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10th at Sail for Gold
August 16th, 2010 in General.
A lot of things needed to fall just right in the medal race Saturday for us to make a move up the leaderboard after barely squeaking into the tenth spot. The breaks we finally got on Friday didn’t last as we lined up in a gold-star-studded medal race. Seven of the top ten have previous world championships and about half have medals in one class or another. We finished seventh after the left side came in huge and both brazilians we needed to catch came in with it. It is always a lucky thing to race on the last day when the majority of the fleet is packing up. Frankly the race was a little boring because everybody knew what they were doing. There wasn’t much cat and mouse or horseplay. Everybody lined up, tacked on the first shift and pretty cleanly went around the course. Congrats to Peter and Mr Kleen for winning the event.
I’ll be chasing them down in my new PStar just as soon as I can get it rigged. I flew back from London to Chicago Sunday and blasted over to Gull Lake to find a bright new 8423 waiting for me. This is the biggest step that I can make to winning an Olympic medal at the moment. I’m very much looking forward to getting this boat into high gear. Lots of work still to do, but it’s fantastic to have an American boatbuilder as such a strong option for this class. I will keep you updated on the progress here at CampbellSailing.com.
Medal Race Live 1pm London Time Saturday
August 13th, 2010 in Regattas.
Essentially we had to win the day to extend our series in the 2010 Sail for Gold. With a little more risk than normal we sent it to the left hand side in the first race to take 4th and then bee-lined it for the approaching thunderstorm to the right in the second race and made one pass to win the final race of the series. We managed to squeak our way into 10th place going into the medal round and assure ourselves one more day of racing. We have nothing to lose and should be live starting at 1pm on the Sail for Gold GPS Tracking System: http://www.skandiasailforgoldregatta.co.uk/2010
9.5 Hours of Weymouth Westerly
August 11th, 2010 in Regattas.
After an 830 weather briefing and a quick swim to scrub the bottom of the boat, we left the dock sailing to the race course at 915 this morning. The five miles or so downwind to the course took all of an hour thanks to the current and we arrived in time to do a quick line up and check the line before the Race Committee got to work catching up from yesterday’s blowout. We sailed the first race relatively unscathed for a 5th. Waiting between races for the Finns to finish and for the RC to get reset took the majority of the afternoon. We did have a few general recalls thanks to a knot of upwind current (10+ boatlengths in a minute!). In the second race we managed both a 720 and blew out the tack grommet on the jib when I dipped the whisker pole in the water downwind. Usually dipping the pole means you either break the pole or break the mast, so we were lucky to rip that grommet out. But that incident adds to a growing list of equipment issues we’ve had this week. I guess when it rains it pours! All three races were sailed in phenomenal conditions 10-15 knots of steady westerly. The current aside, the conditions were spectacular. The third race finished about 530 in the afternoon, and the upwind tow took about an hour and we hit the dock again around 630pm just in time to head to the pub for a cheeseburger! Two races scheduled for tomorrow.
Cracked Rudder Mounts, Capsizes and Burning Rain. Welcome to Weymouth
August 10th, 2010 in Regattas.
We’ve been here nearly a week and Weymouth hasn’t fully come up to its reputation until today. There’s been sunshine and moderate air with little current. Yesterday, as the regatta opened, the breeze freshened to the teens and we saw significantly more clouds and current. During practice for instance we had 2-3 boatlengths per minute of current. Today we had closer to 10-12 boatlengths per minute (almost a knot), creating havoc in terms of seastate and laylines. Anybody watching the racing live via GPS can certainly get a feel for the funny angles we’re sailing over ground. The racing looks quite different in person.
We’ve had some struggles of our own on board. During practice we broke the head mounting on the rudder post, a custom piece for Folli boats that we had to have shipped in from Italy. Unfortunately when we broke it on Thursday afternoon, the piece couldn’t arrive until the first day of racing. Friday was spent searching over hill and over dale to find a machine shop that could manufacture such an odd piece from scratch. Somehow we managed to get an identical piece created out of aluminum (or al-yoo-min-ee-um as the bloke put it) and tried it out for the first day of racing. Trouble is: the pin that attaches the mounting is conical so that it tightens as you pound it in, whereas the pin we got from the manufacturer was standard bolt allowing significant play the in system. It caused just enough play to be really difficult to race with for the first day, but luckily that’s behind us as the new piece arrived Monday afternoon.
