We have gotten four days of training in a several different conditions since our arrival in Palma. It took a couple days of getting Sled back into race shape after her long hiatus over the winter (and waiting for our rig to arrive from Barcelona), but by Sunday we were out on the Bay off of Palma. What a nice place to sail at with the mountains of Mallorca offering a great background to the turquoise Bermuda-esque waters of the Mediterranean. And weather-wise, we have been very fortunate with temperatures gradually rising since we arrived here.
Sailing-wise, we are shaking off the rust after our break. Everyday we are feeling more and more comfortable in the boat. And sailing in our new boat has certainly helped! The differences (other than being 10 years older) between 646 and 1108 are unbelievable between the stiff wings and hull, the acceleration and the sheer buoyancy of the boat. Our first and foremost goal of this pre-event was to regain our boat balance and boat handling touch. After 4 days in the bag, and a couple more planned, we feel our confidence and form coming back. And with a few more days of training still planned before the event, our boat handling will only improve.
To sum it up, the sailing has been positive thus far. Getting back into this new boat has most certainly been a moral-booster. After an agonizing OCR in our old boat, we are now seeing a fruition of our hard work throughout the Fall. Our speed and boat handling is now comparable to many in the fleet (though there is room for improvement!), which has now enabled us to actually race! And indeed, we have found ourselves time to time in uncharted territory of the fleet with a few good practice races in various conditions.
So after another couple days of practice we will lay low and go over the boat before racing begins Monday. Stay posted!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Spring 2011 Euro-Campaign Kicks off!
We just arrived in Palma, to begin our important 2011 Euro ISAF World Cup campaign, which will be crucial in preparing us for the 2011 World Championships (Olympic Qualifier #1) to be held in the end of the year in Australia. It has been just under 5 weeks since we have last seen a 49er and we both have the itch to get back in the boat. The time away (this will be our biggest break of the year) from the boat has great and the break was strategically planned to avoid burn out problems as this busy year on the circuit cranks up. We were busy during the furlough and were able to inject some balance in our life. We fundraised, painted houses, coached, pursued our other passions (soccer and surfing), caught up with friends and family, and planned for the rest of year. The other cool aspect of all of this was talking to all our friends who were wishing us their best. It really helps us get us psyched up for what we are doing because sometimes when you are immersed in challenges associated with the campaign you can lose site of the big picture and to know that we do have a ton of support is huge. Thank you!
'Seamount Sled', our newish boat, is here and we can't wait to get her rigged up and feel the STIFF boat. One logistical reality is that our rig is in the American container which is still en transit, so we will have to see how that comes together. We have some boat work to do anyways and so hopefully it will not prove to be too big of a hiccup. The Americans were very generous to help us with our rig transportation across the Atlantic, an expensive proposition, so we will have to work around this reality.
We will keep you posted on our progress here as we gear up for the event which starts on the 4th.
-Zander
ps. Jesse capped off his month of soccer with a hat trick in his last game for Robin Hood. His second goal could have been on a sports center highlight clip - a rocket from 20 yds into the lower 90!
'Seamount Sled', our newish boat, is here and we can't wait to get her rigged up and feel the STIFF boat. One logistical reality is that our rig is in the American container which is still en transit, so we will have to see how that comes together. We have some boat work to do anyways and so hopefully it will not prove to be too big of a hiccup. The Americans were very generous to help us with our rig transportation across the Atlantic, an expensive proposition, so we will have to work around this reality.
We will keep you posted on our progress here as we gear up for the event which starts on the 4th.
-Zander
ps. Jesse capped off his month of soccer with a hat trick in his last game for Robin Hood. His second goal could have been on a sports center highlight clip - a rocket from 20 yds into the lower 90!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Capital Reserve replenishment
After 2 months in Miami, sailing full-time, and no work, we have depleted cash reserves and a deep desire to get some money in the bank before we head to Europe on the 20th. What do the Kirkland Bro's do for a quick hustle? Paint! We have had an exterior painting project this week at a friend's house and next week we are doing another friend's roof. Anybody want to join our waiting list for our next project? haha
We have also been doing some Opti coaching when we can, but we really can't wait to get back in the boat in Europe! We have a big spring lined up and are ready to raise the bar.
