It’s not usually a good sign when I am writing about the drive home. Ideally they should be uneventful and boring, just a way to get all the gear from A to B.
As you may have read, the trip down wasn’t quite that easy, but it paled in comparison to our drive back to Weymouth. Our drive back led us along a coastal road, as the main highway was closed (at the time we didn’t know why). Half way up the coast we encountered a large storm with extreme winds (the strongest winds that I think I have seen – feel free to wiki “Bora (wind)”). Our car and trailer didn’t take to well to the intense wind, and our trailer flipped, smashing up the boats. Luckily, our car remained upright.
A dozen or so people on the road came over to help try and put the trailer upright, and after using a few ratchet straps (w/ trees for anchors) and everyone pulling their hardest, we managed to get it back on its wheels. Surprisingly, the trailer seemed mostly okay and the hitch assembly survived the incident quite well. We backed the rig up in a pull out that offered some shelter, and started to wait the storm out. The Japanese team joined us a little later that afternoon after they almost had both their trailer and van flipped by a gust!
After a long night of intense rain and car shaking wind, the morning brought… the same damn thing! We were getting a little desperate, as our stock of Cliff bars and water was quite depleted, but finally got a bit of news that the wind would finally start to ease in the early-mid afternoon (Thank you Eric Holden for the forecast!). At 2:30 pm, roughly 28 hours later, we were once again on our way and thankfully we were incident free from thereon.
In Weymouth we had a better chance to look at the damage when we unloaded the boats and masts. The wings on the boats are pretty much totalled, but luckily the hulls sustained relatively little damage and can be fixed (which is good, as we couldn’t get another boat for the Olympics very easily). One mast suffered a broken top spreader, but otherwise they all seem to be fine. The trailer is a little worse for wear, but made it back without difficulty, which is all I can ask of it really!
I am pretty happy the trip is over! Now we’ve got to get our stuff fixed / replaced, as we are looking to be back on the water in Weymouth in two weeks.
The worlds final series is over, boats are packed, and we’re just about to start our long journey from Zadar back to Weymouth… and eventually home.
It’s been a tough week mentally, as there were very stressful moments. In the end we achieved our main goal of qualifying Canada and ourselves for the 2012 London Olympics. It would have been a major step back for the Canadian 49er class if someone didn’t qualify, and I am really happy we were able to do it.
The final series was tough as expected, and we had a few good races, and some quite poor ones as well. We raced in what we believe is our weakest condition (6-8 knots), as some of the smaller teams are fully powered up, but still managed to play the game with the top guys. Usually they got the better of us by the finish line, but we learned quite a bit and feel we can be competitive across all conditions. We’re looking forward to lining up on the start line again in Weymouth at Sail for Gold regatta next month!
While it was a great event for us, our qualification meant it was the end of the campaign trail for our Canadian team mates. Gordon and I have a ton of respect for both teams (Billy and Ian, and Jon and Dan), as we’re well aware of the sacrifices made and time it takes to campaign.
Today was the final day of the qualifying series, and the stakes were very high. Five country spots remained for the Olympic berths, and it appeared that all the spots would be taken in the Gold fleet. If you were outside the cut (top 25), you weren’t going to go to the Olympics.
After a marginal day, we sat onshore waiting for the other fleet scores to come in. We made the cut by four points, qualifying Canada and ourselves (as no other Canadian boat made the Gold fleet cut off) for the 2012 Olympics in London.
The final series starts tomorrow, and it will be easier to relax and try to move up the rankings over the next three days.
It’s been too long since I’ve given an update, so let’s get up to speed!
Our European season kicked off in Palma de Mallorca in March. We had two events there, the first being a free training regatta put on by the Arenal yacht club, followed by the Princess Sofia Trophy held at the same location two weeks later. The training block in Palma was very valuable, and we had a chance to work with Rodion Luka (2004 Olympic silver medalist in the 49er, and 2005 World Champion).
While we learned quite a bit, and improved aspects at key points on the race course (leeward gates), we still made some pretty bad mistakes every race and never pulled it together. It was a bit frustrating, as there were multiple points where we worked ourselves into the top 3, only to throw it all away.
The result from the regatta was less than good, but we did actually make significant improvements particularly in light to moderate wind speeds.
After our stop in Palma, we flew home for a week to try to get a small break before the worlds push. Instead of racing in Hyeres at the Semaine Olympique de France regatta, we elected to tag along and train with the Austrian’s and Finnish in Torbole at the North end of Lake Garda. We felt this would be more useful, as we could get a week of solid training with two top teams and still have a little break before the world championships in May. (SOF was almost back to back with Worlds). It was really cold and rainy most of the time in Torbole, but we got lots of time on the water, which is more than can be said for the teams in Hyeres as they experienced extreme winds and almost no racing.
It hasn’t all gone our way however! We had an interesting time getting to Zadar for the world championships from Torbole. We had planned to drive straight through Italy and Slovenia and into Croatia to avoid the expensive ferry from Italy but that didn’t exactly work out. At the Croatian boarder we had the pleasure of meeting some crooked police. The officer claimed their scanners (of which there were none) had found ‘illegal stuff’ in our car, and that we needed to pay a fine… Or they would get the dogs and we would ‘be arrested’. We have a lot of gear, none of which is illegal or controlled in any way (besides 49er class rules I guess), and we were not paying a fine for nothing, so we welcomed the search. It was clear the officer wasn’t actually interested in searching, so he did more of the poke around ‘open this, open that, where’s the cigarette lighter’ crap… There were no dogs either.
Well, he still wasn’t satisfied and we ended up not being allowed through the boarder and were turned around. (I had to retrieve our passports and car registration myself after he decided not to return them).
We drove back through Italy to Ancona, and took the ferry directly to Zadar the next day, where we were greeted by normal police who had no problems with us coming to their city for the world championships!
