Day 5 of Euros

After a refreshing break from the Baltic Sea norm with the passing cold front, today brought back the heat and light winds. We sailed two races in a light and rather steady, onshore 3-6 knots in some solid chop.

In both races, we were unable to have as much fortune on the starting line as the previous day leaving us to try and work our way back through the fleet. We were quite unfortunate in the start of the first one as we had good positioning right near the favored pin and left side of the course; however, the three boats that were OCS happened to be the 3 boats just to leeward of us. AHH! With no lane, and minimal wind shifts, our windward leg was mediocre. But after a good downwind and a very nice second beat we were able to pass 8-10 boats by the finish.

The second one saw us have a similar poor start and windward mark rounding, but a really good second upwind saw us again move our way through the fleet to 10th from 20th at the first mark.

Consensus on day:
- Speed was good most of time, just occasionally we were having problems, possibly due to big chop
- When breeze was a steady as it was, an emphasis is definitely put on starting!
- Our light wind tacks have improved significantly as we now have a mini roll to quickly get the boat back up to speed.
- Twice we were able to recover from a poor windward mark rounding, and turn a poor result into a respectable one.

One more day than the boat and Jesse head to England – 20hrs of driving to be broken up by a world cup match! Zander stays in Poland to coach Chris Barnard (Newport Beach, CA) at the Laser Jr. European Championships in Gdynia (July 18-25).

-Jesse

Day 4 and more breeze!

day 4 racing in Bronze Fleet
12-17kt with BIG chop
Another great day of breeze practice.
Almost was not to be because the port main shroud popped out of the turnbuckle heading out, but we saved it before it went bad. Good thing it happened as we were leaving the beach!

We had great starts, good upwind speed in the breeze, but suffered with some boat handling issues in the waves. It was especially hard off the wind, where the boat would jump off waves and then land in the next set of waves, leaving you at risk to pitch poles...As the afternoon wore on, we seemed to slowly figure out how to stay upright. It is a case of getting real low and back on the wings and being smart with your spinnaker and main trim. More practice for sure is needed! It is quite a sight though, to see your boat cartwheel away from you on the run! Yep, these boats are light and don't like it when their bow is stuffed in the water! In fact, on one of the pitchpoles in the 1st race, the kite loaded up so much that the halyard cover ripped at the cleat, exposing the spectra core - not fun for handling! That made for fun hoists and doses for the rest of the day!

At the end of the day, we also realized why we were not pointing and going fast when the breeze dropped out a bit. It was our jib leads, too far outboard and depowered for that choppy 12-15kts. We needed them in, with an eased sheet to give us some twist. we had the opposite, it is amazing we still got an 8th in that last race with that setting! It was so frustrating in the race, but at least we diagnosed it and can move forward. We were winning that last race after a great start at the pin!

Learning a ton. still 2 more days of racing.
yes we are tired and exhausted, but this is what it is all about!

-Zander

Day 3 and Kiel tent confessional after long day of racing

Photo of our start, too bad the angle is not great, but it is clear we are punched on that windward boat and we were good on the boat to leeward as well. We were 2/3 of the way from the pin, front row heading to the 1st lefty! You can see carnage in the background...don't worry we had our fair sure at later junctures.

Euros here in Gdynia was full on breeze today! We had 15-25kts, blowing hard offshore, some of the most breeze we have ever sailed in. Not going to go into it too much because it is very similar to yesterday in terms of what we learned and what we need to work on. In the end it is about time in the boat in this much breeze and we know that and we are going to work on it.

Needless to see, we are physically spent and mentally trying to keep our chin up. It was hard for everyone today, let alone us, who have 2-3 days of sailing in breeze since Miami in January! We did have a great start in the first one, up with all the top guys, but lost our lane after a 30 degree header sent us into the water for a dip! oh well! The race wasn't lost yet, for we were still up there until some obnoxious Italians took room on us at a hairy leeward mark rounding and forced us to flip. Thanks guys, I hope it was worth it.

For your entertainment, I am going to post my audio recording after a windy day of racing at Kiel to let you know how I feel after one of these days. It is really takes alot out of both of us, especially when we start swimming! And you can only imagine hoisting a giant, wet spinnaker!



We live to fight another day...3 more days of racing in bronze fleet.