Next on the list: we broke a batten in race 1, which happens from time to time, but in the process of taking the main down and putting a new batten in the halyard jammed so the main wouldn’t go all the way back up. With time ticking away before race 2 and sailing downwind away from the starting area I made the executive decision to try and latch it manually in the halyard lock at the top of the rig. Anyone who’s seen a star mast knows that its virtually impossible to climb. The wires are slick and the mast is skinnier than a Laser mast, but when you get up to the spreaders you can literally lay the boat on its side and get the rest of the way to the top. I somehow made it to the spreaders (a feat which will make my Melges 32 bow guys proud) and the boat promptly capsized allowing me to get the rest of the way out, pull the remaining five feet of sail up and manually latch the halyard lock. Luckily Coach Ivey was there to tow us back upwind to the starting area and help us drain the water out of the boat. We were well and good to sail the race luckily, but the trouble about manually locking the halyard is that you have to manually unlock it at some point too! So after racing, in 15+ knots and lumpy seas, I crawled up the rig again, flipped her over and swam to the top to unhook before a long, cold, upwind, 5-mile tow back to Weymouth Harbour.
Today we didn’t have nearly the excitement, although Brad did stab a hole through the clew of the main with the whisker pole, and we had gusts well into the upper 25+ range before the finish. A massive righty skewed the beat for the remaining three laps of the race as we fetched each new mark thanks to a knot of left to right current moving on the racecourse. At the finish, even though the Race Committee was surely planning on another race, the Star fleet turned left and headed for the harbor, voting with their feet against knock-down puffs and piercing rain that both moisturized and exfoliated on the way upwind to the dock! The simple reality is: there’s a lot going on here in Weymouth. Slowly but surely we’re getting it sorted out. Hopefully we can get our act together for three races tomorrow.
Standing by in Weymouth.
Harbor Springs to Weymouth
August 4th, 2010 in Travel, Regattas.
Back on the race course this couple of weeks. I spent last weekend racing with Team Ninkasi at the shorter-than-expected Melges 32 Nationals in Harbor Springs Michigan. We had one stellar day of training and two nice days of racing before Lake Michigan decided it had had enough and shut down the windmaker for both Saturday and Sunday. Without a throwout, we had to forgo any chance at a comeback and finished 9th. Not only was the sailing nice, but the town was a slice of paradise. We had sunny and warm conditions that I frankly didn’t expect considering we were racing on the 45th parallel. The town is was full of friendly tourists and people enjoying their summer cottages to the point where we began mistaking it for the set of “The Truman Show” and worried about bumping into the wall of the set if we went too far upwind, and kept seeing the same cars go by all the time. Cue the sun…
I was immediately thrust back into reality when I flew across the pond to London the day after the regatta ended and took the train into Weymouth. Grey skies and appropriately bitter Englanders noticeably didn’t greet me all that kindly as I wandered to the boatpark the last couple of days while training in Stars on the 2012 Olympic course.
We prepped for the Sail for Gold Olympic Classes World Cup event to be held here next week. As if lining up with Szabo/Strube, Merriman/Trinter, and Horton/Lyne wasn’t good enough we had two other Silver Star winners: Marrazi and O’Leary as well as two more Gold Stars: Scheidt and Grael on the practice line today for 8-25 knots of both sunshine and English rain.
In the News + the new boat is in production!
June 16th, 2010 in General.
There is big news brewing. I just got back to Germany from the massive road trip north with the boat, dropping it off in Weymouth for the next regatta: Sail for Gold in August. Thanks to Andy Mac for lending us 8250, and huge thanks to the Schmitz’s for lending me an animal of a VW! While I’m awaiting my long-awaited flight back to the USA, I’m catching up on a lot of stuff, hopefully it will provide some entertainment.
The biggest news is that the new PStar is under construction in Michigan. We didn’t expect it to go until July, but apparently its already fast! I’m looking forward to getting out to Gull Lake next month to see some of the production before our Melges 32 regatta in Harbor Springs.
Beyond that there are a bunch of articles out right now for some light reading:
Sailing World Magazine has my piece about starting in Current.
SAIL Magazine is running an interview I did with those guys this Spring about the transition between the Laser and the Star.
and RL Magazine has an interview about the finer points of Olympic Campaigns (RL used some great photos from Jacqueline!!! and Fried Elliott).
Can’t wait to be back in the States!
Make sure to thank your race committees!
2nd at 2010 European Championships
June 12th, 2010 in Regattas.
With a fifth place finish today in a better-than-forecast 5-10 knot westerly, Brad and I tied with Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn of Canada to take second place at the Championships behind only Germans Johannes Polgar and Markus Koy in the 135 boat fleet. After sitting in sixth going into today, a lot of people needed to have tough luck for us to move up the leaderboard and really all we could do was sail our best race to ensure a good final result. We got out into a nice lane after a mediocre start and took a long righty across to the top left of the course which put us fourth around the windward mark. We held that most of the way around the track and could only watch as the other teams ahead of us in the standings struggled to catch up through the entire race. We put as much heat on the rest of the teams as we could but luck was also on our side moving us to as high a position as we could have achieved: second overall.