-Zander
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
New Direction for Olympic Sailing
Found this on the NY times online. 49ers will fit in just fine with this spectator oriented paradigm shift by the IOC...
Olympic Sailing Looks to Go Extreme
Pat Carter/Associated Press
The world’s top Olympic sailors were in South Florida reading wind and waves aboard two-person dinghies, keelboats and windsurfers at the recent Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta.
By CHRIS MUSELER
Published: February 9, 2011
The world’s top Olympic sailors were in South Florida reading wind and waves aboard two-person dinghies, keelboats and windsurfers at the recent Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. The sailing lineup has not really been altered much in the last 20 years.
But that is about to change, and this regatta provided a sneak peek into the sport’s future.
While Olympic medalists were being towed to their courses, kiteboarders skimmed along at twice their speed attached to inflatable kites at the end of 80 feet of razor-thin lines.
A new Olympic slate of classes for 2016, proposed last fall by the International Sailing Federation, or I.S.A.F., has turned the traditional sailing fleet on its head in the hope of attracting young viewers and higher television ratings, creating a sort of X Games for sailing. If men’s and women’s kiteboarding is selected, it will replace windsurfing.
“The Olympics want to promote the most advanced levels of sailing,” said Mike Gebhardt, a two-time Olympic medalist in windsurfing who raced his kiteboard in Miami. “This is high speed, visibly athletic, there are crashes, and you can tell who’s winning. That’s what sells.”
To boost support, the International Kiteboarding Association has been showcasing the fledgling discipline of kiteboard course racing at Olympic class regattas starting with a demonstration at I.S.A.F.’s first sailing World Cup event last December in Melbourne, Australia, and in Miami.
The venerable Star keelboat, in which the sport’s famous America’s Cup and Olympic medalists currently compete, including Brazil’s triple gold medalist and world yachtsman of the year, Torben Grael, is marked for elimination.
“The Star’s best asset is the sailors,” the two-time Star gold medalist Mark Reynolds said. “It represents the best of the sport with medalists from other classes racing.”
Additionally, two coed events being proposed would shift the gender split for Olympic sailing from nine men and seven women per national team to seven men and nine women.
“I.S.A.F. is on the right track to elevate the sport to a high standard,” said Gary Jobson, president of US Sailing and an ESPN and NBC sailing commentator. “Young people want action and excitement, like the X Games and slopestyle skiing.”
Jobson filmed the Miami event and said in a phone interview that it was time for an image change away from the coat and tie yachtsman.
Mandates by the International Olympic Committee have all Olympic sports re-evaluating the marketability of their events.
“The I.O.C. has moved from using a quantitative list to select events to an overall value-added selection process,” Christophe Dubi, sports director for the I.O.C. since 2008, said recently in a phone interview. “The criteria could be provenance or universality. It’s an issue of maximizing the platform we offer at the Olympics.”
Countries have until the I.S.A.F. May meeting to issue counterproposals for the 2016 slate but must offer full slates, as opposed to singling out one class for elimination or inclusion.
“Archery is a good example of a sport that is adapting,” Dubi said.
After consulting with officials from NBC and the I.O.C., Dubi said, “the format was made more compact and easier to understand in the final stages.”
“It has become one of our biggest TV products,” Dubi said.
He also pointed to the modern pentathlon, saying that combining running and shooting increased the ratings of the event.
Dubi said that sailing’s proposed slate of events was a good step forward but that the sport was still difficult to understand.
“Our most exciting images of the Games are from sailing,” Dubi said. “Your stadium is the water and I.S.A.F. is working on making this more spectator-friendly. This is what everyone should be doing.”
