Thursday, December 10, 2009

'Sled' is ready for Bahamas Shipment on Dec 17th!

Ready to Leave the Cold: Last shot before I left St. Mary's

I drove 'Sled' down the East Coast earlier this week, from St Mary's County back to our Florida Campaign Headquarters - My Uncle Bobby's and Aunt Sharon's home in West Palm Beach. Bobby and Sharon have been so generous letting us set up camp in their beautiful home numerous times. Amazing what 1100 miles of driving will do, I left snow and a bone chilling Northerly in Southern Maryland for the warm Gulf Stream breezes of South Florida. Little shout out to Bob and Sharon's real estate company, Illustrated Properties - If you are looking for a home in the metro Palm Beach area, contact me and I will get you in touch with them!

Final Preparations at Bob and Sharon's before the mission down to Port Everglades

After a final once-over on the boat/trailer rig I drove her down to Ft. Lauderdale to Port Everglades to await transit to Freeport for the World Championships. The boat is shipping out on the 17th and we will be there on the 27th to pick it up on the other side. We are shipping with G&G Shipping, I hope they take care of our Baby and we can get her without too much hassle in the Bahamas.

Locked and Loaded: 'Sled' awaiting to shipped at the G&G Shipping yard

Just a Heads Up on what are Winter Sailing Schedule is looking like:
-Training in Bermuda in the old boat, Dec 16-23
-Fly to Freeport, Bahamas, Dec 27
-Train in Freeport, Dec 28-Jan 2
-World Championships Start, Jan 3-9, http://www.49erworlds.org/
-Fly back to Miami, Jan 10th
-Sail North American Championships, Miami, Jan 15-18
-Train in Miami out of US Sailing Center - Coconut Grove, Jan 19-23
-Sail Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, (OCR), Jan 24-31

We are excited to announce that Zack Maxam, 2-time Runner Up at the US Olympic Trials in the 49er Class will be coaching us before the event and for several days into the event. He is a good buddy of mine and he was worked with us before. He knows many of secrets of the class and has finished in the top 10 at Worlds before! Thanks Zack!

-Zander

Saturday, December 5, 2009

St Mary's Training a Success!





After 7 days of boat work and 7 days of sailing I am bringing 'Sled' down to Florida to put it on a ship for the Bahamas (where the World Championships are in January) next week. In the future, as we become more accustomed to all the nuances in rigging this machine, hopefully we can improve on this 'boat work to sailing ratio'. But for now it is all necessary as we learn how everything works in the boat. The boat held up great in the training and we are excited about getting her up to full speed.

As far as the sailing went, it was perfect for learning the boat as the majority of the breeze was light to moderate. We had a couple days with some solid breeze and what a blast to feel the boat get up and go. Every now and then we nail our wire to wire tacks, but more often than not they are tarnished with imperfections; hopefully with time our consistency will improve. We spent hours working on our light air tacks and gybes and were stoked to feel some improvement over the course of the training. We have been doing our best to cross the boat together during the tacks and only roll enough to almost put the leeward wing in the water.

The other key we have heard to light air sailing in these boats is to keep the weight forward and get the fat transom out of the water as much as possible. Also sailing on a river here, we dealt with alot of puffy conditions, which make the skipper and the crew reactions to these velocity changes paramount to maintaining a balanced, fast boat - Over reacting to a puff can be very SLOW because of all the leeward helm and winward wing dragging. We have found in light air, with Jesse full out, adjusting to puffs, can do most of the boat trim work; It is only with major velocity changes that necessitate me moving forward and in to keep the boat trim in check. Being used to slow boats, we were also shocked at the change in downwind angles due to pressure, you can literally sail through 40 degrees as you deal with velocity headers and lifts - a testament to the apparent wind we are creating!

Below are some pictures that my dad got of us over the Thanksgiving Weekend. It was light, but the weather was very pleasant for the time of year. Thanks to Malcolm for all his work helping our campaign getting off the ground! He has been there since the beginning and his trailer box is awesome! Also thanks to St Mary's Sailing and Adam Werblow for taking care of us and making us feel so welcome; the new boat house is awesome!

-Zander