had been shot. Thank goodness the breeze hadn’t filled in completely so the jib cloth took the load and kept our mast up as we limped back to the dock for some quick repairs. As soon as we hit the dock we started the re-rig process, scrambled for the right pieces, wire and tools, and got to work. We got a new forestay rigged in an hour or two and went back out on the water (after lunch of course), only to head out and hear the moaning and groaning of the new forestay trying to pull out of its crimp. Tomorrow’s project: permanently solving the forestay issue so that the week goes without any trouble.
More to come from Medemblik and the Delta Lloyd Holland Regatta 2009
Laser Worlds 2008 Final Report
February 14th, 2008 in Travel, Regattas.
The final day of racing in Terrigal was called off due to rough weather and a passing system. “The ducks [power boats] never would have been able to survive mcuh less set a course,” said one of the volunteers regarding the increased swell and 20-25 knot breezes. The weather was probably raceable, but just not practical for the race committee. With the local atop the leaderboard I’m sure that the decision was not difficult to make. Jokes aside, the conditions were marginal at best and unfortunately, that’s boatracing.It is a bit irksome that we’ve had two of the last three Laser Worlds in locations where racing was often unsuitable due to overpowering seastates. Jeju, Korea turned to a complete bust for both the Standard and Master’s worlds and this year saw nearly two day’s worth of racing canceled because of too much weather as opposed to the more common problem of not enough breeze. Next summer (2009) in Canada will most likely be a shift back to a slightly more protected racing area, although the NA’s we sailed there in 2006 were almost called off halfway through because of a strong tropical depression blowing through.Terrgial was a good place to have us in reality. The people were fantastically hospitable. The volunteer group was more than ample. The cricket pitch was soggy but good for our size of fleet. Unfortunately the mooring situation was lacking (we had a coach or RC boat washed ashore each of the first three days of the regatta). But the rugby club that we used as a facility was a decent and dry place to cower under during the rain and lightning, as well as the hot antipodean sun. At least three lasers were written off during the training and racing period in the point break very near the launching beach, but mostly due to operator error rather than unsafe location. The sailing was largely outstanding with more than two thirds of the days seeing between 8-18 knots with a large variety of seastate. Australia has gotten expensive as the US dollar has weakened, but it was not a bank-breaker worlds like it can be. With a $1500 entry and additional charter fee, the even is exclusively expensive to very committed individuals and olympic campaigners anyway.To have finished 29th is by no means a dissappointment for me. Unfortunately it is exactly the same place as I finished last year and I would have very much liked to improve on that score. My ranking has improved to 19 and that was certainly my goal, but having been a relatively breezy regatta I cannot say I’m unhappy with the performance. The first day of Gold fleet I had the fourth best day of the fleet. Obviously there are areas I am looking forward to improving on, and luckily there are still six months to go before the Games. I think what it proves is indeed how difficult the Laser worlds can be and how if the US can put two guys in the top 30… and I have to publicly congratulate my buddy Brad Funk for having a phenomenal finish inside the top ten… we are certainly warranting some full-time US Sailing Team attention. Having Brett Davis down here to help the US squad for the week of the regatta was a great help and an important part of all of our sailing well, but the training leading into the events are really where the gains are made. To be taken seriously at the top level is no easy task. The Youth Devlopment squad sailors here had a rough time with the sailing and its not getting easier. This is my fifth Laser worlds since 2001 when I was 17 and the same age as the young guys coming into this regatta from the US. The training and US team coaching I was able to take advantage of paid huge dividends down the road, and I must admit that I have never finished outside of the top 65 largely because of the standard of sailing that I was exposed to as a young sailor. I look forward to having that attention reappear when I go to Europe next month. There needs to be a way to bridge the gap between the youth years and the Olympic Team.For this week’s forthcoming Monday Morning Tactician I’ll publish some of the lessons I’ve learned from this worlds and others and hopefully offer some insight on how to better prepare yourself for such an endeavor.——–www.CampbellSailing.com is written by Andrew Campbell