Dubi said sailing was in no risk of losing its place at the Olympics.
I.S.A.F. has long been challenged to make what is inherently a participatory sport a spectator sport, said the federation’s secretary, Jerome Pels, adding that the boats used are just as important to broadening appeal as how the sport is covered.
Left on the proposed slate are two men’s one-person classes, the Laser and Finn; the one-person women’s Laser Radial; the men’s 49er skiff; the women’s match racing in the Elliot 6 meter; and a new coed multihull event.
“There is a concern that new events like kiteboarding will be considered unfair,” Pels said. “Skiing’s snowboardcross came very much out of sports marketing and garnered huge popularity in Vancouver. You can come up with something a bit out of the box but stumble upon something very attractive.”
Changes to make sailing more understandable and television friendly were implemented for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Pels said. The new RSX windsurfer is now the fastest class. The advent of on-water umpiring lets the results stand on the field of play and the new Medal Race format makes it such that the gold medal is more often than not determined in the double-points last race. In the past, the event could have been won before the last day of competition or the results could have been unknown until an off-the-water jury heard protests.
I.S.A.F. has also been working with the newly revamped America’s Cup, which will use high-speed catamarans for the 2013 Cup to help make a more marketable television package.
“If we can marry technology with the compelling nature of the sport, that will make people start paying attention,” said Richard Worth, chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority and a former marketer for the Union of European Football Associations, which is responsible for the steady rise in popularity of European soccer.
The A.C.E.A. and Stan Honey, the recent United States yachtsman of the year and co-inventor of the digital first-down line and line of scrimmage in football, are testing over the next month GPS technology overlay for live helicopter views of sailboat racing. This will show the viewer what is happening and who is winning at all times.
Beyond technology, Gebhardt believes Olympic sailing needs to be simple and exciting.
“People need to be updated and educated as they watch,” he said. “Right now kites are the fastest sailing craft on the planet: 55 knots. People will get it.”
The RSX windsurfers and Star sailors may have seen their future Olympic dreams fade as Gebhardt went skimming by in Miami. But Jobson believes at least the windsurfers’ future is safe, for now.
“Kiteboarding is a new thing,” he said. “At best it is an exhibition like windsurfing was at the 1984 Games in Long Beach. The Star has been around for 100 years. It has had a good run. Advancing is part of the Olympic spirit.”
Olympic Sailing Looks to Go Extreme
Pat Carter/Associated Press
The world’s top Olympic sailors were in South Florida reading wind and waves aboard two-person dinghies, keelboats and windsurfers at the recent Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta.
By CHRIS MUSELER
Published: February 9, 2011
The world’s top Olympic sailors were in South Florida reading wind and waves aboard two-person dinghies, keelboats and windsurfers at the recent Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta. The sailing lineup has not really been altered much in the last 20 years.
But that is about to change, and this regatta provided a sneak peek into the sport’s future.
While Olympic medalists were being towed to their courses, kiteboarders skimmed along at twice their speed attached to inflatable kites at the end of 80 feet of razor-thin lines.
A new Olympic slate of classes for 2016, proposed last fall by the International Sailing Federation, or I.S.A.F., has turned the traditional sailing fleet on its head in the hope of attracting young viewers and higher television ratings, creating a sort of X Games for sailing. If men’s and women’s kiteboarding is selected, it will replace windsurfing.
“The Olympics want to promote the most advanced levels of sailing,” said Mike Gebhardt, a two-time Olympic medalist in windsurfing who raced his kiteboard in Miami. “This is high speed, visibly athletic, there are crashes, and you can tell who’s winning. That’s what sells.”
To boost support, the International Kiteboarding Association has been showcasing the fledgling discipline of kiteboard course racing at Olympic class regattas starting with a demonstration at I.S.A.F.’s first sailing World Cup event last December in Melbourne, Australia, and in Miami.