We’re very excited about this finish. What a great day for San Diego Yacht Club, and another strong performance by US Sailing Team Alphagraphics! Coach Ivey really held us together through a grueling, light-air week, and I think the US Team put up a strong front with our 1215 daily line-ups. By the end of the week there were lots of boats that wanted to see how they would line up against us. All the guys sailed well. The points spread in the top ten was tight because of the extraordinary series that everybody had amongst the biggest fleet in class history. Consistency was our gameplan from the get-go, and that paid off (actually after studying the results we had the best overall six-race series, edging out the winners by a point!).
This regatta has put an exclamation point on a long trip to Europe for me. I’ve been here since April 28th, delivering the boat from Weymouth to Italy to Holland to Italy and back to Weymouth, training and racing in Garda, and training and racing in Viareggio. 50 days in Europe is quite enough for me, but the hard work has paid off, and the training we did in Garda and here with Coaches Mark Ivey and Leandro Spina helped us make clear progress.Without a doubt none of this could have happened without the sponsors of USSTAG, but also our team sponsors: Sperry Top-Sider, Keanon Polarized, North Sails and Harken, as well as a number of critical donors to our campaign.
Needless to say, I’ll be glad to get home when I do next week… still 1500 more miles to drive in Europe.
Full Results: http://www.stareuropean2010.it/classifica6.pdf
Photos: http://photos.friedbits.com/2010stareuropeanchampionship
3rd in race 5, Sixth Overall into final race tomorrow
June 11th, 2010 in Regattas.
Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. The regatta website http://www.stareuropean2010.it/eng/ unfortunately lists bow 111 instead of us (bow 11) as finishing third in today’s race. We had a three hour wait, but finally started race 5 at 4:15pm. A full two hours went by for the leaders to finish, but the fleet took easily an hour beyond that to finish. The breeze all but quit after we got through the line. There is one more light air day in the forecast for tomorrow, so we’ll see what we get. Currently we’re sitting 6th overall have good opportunity to move up the board tomorrow if we can mix the fleet up like happened today. More to come…
Here are some photo links from Fried Elliott
Top Reach Race 4
Leeward Mark Race 4
Same Leeward Mark’s Exit
Checking the OCS Board at Mark 1, Race 5
A slow and painful third just ahead of Puerto Rico and Spain
Flat calm after the finish
4 Down, 2 to Go
June 10th, 2010 in Regattas.
Here’s a great example of the size of the crowd. Fried Elliott is here taking some cool shots.
We’ve had four races in four days here in Viareggio. Light air is still the name of the game, but the steady and relatively even pressure has provided for some very nice racing. This morning we sailed out in a hot offshore breeze ahead of a low pressure system to the west of us. But, by the time the start time came around, the dry wind was fading and signs of the seabreeze moved across the course. The RC patiently reset the course for a southerly and got our 2 hour marathon under way. Because of the sheer size of the fleet, the starting line is in two segments totaling 1.4 kilometers, more than 4000 feet long. The beats are kept to a reasonable 2+ miles and except for yesterday’s five-leg course, we’ve been tallying up 8 mile races no problem. So, two races and almost 20 miles of racing to go.
Brad and I managed to get off the line in places where we could continue straight in each of the last two races. That seems to be the name of the game: finding clear lanes and not getting bogged down by traffic or little one-on-one battles. Halfway up the first beats we have been able to make a break for what I think the favored side is at the top of the leg and we can come into the first windward mark in the top 20. Yesterday we clawed our way into the low teens and settled for a 15th. Today we had a similar race and similar result: 13th. There were about 10 boats called OCS today as well, so I’m sure there will be some mixing and moving in the scoresheet. Consistency has been our name of the game, hopefully in the next couple of races we’ll be able to make a move into the top group and fight for a top five finish at the end of the week.
More to come from www.CampbellSailing.com
20th in Race 2
June 8th, 2010 in Regattas.
Here’s a look at our neighbors, both big and small:
After a great start on what turned out to be the wrong side of the course, we ended up fighting for 20th around the first top mark. We broke into the teens only to be swallowed up by a group of boats as we drifted through the finish line 2 and 1/2 hours after we started at 2pm. Light seabreeze was again the name of the game. We waited for about an hour to start the race and even after the wait stumbled through two general recalls. Rumors were floating that a large number of boats were OCS in addition to the handful given the label. We’ll take a 20 and move along happy, considering that some very top guys sailed the same 2.5 hours as us but instead have a 145th to show for it. Tomorrow has a better forecast, but we’ll believe it when we see it. More to come at www.CampbellSailing.com.