Silver at Hyeres Olympic Sailing Week

We have just finished up sailing in Hyeres. This was an interesting event for many reasons, we had 17 teams competing, so the organizers decided that instead of splitting us into groups we would sail a full round robin. This meant more racing, with each team sailing at least 16 races. The one thing that they didn't expect was the amount of wind we were going to have. All but two days were called off early due to too much wind or the race committee being unable to hold their anchor. We ended up not getting in the full round robin because on the last day we had a breakdown and missed one race. As we were headed out to sail our last race the race committee sent us in. Since the round robin was not completed, the scores were figured out by using our win percentages. We ended up second. We won 12 races and lost 3. It was a bummer to not finish the round robin.

We are now in Weymouth getting ready for our trials which start on Friday, May 4th. It's lovely here, with temps in the low 40's, rain, oh and it's blowing 30 today. Yesterday, on our trip down to Weymouth we stopped at an amusement park, called Thorpe Park. It was really fun, despite the drizzling rain and cold temperatures. The craziest ride we went on was sort of NASCAR themed, it was called speedway and it proudly flew the stars and stripes. It went from 0-80 in under 2 seconds, then went up a huge loop and back down, then the ride was over. It lasted about 30 amazing seconds.

In other news, the US Sailing Team has named a new title sponsor, Sperry Top-Sider. They have signed on for the next four and a half years. We have been working individually with them for about a year and a half and are very happy to have them named the teams new title sponsor!

8th at Princess Sofia

We just finished up a week in Palma de Mallorca, where we were competing in the Princess Sofia Reagtta. There were 18 teams in the event and we were seeded into two groups. We were in the A group and sailed a solid opening round to place second, tied for first, in our group and a guaranteed spot in the quarterfinals. But up first was the gold round for the top six teams to determine seeding in the quarterfinals.

In the gold round we went 2-3, and got fifth in the round, so we sailed the fourth place team, Tamara Echegoyen from Spain. In the first race, we got a penalty in the prestart and thought we had enough lead to spin it at the second windward mark. We did our penalty and still had a piece of her but she was able to surf the waves and get ahead of us. In the second race, she got a penalty for tacking too close, and we won that race. In the third race, she was over early and we had about an eight length lead around the leeward mark. We decided not to match her tack due to big waves and other boats, and let her get out to the right side. She was able to get around us and win the race. In the fourth race, we had a close race with us ahead, and we picked up a bag on our rudder on the last downwind, and as we were getting I off she was able to surf the waves around us. We were pretty bummed about losing the series 1-3, and we thought we had sailed very well and it was hard to figure out where we went wrong.

Last time training at Key Biscayne Yacht Club

We just finished up a week of training in Key Biscayne.  We trained with three other teams --  Tamara Echegoyen’s team from Spain, Anna Kjellberg’s team from Sweden, and Reuben Corbett from New Zealand sailing with Kaity Storck and Janel Zarkowsky.  We had a great week of training, despite the fact that it rained every day!  We set up situations that have given us some trouble during the past few regattas. We ended the week of training with a regatta.  We sailed a double round robin, then semi finals and finals.  We went undefeated in the round robin. In the semi finals we sailed Anna Kjellberg, and we won 2-1. In the finals, we faced Reuben in a first to three points series.  We were leading 2-1 when the racing got called due to storms, making us the winners of the Training regatta.  The umpires provided the awards, which ranged from bubbles, to shot glasses, to sail boat key chains on a ribbon which the umpires placed around our necks like a medal.

Four umpires joined us last week.  They make our training more like a regatta and it is very beneficial to all involved. Thank you to Sue, Debi, Andrew, and Hans for taking a week off work and helping us.

We also had two coaches for the week.  Big thanks to Jay Kehoe for coming down, coaching and providing us with a fresh perspective.  And of course, thank you Dave Perry!  We don’t know where we would be without him. Thanks!

On Saturday after we finished up our training, we took out six of the Key Biscayne Yacht Club junior sailors.  We split them between two boats and had a fleet race.  It was pretty breezy, and all six of us were on the rail hiking.  We switched off, and everyone had a chance to drive the boat.  I don’t think there was a moment when we weren’t laughing or smiling.  It was a lot of fun.  Thank you to Adrienne Patterson for helping us set this up.  This was our last time training at Key Biscayne Yacht Club.  A big thank you goes out to the entire yacht club for welcoming us to their club.  We have really enjoyed all of our time there. 

Bronze at Miami OCR

We have just finished up the Rolex Miami Olympic Class Regatta. We were in Miami for two weeks leading up to the event. For the first week we trained with the British team. The second week we had a four day, five team series of round robins. The teams were from Great Britain, Finland, Netherlands, and Russia. It was a great warm up for the event. A big thank you goes out to the umpires who came down to help us - Mike, Peter, Debi, and David.

There is a new format for the World Cup events this year. Instead of being spilt into three groups, we are now spilt into two groups. We were seeded into the A group. We raced six races the first day and won them all. We had the second day of the event off and then finished up the round robin on the third day. We were seeded first out of our group with a record of 10-1.

In the quarterfinals, we were matched up against Tamara Echegoyen and her team from Spain in a first to three points series. There were a lot of close races but we ended up winning the series 3-0.