The venerable Star keelboat, in which the sport’s famous America’s Cup and Olympic medalists currently compete, including Brazil’s triple gold medalist and world yachtsman of the year, Torben Grael, is marked for elimination.
“The Star’s best asset is the sailors,” the two-time Star gold medalist Mark Reynolds said. “It represents the best of the sport with medalists from other classes racing.”
Additionally, two coed events being proposed would shift the gender split for Olympic sailing from nine men and seven women per national team to seven men and nine women.
“I.S.A.F. is on the right track to elevate the sport to a high standard,” said Gary Jobson, president of US Sailing and an ESPN and NBC sailing commentator. “Young people want action and excitement, like the X Games and slopestyle skiing.”
Jobson filmed the Miami event and said in a phone interview that it was time for an image change away from the coat and tie yachtsman.
Mandates by the International Olympic Committee have all Olympic sports re-evaluating the marketability of their events.
“The I.O.C. has moved from using a quantitative list to select events to an overall value-added selection process,” Christophe Dubi, sports director for the I.O.C. since 2008, said recently in a phone interview. “The criteria could be provenance or universality. It’s an issue of maximizing the platform we offer at the Olympics.”
Countries have until the I.S.A.F. May meeting to issue counterproposals for the 2016 slate but must offer full slates, as opposed to singling out one class for elimination or inclusion.
“Archery is a good example of a sport that is adapting,” Dubi said.
After consulting with officials from NBC and the I.O.C., Dubi said, “the format was made more compact and easier to understand in the final stages.”
“It has become one of our biggest TV products,” Dubi said.
He also pointed to the modern pentathlon, saying that combining running and shooting increased the ratings of the event.
Dubi said that sailing’s proposed slate of events was a good step forward but that the sport was still difficult to understand.
“Our most exciting images of the Games are from sailing,” Dubi said. “Your stadium is the water and I.S.A.F. is working on making this more spectator-friendly. This is what everyone should be doing.”
Dubi said sailing was in no risk of losing its place at the Olympics.
I.S.A.F. has long been challenged to make what is inherently a participatory sport a spectator sport, said the federation’s secretary, Jerome Pels, adding that the boats used are just as important to broadening appeal as how the sport is covered.
Left on the proposed slate are two men’s one-person classes, the Laser and Finn; the one-person women’s Laser Radial; the men’s 49er skiff; the women’s match racing in the Elliot 6 meter; and a new coed multihull event.
“There is a concern that new events like kiteboarding will be considered unfair,” Pels said. “Skiing’s snowboardcross came very much out of sports marketing and garnered huge popularity in Vancouver. You can come up with something a bit out of the box but stumble upon something very attractive.”
Changes to make sailing more understandable and television friendly were implemented for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Pels said. The new RSX windsurfer is now the fastest class. The advent of on-water umpiring lets the results stand on the field of play and the new Medal Race format makes it such that the gold medal is more often than not determined in the double-points last race. In the past, the event could have been won before the last day of competition or the results could have been unknown until an off-the-water jury heard protests.
I.S.A.F. has also been working with the newly revamped America’s Cup, which will use high-speed catamarans for the 2013 Cup to help make a more marketable television package.
“If we can marry technology with the compelling nature of the sport, that will make people start paying attention,” said Richard Worth, chairman of the America’s Cup Event Authority and a former marketer for the Union of European Football Associations, which is responsible for the steady rise in popularity of European soccer.
The A.C.E.A. and Stan Honey, the recent United States yachtsman of the year and co-inventor of the digital first-down line and line of scrimmage in football, are testing over the next month GPS technology overlay for live helicopter views of sailboat racing. This will show the viewer what is happening and who is winning at all times.
Beyond technology, Gebhardt believes Olympic sailing needs to be simple and exciting.
“People need to be updated and educated as they watch,” he said. “Right now kites are the fastest sailing craft on the planet: 55 knots. People will get it.”