Europeans Day 2

Gdynia showed her more Baltic face today, with a stormy, rain driven, 12-20kt breeze blowing right off the town. The direction made for big shifts, big blasts and relatively flat water: pretty much prime 49er sailing! For us, given our lack of breeze training, we always knew conditions like these would be challenging, but we were eager to head out and get practice with such world class competition.

To make the day even more difficult, the race committee decided to go for 4 races today because of the dubious long-term weather forecast, which made today our longest day of racing to date! We did 4 three lap races which each took roughly 40 mins each. Lets break that down from a boat handling perspective, that is: 12 spinnaker sets, 12 bear-aways, 8 douses (one of the hardest things to do in a 49er), roughly 48 gybes, and over 55 tacks. Great practice, but it takes a lot out of you, especially when you have not been doing these maneuvers much recently! We only flipped once during racing and that was in the last race in one of our final gybes in heavy traffic at the leeward gate.

Highlights from today:
- Had a couple of decent starts, our acceleration off the line is improving and we are moving closer to consistently getting off the line, full powered up.
- Hit a few shifts around boats. Its not rocket science out there, the top boats miss shifts and you can hang with them sometimes even if they are a little faster and more polished
- More comfortable getting low(powered up) and locked in the downwinds when breeze on
- All around great practice for us between going through the motions of tacks,gybes, roundings to tactics both up and downwind

Need to improve on:
-Tacks/Gybes in pressurized situations
-Laylines off the wind(this becomes very difficult when a 20kt puff hits after a initial 12kts and you have to fall off an extra 20 degrees and no longer lay the leeward mark. Add in some boats coming upwind and it gets a little hairy)
-Cutting losses (if we make a mistake, being able to recover and minimize the compounding of the loss).

Definitely an early night tonight, and with the forecast more of the same, we will need our rest. Hopefully we will be able to make some gains from our experiences today for tomorrows racing.

European Champs Day 1

The Battle in Gdynia begins...

Day one of the European Championships was held in a steady, hot 4-9 knot "sea breeze” (I guess the Baltic is a Sea?). With all the organizers steadfast in providing an up-close visual of 49er racing to the city of Gydnia, our course(Alpha) was tucked right up next to the breakwater, this made the racing that much more tricky as a pretty serious chop was prevalent throughout the day. The other course, “Bravo” was a little further along the coast.

Now, onto the racing., the race committee split the 90 boat fleet in two, making for two large 45 boat fleets(the biggest fleet we have raced in to-date). In the first race, with the starting line bias towards the committee boat, we were battling near the boat, and with great positioning on the line with 25 seconds got swallowed by the pre-start muddle and had a poor start. After a predictably mediocre first beat, we were able to put together two good legs, playing laylines and some shifts leaving us in with a respectable race in the 30s.

Following our first race start, we were eager to put ourselves in a better position for the next race. And we did not disappoint! With the boat still favored, we managed to have our best start to-date. What an amazing feeling.! After 4 min off the line, we were still on starboard, holding our lane with a Danish, a German and the Italians (Siabello brothers). We fell from the top 5 to 10th near the windward mark as FRA4 slammed us perfectly leaving us to tack two more times to clear out lane. After a relatively uneventful downwind(maybe lost one boat), our second beat saw us round in a decent position and with a good breeze (comparatively), however, we missed a good chance on a lane and were forced too far left. Definitely frustrating, but we were able to minimize loss following our mistake and finished in the low 20s we believe.



In the final race of the day, with decent positioning about midway down the line, we were unable to hold our lane on starboard(Siabello Brothers are a little fast…), but we managed to find a good lane on port and get locked in. After coming back from the right on a good righty with a Canadian, we failed to recognize the priorities of “large fleet, Sea breeze style 49er sailing”, and crossed the middle too early. And to make matters a lot more worst, near the windward mark, on the port layline, a few boats who committed to gybe setting fouled us(maybe 3?), and completely stopped us in the water. We then just hit the windward market, and before we knew it, we were last. We managed to pick off a few boats, but were very disappointed to end on that note.

Consensus on the day: Having such a large fleet definitely changes the game from your average 20-25 boat fleet as there is much more chaos and clutter around the course. Oh, and what a battle starting is! With 45 boats each vying for a front row position, it becomes a serious fight to gain that nice spot on the line. And not surprising, we had three general recalls on the day. Our speed was pretty good, not great, but definitely in the ballpark. Tactically with such a large fleet, unless you’re in the top 5, finding a lane and maximizing your full speed look is essential to decent performances both upwind and downwind. The middle of the course is death (as we found out the hard way in the final race).

