Cross Training

Since returning home for the Christmas holidays, Jesse has been able to stay active and keep fit by playing football for his old club team in a Christmas tournament. A local media website(Island Stats) posted a little article about it!
http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=2&assoc=1&newsid=17357
Here it is-


"Olympic hopeful Jesse Kirkland took time out from hanging off his 49er Sailboat, to lace up his football boots for the PHC Zebras in their 1 – 0 loss to the Somerset Eagles during their Premier Development League (PDL) Group 3 Christmas Tournament match at the BAA Field.

Kirkland had the other media shown up would have been the story today, however now his story will not be printed until next week and then reported on the airwaves.

Kirkland came off the bench midway through the first half and played alongside Tre Ming in the PHC midfield.

PHC Zebras PDL coach Mark Wade said, “Kirkland played for PHC as a youngster, he played with the likes of Antwan Russell and Cecoy Robinson, actually he and Robinson stay in contact.”

Wade continued, “Kirkland keeps in touch with the club on a regular basis, he called and said he wants get involved over the Christmas period, he attended a few training session and we had a spot that we felt he could fill.”

“PHC is a family orientated club and we always try to keep in touch with all our players even when they move to other sports as we like to keep an eye on their progress,” wade went on to say.

“It was nice he came back around the guys and he was warmly excepted and fit right back into the family, we at PHC will be tracking Kirkland and we hope he and his brother Zander do realize their dream of qualifying for the Olympics as they will not just be representing PHC they will be representing Bermuda,” concluded Wade.

new video camera!

1st day out with the go pro camera (tiny camera with fish eye lens, thank you Mum and Dad)! A pretty cool look into sailing the 49er. There will be multiple ways to tweak how we use this camera, but we are excited for the 1st attempt. For your info, the camera was on Jesse's head (perhaps aimed a little too high). Other ideas for the camera will be on the top of the mast, the end of the boom, the rudder gantry and perhaps the spinnaker pole! Stay tuned.

It was a chilly, moderate breeze day out on Biscayne Bay. We did double sessions today and are tired, but happy to make the most of the great skiff sailing conditions. We look forward to the Arctic blast moderating and Miami returning to its tropical self! 75 by the weekend! We look to make the most of the training until we pack it up for Christmas on Sunday.

-Zander

Miami Training

We have had a couple of good days on the water, working out the kinks and getting back in the swing of training with other good boats. Sore muscles and hands after the break, but hopefully we will be set for the breeze (BIG ARCTIC FRONT heading our way) for late in the weekend! Stay tuned for video from our new GO PRO camera! It is going on Jesse's head and should give a good vantage to our sailing and give you a pretty good idea of what we are seeing. If only you could feel the spinnaker sheet pull or make the dash across the wings with us!

-Zander

Made it to Miami!

After a week of traversing the nation, the boat finally made it to Miami! For the first part of the drive, Jesse drove solo through the desert and up and over the Rockies to our Uncles House near Denver for Thanksgiving. Then, following a well fed break, our dad flew in to co-pilot the final half down the plains on through Miami. Much thanks to him for helping Jesse handle that final 32hrs! Conditions were good as they were outpacing a storm that was moving across the nation, though unfortunately they had a solid headwind the whole time.

So after a little break(Zan coaching out in CA, and Jesse competing in a St Marys Alumni regatta), we will return to practicing down in Miami for a couple weeks before Christmas. We are looking forward to getting back into a fledged routine of practicing amongst the five or so others teams.

Here are some shots of the drive across.

Long Beach Video

Back to sailing this week as we wrap up our California training (Jesse drives the boat to Miami next week). Monday and Tuesday were light and was great practice for our light air mechanics, something we did not practice much up in NorCAL. Yesterday we were greeted with a pleasant 8-12kt (just enough to get the boat powered up at times) Westerly off Long Beach and we were fortunate to have friend and top coach Payson Infelise to film the practice. The video below shows a bit of everything from the practice (tacks, gybes, straight lining, one acceleration drill, a couple of bear-aways and one extended clip of running downwind). Thanks to Payson for his time and his skill of being able to drive a coachboat and film our camera!

Our training in California this fall has been great and we are feeling more in tune with the rig and boat. It is amazing what an extended time of training will do for your 'feel'- on tuesday we did our best light air gybe on record and yesterday we did our fastest double trapping tack to date! You do a maneuver enough times that you can really start to break it down and figure out the best way to pull it off. Of course we still have lots of training to do before we will be ready for Miami OCR, but it has been a good start to our full-time training regime. We look forward to training in Miami, in December, with North America's best in the warm waters of Biscayne Bay!



-Zander

Furlough

We are now down in Southern California, Jesse is fighting a bad flu bug and I have been staying busy coaching. This little break has been great to get out of the sail everyday routine and has allowed us to work towards improving the cash flow situation.

We are hoping to sail later in the week, if Jesse is up for it.

The boat is at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, the premiere sailing venue for SoCal.

Let you know when we get back out there,
Zander

SF Video

Below is a clip from sailing a few weeks ago in the Bay Area. It gives an example of an average training session (boat handling oriented) out here with our American training partners - USA 1071. The breeze was fun (nothing crazy, but windy enough to make things tricky at times) for that practice and brings to light the work associated with any boat handling maneuver in this boat. Thanks to Killarney for filming and running that practice for us!

Two more days of sailing in SF with a Mexican team before head down to Southern California to coach and sail.

-Zander