The RSX windsurfers and Star sailors may have seen their future Olympic dreams fade as Gebhardt went skimming by in Miami. But Jobson believes at least the windsurfers’ future is safe, for now.
“Kiteboarding is a new thing,” he said. “At best it is an exhibition like windsurfing was at the 1984 Games in Long Beach. The Star has been around for 100 years. It has had a good run. Advancing is part of the Olympic spirit.”
Friday, January 28, 2011
OCR wrap up
The regatta is over and now time to reflect on the past five days. We had 4-14kt Northwester to finish things off today, which was extremely shifty as the puffs dropped down from the Miami Skyline. Ask Jesse and I our favorite conditions to race a sailboat in and these would probably be them; fun shifts to keep us on our toes and still enough breeze to be moving along nicely. No one side is favored, no pre-race strategy other than keep your head out of the boat and stay in phase!
We had a pretty good day going before the last start...a 10th in the 1st one and a 12th in the second one is pretty much all we can ask from ol' Murphy (3rd oldest boat in 29 boat fleet). She is soft, has trouble accelerating in puffs and feels lower in the water than a normal boat. Not to mention the deck is soft and the wings sag (doesn't make boat handling any easier!).
We look back on that first race and we pretty much sailed a great race. We got off the line, had a lane in the first shift and stayed in phase to the top. Erik/Trevor won the race and they were with us (behind us for the 1st half of the beat) on the left and were able to boatspeed around us as we hitched up the left middle. We rounded in 12th then had a great downwind by holding starboard gybe and sailing into nice pressure and were in 8th at the leeward gate - we even passed a two Brits! We held on the second beat by connecting the puffs and then hitting the left winder at the top. The breeze got a little lighter and flukier on the final run and we lost two top boats (a Brit and the top Canadian) who seemed to carry better speed than us. Still it was a great race, where we interacted with many of 'the players' in the regatta.
The 10th does not give it justice at all, in fact, it helps to make our point that we are in a slow boat, for even in shifty, flatwater conditions (speed should be largely trumped by angle and pressure), where we sailed very well, a 10th was all we could manage. Not being able to accelerate when the puffs came down was critical. I feel bad for blaming alot of this on the boat, but it really did feel/seem that different than the newer boats. 10 years is close to a lifetime in the fast paced 49er and far too old to ask it to be competitive with a new boat. But in the end we will have to wait for the next World Cup Event in Palma, where we are sailing our new boat to showcase our point. This is good because it will be more competitive and deeper and we will need to be maximizing our potential to finish where we want to.
The 12th was also a good race, where after falling behind because of a large left shift early on (we were stuck in the middle doing 4 while the boats who hit the left were doing 9), we rallied by staying in phase and ended up having our second best race in the event.
Going into the last race, we were feeling good and confident that we had one more good race in us, to cap the event off. The points were all close and 15th was in striking distance. We knew we wanted the left and so a pin start was decided. Everything was going to plan until the final 8 secs, when we released too early and were OCS and hit the starting pin. After the spinning and clearing ourselves, we were DEEP (couple hundred yards behind), but we didn't give up and fought our way back to a semi-respectable 17th place. This was a frustrating way to end the event because we seemed to have the conditions dialed in and the error was completely unforced. We were happy with our rig setting all day and will save that for similar conditions.
Overall Regatta Overview:
- It was both a blessing and a curse to sail that newer boat a week before the event, for it was great to see what we could do after all this training against our training partners when we were into a similar boat, but at the same time it made it that much tougher to jump back into 646 for the regatta. It's all good though because that speed we had in the other boat has given us an inner strength to get through these tough times.
- Jesse and I, both economists by degree and avid followers of the market, see our campaign at the moment, in traderspeak, as a 'great buy'. There is tons of upside potential because the numbers (OCR results) don't give our sailing its fair market value. That is fine for us and our supporters who can trade on this insider information and be well positioned to the future. Please hold the faith, we have not had more confidence in our mission for London 2012, even as we come off one of the more disappointing weeks of sailing...