So after another long day in the heat and a sun that hardly ever sets we recuperate. Hoping tomorrow we get out of the gate in more than a race, and put together some tactically smart races(boat handling aside…)

Regardless we are excited to be able to be “racing” in a world class fleet and will look to continue putting all these lessons to work as the regatta unfolds.

Poland Training with video clip

Update from Gdynia, Poland

We have been in Poland for the past 8 days training in advance of next week's European Championship. It has been generally hot with a light to moderate sea breeze developing each afternoon. We had a few days where we were in the foot-straps ripping downwind, but most of the training has been focused on keeping the boat steady in nasty chop. We have been sailing near a big sea wall, which has made for a tricky, confused wave state. The breeze has also been in the marginal double trapping territory, so it has put a huge premium on Jess and I working together to keep her balanced. Anyways after 6 sessions in these conditions, we are starting to feel more comfortable in it. Jesse and I feel our comfort level in the boat has just recently surpassed where we were in Miami in January.

We are also happy with our rig set up for these conditions, yesterday in practice races, we were holding our lane and having great winward mark roundings. This has been pretty rare for us to date, so this was a big deal. A small victory, but a good morale booster. We know this European fleet (90 boats) will be DEEP and we have tons to improve on, but we like where the trend is going...We just try and keep it one session at a time and try not to get too frustrated when our boat handling lets us down. Consistency in the boat haunts us from putting together a complete great race, but we are working towards one and we look forward to making it happen!

We had a good mini clinic with a top British Coach over the past few days and he was very encouraging and knowledgeable. His insights were helpful and his camera footage of us was cool (it is amazing how different it looks on camera).

Below is some video (we are just figuring out the camera and the editing process, it also shows how far we have to go...I swear we did some better tacks and gybes that were not on camera!) he took of us:

Racing begins on Monday and runs until Saturday. Our goal is to make silver fleet (top 2/3) and to have moments up at the front of the fleet. So in the qualifying races (33 boats per start), we are looking for consistent finishes in the teens. We want to keep on working on our starting acceleration and then escape in the front of the fleet with a nice lane! Forecast looks like more medium breeze, but it seems no one really knows what the breeze is going to do. We will keep our head of the boat as best we can and try to put together some great races.

-Zander

Final Day of Kiel

The final day of Kiel again brought light and fickle winds and after a few hours of postponement we were able to get off two races. When racing was all said and done we scored a 31 and a 24. It was definitely one of the more frustrating days racing as our boat handling coupled with a few critical tactical mistakes cost us big.

In the first race, with the pin clearly favored, we chose to start just to windward of the clutter and had a great start with good speed. Unfortunately, we misjudged a cross as we attempted to port tack the half of the fleet nearest to the boat and had to tack back to starboard where we still had an ok lane and were able to round the windward in the top 12- if only we had made the cross! With more time in the boat, we will be better at judging crosses and have quicker tacks, but nonetheless frustrating.Well, here comes the most trying part of the day. As we rounded the windward, the fleet was very, very condensed with many boats locking rails etc. To avoid all the commotion with other boats we decided for a quick gybe over onto port. What a mistake that was. The breeze shifted left in a PERSISTENT SHIFT and we got owned. To exacerbate the mistake, we chose to round the less crowded gate, but having it be so unflavored left us in poor shape. Verdict- though we had a great start, and good positioning on the fleet, a few critical mistakes can cost you ALOT.

Having tried to clear our heads after the first race, we decided on a very similar tactic of starting to the first race, though slightly closer to the pin. We again had a good positioning, but our acceleration wasn’t quite solid enough, and were unable to hold our lane. As we approached the windward in a largely left favored course, again the fleet was ridiculously condensed and we were unable to have a good tack onto the starboard layline. This set into motion an awfully painful rounding, and though we had a good final downwind, we were unable to feel satisfied on the day.

Knew it wasn’t going to be easy coming right to an event following our time off this spring, and Kiel didn’t disappoint! So, onto Poland for a couple weeks of training before the Europeans. Hopefully we can continue to shake off the rust of the last few months and start to feel more comfortable sailing the boat and with other boats around us.