With all of that out of the way, we’ve moved into our apartment (which has turned out to be very nice, with very nice owners), set up our boat and had a couple days on the water. Today we completed all the boat work, and we’re ready to go. Our coach arrives Tuesday afternoon, and we’ll get a couple more days in before the start of the event on Monday.
This is the final Olympic qualification event, so it’s time to put it all together!
March marked the beginning of our European season. This year we’re starting in Palma de Mallorca for a training event followed by the World Cup in the start of April.
As always, the first trip to Europe of the season takes a little more logistical organization than the rest of the year. We spent a few days getting our leased car to the UK, a trailer hitch installed, our trailer that we had ‘stored’ in Weymouth, and one of our boats that had been shipped from Perth to Portsmouth.
We set off from there with all our gear in tow to Barcelona where we picked up our other boat that we had shipped from Miami. From Barcelona, we boarded an overnight ferry to Palma and finally arrived at our training venue for the month. (It took the good portion of a week from the time I left Vancouver to arrive in Palma.)
The first week here has been very good. We had a four-day practice regatta, and worked with Rodion Luka (49er World Champion, and Olympic Silver medalist) logging huge hours on the water. We would often be the first to launch, do all the practice races, then train for another hour or so well after everyone else had gone home. We’ve learned quite a bit, and are looking to fine tune our sailing and implement what we’ve learnt over the coming weeks before the Princess Sofia Trophy (World Cup regatta).
The Miami Olympic Class Regatta was held from Jan 16th through 22nd on Biscayne Bay. This was a huge event for the Canadian 49er teams because it was the last chance to earn a spot on the Canadian Sailing Team (CST), and be eligible for the Athlete Assistance Program (aka carding). Due to the overall poor performance at the World Championships (although we were still top Canadian), the 49er class did not qualify any teams for the CST. As I have been reading the fine print, it seems we were very close to qualifying at a higher tier at the Test Event, but alas did not achieve a top 10.
The basic scenario for all the Canadian 49er’s was you needed to be top Canadian boat (and have a decent overall score) to ensure your place on the team, and most likely 2 boats would get carded although not guaranteed. It’s highly likely that the 3rd boat will be cut if ineligible for the development program. For most teams, this would mean the end of the road for their campaigns.In the end, we managed to get it done by being the top Canadian boat, and finishing 5th overall. It was a tough week, as their wasn’t much separation in the boats when sailing in 8-12 knots of wind. We had some very good races (two bullets over the series), but also had some lapses where we sailed ourselves out of the top 5. Towards the end of the regatta we gained more confidence, and had a reasonable last day which put us in good position (impossible to be caught by the other Canadian teams) for the medal race. The medal race was a very light wind event, but we sailed a very good tactical race, and managed to finish in 4th, making sure the Swedish boat behind us in the standings didn’t beat us.Now we can focus on the next 8 months, and securing our place at the 2012 games. We’re here in Miami for another week to train with some of the top international teams, and get a head start on the European season to come.
The qualifying series has completed, and we’re on the wrong side of the cut (for gold fleet). We never found our ‘A’ game, and struggled a bit with the very shifty wind and slow moving puffs. So far the ‘doctor’ has failed to arrive, and we’ve been racing in an odd offshore/side shore breeze very close to the shoreline… It made the sides have high risk and high reward, but always beating out the middle. That’s not our normal ‘style’ of racing, and we’ve identified that we need to be able to adjust our approach to fit the conditions quicker.
For the rest of the regatta, we’ll be sailing in the Silver fleet (out of Gold, Silver and Bronze). It’s not the end of the world, but below our expectations so we’ll be doing our very best to win some races.
The Opening Ceremonies were held a few days ago, and the week one events are getting under way.
The 49er class doesn’t start until week two, so we’ll be tapering the training down a little bit and making sure all our spares and equipment are ready.
I would really like to thank everyone for all the support we’ve received through this season so far. Thanks for following us, and thank you for those of you who were able to come to my fund raiser dinner in the spring! Wind Athletes, CAN Fund, Samson Ropes, Port Tack Charter, Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Royal Vancouver Yacht Club and West Vancouver Yacht Club, thank you very much for your contributions to our 49er campaign.
Thanks to Gill, and Harken/West Marine for your support of the whole Canadian Sailing team.
Over the last few days the Australian national championships were held on the same waters we’ll be racing on for worlds in a couple of weeks. Needless to say, it was a great opportunity to get in a practice event, and gain some insight into our speed, course strategy and local weather patterns.
We had a bit of every condition through the event, including classic sea breeze conditions that typically fill in the afternoon, and the shifty offshore breeze that often dominates the mornings. This was a perfect scenario to preview what the conditions could be like for the Worlds.
Our event went reasonably well. We had great boat speed across the broad range of conditions, and had a relatively good grasp of the weather and wind. Of course it wasn’t perfect and we made a few mistakes as well (such as pitchpoling 100m from the finish while in first), but we’re certainly very positive about the gains we’ve made on the fleet and are looking forwards to the main event!
The Opening Ceremonies is tomorrow, and the first events start on Saturday. We’ll be looking to go through are entire check list before we start Dec 12.
The last couple of days have been very hot, with weak sea breezes filling in late in the day. While these are not the conditions we expect through the world championships, there is always the case of a large regatta promoting the ‘it’s never like this’ local conditions. We happily used this time on the water to gain some insight into the variability of Fremantle, and test new sails. While all the sails are supposed to be identical (as a one design class) they never are, so we sailed upwind for what seemed like forever hoisting and dropping sails (stored in the coach boat) until we had gone through our entire inventory and selected the ‘white’ sails we will measure in for worlds.
We’re checking off all the preparation boxes as early as possible!