- The most exciting part of this week, was seeing our training partners (who we have sailed for months together in Miami and California), in new boats, excel in the event. Alex Bishop/Val Smith are in 8th, The Mexican Bro's are in 10th and Johnny and Charlie finished 11th. This shows the guys we spar with everyday are some of the faster teams out there.
- If we could do it again, we would have bought the new rig earlier because it took some days to stretch the shrouds (during racing in the first couple of days, the bend was off) and get used to the newest mast. Initially, we wanted to wait until Europe to buy the new rig, but when it became apparent that the old rig was not going to be reliable, we had to opt for the last minute purchase (and we are thankful we did!). It was different (a good thing) than our old one and took a little adjusting to, which may not have been the greatest for this event, but in the long-run was the right move. We look forward to putting it up on 1108 in Palma in March!
- A constant reality in any skiff sailing program, our boat handling needs more work...These boats are tough to sail and the brain and body can always use more conditioning. On top of our priority list at the moment will be tacks and gybes, so simple, yet so hard to master. We had a couple of tough tacks at tight moments which cost us. We also flipped on a gybe in the big puff of day 3...
- The last observation from the regatta is that the legs were longer and the laps were less than any other World Cup Event we have ever done. This put more of an emphasis on speed than usual and allowed faster teams with poor lanes off the line to claw themselves back in the race by drag racing around the course. In Europe, we found starts and hitting the first shift off the line were ultra critical as the legs were short, as we did 4 lappers. So you can imagine, on these longer legs, with our sluggish boat, it made hanging with the top guys very difficult. Often in this regatta, we were looking real good in the first half of the 1st beat, only to be reeled in by our competition and left with lackluster lanes, battling with in the middle of the pack. Our results show this with our abundance of finishes in the teens.
-Zander
We had a pretty good day going before the last start...a 10th in the 1st one and a 12th in the second one is pretty much all we can ask from ol' Murphy (3rd oldest boat in 29 boat fleet). She is soft, has trouble accelerating in puffs and feels lower in the water than a normal boat. Not to mention the deck is soft and the wings sag (doesn't make boat handling any easier!).
We look back on that first race and we pretty much sailed a great race. We got off the line, had a lane in the first shift and stayed in phase to the top. Erik/Trevor won the race and they were with us (behind us for the 1st half of the beat) on the left and were able to boatspeed around us as we hitched up the left middle. We rounded in 12th then had a great downwind by holding starboard gybe and sailing into nice pressure and were in 8th at the leeward gate - we even passed a two Brits! We held on the second beat by connecting the puffs and then hitting the left winder at the top. The breeze got a little lighter and flukier on the final run and we lost two top boats (a Brit and the top Canadian) who seemed to carry better speed than us. Still it was a great race, where we interacted with many of 'the players' in the regatta.
The 10th does not give it justice at all, in fact, it helps to make our point that we are in a slow boat, for even in shifty, flatwater conditions (speed should be largely trumped by angle and pressure), where we sailed very well, a 10th was all we could manage. Not being able to accelerate when the puffs came down was critical. I feel bad for blaming alot of this on the boat, but it really did feel/seem that different than the newer boats. 10 years is close to a lifetime in the fast paced 49er and far too old to ask it to be competitive with a new boat. But in the end we will have to wait for the next World Cup Event in Palma, where we are sailing our new boat to showcase our point. This is good because it will be more competitive and deeper and we will need to be maximizing our potential to finish where we want to.
The 12th was also a good race, where after falling behind because of a large left shift early on (we were stuck in the middle doing 4 while the boats who hit the left were doing 9), we rallied by staying in phase and ended up having our second best race in the event.
