Hyannis Arrival and Day 1

We arrived in Hyannis yesterday and unloaded the boats as soon as we could (unfortunately they wouldn't let us into the park until 4, preventing us from practicing a day early). We ended up getting the boat tuned back to the settings we liked and messed around with rudder rake slightly. After getting a good night's sleep we prepared for our first day of racing. Overall the day went pretty well with drastic improvements as the day went on. The first race began with a poor start but we eventually climbed back up in the fleet to 12th place. We quickly learned from our mistakes though and had an excellent start the second race, winding up in 5th at the finish. Today's racing in medium breeze ranging from 5-15 knots and some choppy waves really pointed out our strengths and weaknesses. Our good boatspeed helped us maintain our position in the fleet but we are lacking in wave practice and big fleet starting. After some discussion on the water we determined our short term goal for the event was to be more aggressive on the starting line and come off in the first row. Tomorrow is an earlier day with an 11:00 start. Day 2 here we go!

Check out the results here!

Going Up North

The boats were packed up this week and are on their way up north: destination, Hyannis. Sarasota Youth Sailing's double stack F18 trailer worked pretty well. The only issue we had was fitting the masts on the trailer but hopefully we can make some changes in the future so we don't have this issue. Less than a week until the regatta!

Sailor Night Life

What a true sailor does before he goes off to sleep! Splicing some new trap lines to replace the worn out older ones.

Time's Running Out...

This past weekend was spent on the water training with coaching from John Casey. It was my last weekend of practice with my boat before it's packed up onto the trailer for the ride up to Hyannis. Saturday started out with a strong breeze from the south and a nice long kite run up to the north end of Sarasota Bay. The wind soon became lighter and we ended up sailing in single-trapping conditions most of the day. Sunday was a different day completely though: we went out New Pass and trained in the gulf! We had a light southerly breeze which eventually shifted to the southwest. We got some extremely valuable experience dealing with waves both upwind and downwind in the gulf and I'm definitely going to suggest going out there during more of our practices! Sunday's wave practice was crucial as the conditions in Hyannis could be very similar.

Rainy Days

Bad weather may have kept me off the water recently but training has still continued on land, especially in the gym. After coming back from a family vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I've been working at the Sarasota Yacht Club during the day and sailing as much as I can in the afternoons depending on the weather. Rain and thunderstorms are expected these next few days but as soon as the radar looks clear it's time to sail again!

Picture Time

This is just a small collection of some of my sailing pictures.

At the helm on the Killer Tomato.

1st place in the 2011 Laser Radial District 13 Championship.

Flipping

Here's a little clip I put together from some GoPro footage I took last practice. After a close call we flipped and took some time righting the boat. Luckily it's only the second time the boat's flipped on the water! Only 4 minutes long, it's a lot shorter than the other YouTube video's I've put up. I'm still working on my editing skills!

Weekend Work

I spent this past weekend practicing on the water from 10-4 both Saturday and Sunday with John Casey. After some tuning and checking over the boat we worked on a lot of boat handling, especially our jibes. The wind on Saturday was light and puffy until around 1 P.M. when the sea breeze filled. On Sunday the sea breeze filled in earlier and we got some heavy wind training in with 15-20 knot wind and some decent chop. Our wire-to-wire jibes are getting a lot better and we even outran the coach boat at times!

A Little Love Goes A Long Way

With the daggerboards in the shop for a week my crew Erick and I decided to do some routine boat maintenance. We ended up replacing some worn out lines, trying out a few new setups, and putting on a new hull coat with our secret "Go-Fast" wax. Putting in the work on land is as important as working hard on the water. See you out there!

Sailed Fast At Sailfest

Last weekend was great! I sailed at the Sailfest Regatta on the Sarasota Bay in the F18 class and placed 1st out of a total of 7 boats, two F16s and five F18s. Both days began with a light and fluky morning wind which ended up clocking around to the regular Sarasota sea breeze. The race course was set up so that the windward mark was pretty close to the shore, giving us some shifty breeze up there. Down the rest of the course there were some pretty consistent oscillations and geographical shifts. We had to sail on the same course as the Lasers and 420s which made some of our mark roundings pretty interesting! We ended the regatta with seven races and seven bullets, a total score of 6! I also got to catch up with my former Opti coach Sarah Newberry who sailed F16s for the event. Overall, a pretty good weekend!