Going into the last race, we were feeling good and confident that we had one more good race in us, to cap the event off. The points were all close and 15th was in striking distance. We knew we wanted the left and so a pin start was decided. Everything was going to plan until the final 8 secs, when we released too early and were OCS and hit the starting pin. After the spinning and clearing ourselves, we were DEEP (couple hundred yards behind), but we didn't give up and fought our way back to a semi-respectable 17th place. This was a frustrating way to end the event because we seemed to have the conditions dialed in and the error was completely unforced. We were happy with our rig setting all day and will save that for similar conditions.
Overall Regatta Overview:
- It was both a blessing and a curse to sail that newer boat a week before the event, for it was great to see what we could do after all this training against our training partners when we were into a similar boat, but at the same time it made it that much tougher to jump back into 646 for the regatta. It's all good though because that speed we had in the other boat has given us an inner strength to get through these tough times.
- Jesse and I, both economists by degree and avid followers of the market, see our campaign at the moment, in traderspeak, as a 'great buy'. There is tons of upside potential because the numbers (OCR results) don't give our sailing its fair market value. That is fine for us and our supporters who can trade on this insider information and be well positioned to the future. Please hold the faith, we have not had more confidence in our mission for London 2012, even as we come off one of the more disappointing weeks of sailing...
- The most exciting part of this week, was seeing our training partners (who we have sailed for months together in Miami and California), in new boats, excel in the event. Alex Bishop/Val Smith are in 8th, The Mexican Bro's are in 10th and Johnny and Charlie finished 11th. This shows the guys we spar with everyday are some of the faster teams out there.
- If we could do it again, we would have bought the new rig earlier because it took some days to stretch the shrouds (during racing in the first couple of days, the bend was off) and get used to the newest mast. Initially, we wanted to wait until Europe to buy the new rig, but when it became apparent that the old rig was not going to be reliable, we had to opt for the last minute purchase (and we are thankful we did!). It was different (a good thing) than our old one and took a little adjusting to, which may not have been the greatest for this event, but in the long-run was the right move. We look forward to putting it up on 1108 in Palma in March!
- A constant reality in any skiff sailing program, our boat handling needs more work...These boats are tough to sail and the brain and body can always use more conditioning. On top of our priority list at the moment will be tacks and gybes, so simple, yet so hard to master. We had a couple of tough tacks at tight moments which cost us. We also flipped on a gybe in the big puff of day 3...
- The last observation from the regatta is that the legs were longer and the laps were less than any other World Cup Event we have ever done. This put more of an emphasis on speed than usual and allowed faster teams with poor lanes off the line to claw themselves back in the race by drag racing around the course. In Europe, we found starts and hitting the first shift off the line were ultra critical as the legs were short, as we did 4 lappers. So you can imagine, on these longer legs, with our sluggish boat, it made hanging with the top guys very difficult. Often in this regatta, we were looking real good in the first half of the 1st beat, only to be reeled in by our competition and left with lackluster lanes, battling with in the middle of the pack. Our results show this with our abundance of finishes in the teens.
-Zander
Thursday, January 27, 2011
More of the same...
Today’s racing was in a much softer breeze of 3-6knts out of the North. But again, our speed was subpar (probably the worst comparison wise of the event), making for a very difficult series of races. The most notable implication of our slower speed came when trying to hold a lane, along with acceleration following tacks and gybes.
Through all the frustration with our speed there were a few positive glimpses (what we have to aim for in this event) in two of our three starts, where we were able to hold our hole, and start with a clear lane.
So, one more day of racing here. Forecast is calling for a little bit more, so hopefully we can end with some decent finishes with slightly better speed. But realistically, we plan on practicing specific maneuvers, the starts and anything else achievable in a 29 boat fleet.
Through all the frustration with our speed there were a few positive glimpses (what we have to aim for in this event) in two of our three starts, where we were able to hold our hole, and start with a clear lane.
So, one more day of racing here. Forecast is calling for a little bit more, so hopefully we can end with some decent finishes with slightly better speed. But realistically, we plan on practicing specific maneuvers, the starts and anything else achievable in a 29 boat fleet.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Day 3
The day started postponed as we awaited for the cold front to pass through and the weather to stabilize. Breeze ranged from 7-22 kts (although 30 was reported on the R/C boat), with most of it in the 10-15kt range out of the WSW-WNW. This was an unstable direction on the race course today because it was blowing offshore and because the jet stream had dipped down here and ushered in a cooler airmass, removing the entrenched tropical clime which we have had recently.
The highlight from the day was being 8th and 6th at the 1st weather mark roundings of the first two races of the day. This despite lackluster speed...
In both these races, we were able to get a lane off the line and hit the first major shift of both of those beats. We were also doing pretty well on the downwinds, hitting shifts and holding our own. We had a slight hiccup with our spin halyard which uncleated at two key moments, thanks to a line stuck under the halyard near the cleat. This was kinda a freak thing, but an example of how many things can go wrong in a given 49er race. Tomorrow we will cut the tail of the main halyward tweaker to avoid this!
The lowpoint on the day came from the Greeks who decided (they didn't see us apparently) to try and cross us as we approached the leeward mark on starboard. We had to make evasive maneuvers (crash gybe) to stop our boat from a dangerous collision with their bodies and boat. Just think a joust against carbon pole traveling at 18kts aimed right at your torso...not a happy thought. The Greeks were very happy we avoided the collision and spared them. However, it sent us swimming and us flaming out of our best race of the day. We were in 10th/11th at the time and the flip put us a mile behind them. The Greeks spun a circle and still finished 11th...We protested them regardless and we ended up with average points (17th). A little frustrating, but it is how it goes sometimes. We were cool with the Greeks after the protest and it was not a personal thing to protest them after they spun, we did it to get some of the points back that we lost in the incident.
Again, we feel we are doing many things right and that we just need to be patient with our older boat (4th oldest in the fleet). We are in 16th at the moment and 9 points from our goal of mid fleet (14th). We look forward to two more days of racing on Biscayne Bay. A light to moderate North/North Westerly is forecast for the rest of the event, which should provide different conditions than the past few days.
-Zander
The highlight from the day was being 8th and 6th at the 1st weather mark roundings of the first two races of the day. This despite lackluster speed...
In both these races, we were able to get a lane off the line and hit the first major shift of both of those beats. We were also doing pretty well on the downwinds, hitting shifts and holding our own. We had a slight hiccup with our spin halyard which uncleated at two key moments, thanks to a line stuck under the halyard near the cleat. This was kinda a freak thing, but an example of how many things can go wrong in a given 49er race. Tomorrow we will cut the tail of the main halyward tweaker to avoid this!
The lowpoint on the day came from the Greeks who decided (they didn't see us apparently) to try and cross us as we approached the leeward mark on starboard. We had to make evasive maneuvers (crash gybe) to stop our boat from a dangerous collision with their bodies and boat. Just think a joust against carbon pole traveling at 18kts aimed right at your torso...not a happy thought. The Greeks were very happy we avoided the collision and spared them. However, it sent us swimming and us flaming out of our best race of the day. We were in 10th/11th at the time and the flip put us a mile behind them. The Greeks spun a circle and still finished 11th...We protested them regardless and we ended up with average points (17th). A little frustrating, but it is how it goes sometimes. We were cool with the Greeks after the protest and it was not a personal thing to protest them after they spun, we did it to get some of the points back that we lost in the incident.
Again, we feel we are doing many things right and that we just need to be patient with our older boat (4th oldest in the fleet). We are in 16th at the moment and 9 points from our goal of mid fleet (14th). We look forward to two more days of racing on Biscayne Bay. A light to moderate North/North Westerly is forecast for the rest of the event, which should provide different conditions than the past few days.
-Zander
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