French Olympic Week

I have just arrived home after racing in the French Olympic Week. We had a complete mix of conditions throughout the event, and for the most part, it was very chilly! After a couple of days of training, everyone was running off to the shops to stock up on warmer sailing gear.

I arrived about a week before the event, and planned to train relatively hard with a fair bit of intensity and duration. Unfortunately, I got sick while I was travelling and had to cut the volume of my training, resulting in just a couple of days of training prior to the event with Abe Torchinsky, my training partner. We were both feeling very rusty, as neither of us had done any full rig training since the end of the Worlds back in February. We went straight back into our 'generic' training session, which involves a bit of speed testing, followed by starting work, a bit of match racing, and then a difficult tacking drill.

The first two days of racing were windy-the first day being a steady onshore breeze, and the second, a shifty/gusty offshore breeze. I managed to put up four good scores on these days. The third day of the regatta was blown off quite early in the morning as the breeze was up over 30 knots. The next two days were gold fleet racing. I managed a solid 10th in the first race, but in the second, I sailed my drop(46)-a big mistake-more on that later.

Going into the final day of Gold fleet racing, I was sitting in 2nd place overall and was very nervous as the wind was light and patchy(one of my stronger conditions, but still very difficult). I had a cracking start in the first race of the day, which set me up for a great score(3) in that race. Most of the contenders had dropped back a bit after that race, and I knew Andrew Murdoch and I had a bit of a lead. However, at that stage, Murdoch's drop was a low teens score, while mine was a 46th. I knew going into the race, that he would go after me and try to push me back as far as possible to secure himself a lone solid lead.

Not much happened in the prestart between the two of us, but I made sure I kept a close eye on him. At about a minute to go, he tried to get a leeward overlap, but I managed to minimize the gap to leeward, leaving insufficient space for him. He found a hole a couple of boats down. At about 15 seconds to go, I could see that my start was going to fall apart as there was just too much congestion forming around me. I backed out of my spot and tried to tack out onto starboard; however, there was a starboard tacker that was there and refused to tack, leaving me with the only other option of gybing out, and being a few second late for the start on port. Fortunately, I was able to foot out and have a clear lane going right-where I had wanted to go. After about 1 minute, the breeze had shifted right, and there was only about 5 guys ahead of me. Three of them took this shift back across the course. I saw more pressure coming down out of the right and kept going. I dug in a bit more, and found a bit more pressure and even more shift, resulting in a healthy lead at the first weather mark.

Around the bottom mark, the course was changed, and the put a new compass bearing of 210 up on the board. This seemed strange as it was practically the same bearing of the old mark, but there was a red mark there, so I headed there. Long story short, the board had the wrong compass bearing and the change of course mark was the altered radial weather mark who were sailing on the outer loop. Our mark had been been up by the yngling course hidden in the glare of the low sun. This was very disappointing for me as Murdoch had been back in the race, and I would have had a nice lead heading into the medal race.

The race was then re-sailed and started at 7pm. After my performance in the abandoned race, I knew Murdoch wouldnt give me that sort of space again, and attacked in the pre-start. I tried to keep the match race a slow speed affair, as I knew that as soon as we started circling, and doing aggressive maneuvers, penalties were going to arise, which would work in Murdoch favor. Amusingly, at about 3 minutes to go, one of our more social mates thought we were just having a chat, so he came over to join us. It wasnt until he got quite close that he realized that we were engaged in a match race.

I was aware that I need a cracking start as if Andrew ever got close to me on the course, he would be able to slow me down considerably. At about 1:30 to go, we approached the line-Andrew was directly to leeward, and we were about 1/3 down from boat. Again, there was just too much congestion around(and having Andrew to leeward didnt help), so I backed out of the spot, and preceeded up the line to the boat. The gap between Andrew and I was quite tight, and I wouldnt be able to complete my tack, unless I found a spot to call for room to tack. Luckily for me, there was a gap that was just wide enough at the boat, which I was able to tack into, but forced Andrew to sail around about 5 other guys who were barging at the boat. I ended up tacking immediately as it looked like there was more pressure out right. I made nice gains out right, and then tacked back taking a couple of transoms. The breeze kept shifting right, and by the time I was about 5 boatlengths away from the mark I had a couple of boatlength lead over the fleet. However, there was a quite a bit of coach boat swell that had kicked up as they all blasted up around the course to get to the weather mark. I went through a bad set, and worked the boat to get through it. I'm not sure if the jury saw the chop or not, but they didnt like the body motions, and I took a yellow flag. I quickly did my spins, and managed to hole on for a low teens score.

Going into the medal race, I had a 2 point lead ahead of Andrew. Medal race scores are double points and non-droppable(medal race score breaks tie breakers), so it was who beat who would win the event. Andrew is a skilled teams racer having won a couple of world titles in that discipline, and I knew he would want to use the attacking skills he learnt while teams racing against me.

The breeze was very light and patchy. My only priority was to get off the line clean. I didnt want to put the decision of the race(and regatta) in the hands of the judges, and wanted to minimize Andrews ability to attack in the prestart. Because of that, I didnt tune up before the start, as I didnt want to get caught above the line in a inferior position. Instead, I waited to the right hand side of Andrew and the starting box until he approached me at about 3 minutes to go. We went into the typical circling that happens often in match racing. At this stage, all I was concerned about was when I should bail out and approach the line-too soon, and I would get caught in death corner, and too late, Andrew would have better positioning(pin end favored) and be able to push me back. At about 1 minute to go, I bailed out of the circling and led us back to the starting line. We both got off the line cleanly. I was on top of the pack at the pin, and Andrew was about 2 boat lengths to weather. I had a slightly better start, and when the pin end starters tacked out, they were unable to leebow me, but tacked under Andrew-forcing him into less pressure out right.

A couple of boats down at the pin tacked and crossed everyone. I sailed a bit past there line, and then followed them back making a small gain as the wind shifted further left. They then came back left, and dug in for more. I kept sailing, as I thought there was more pressure out right. Also, I wanted to consolidate the gains I had made on Andrew who was out right. I sailed until lay, when the right hand pressure filled in nicely and slammed Andrew, thus slowing him down. I managed to round in first, with Paul Goodison on my tail, and the others several boat lengths back. Paul Goodison slipped by me on the run as I was trying to extend my lead on Murdoch, and if I had tried to defend, we would have lost our healthy lead on the pack. Goodi won the race, and I followed a couple of boatlengths behind in second to win the event.

Overall, it was a gerat event for me. It is the first time I have raced the full rig down at the 79-80kg range, and I regret not racing at that weight sooner. In the past, all the Canadians have been up at the 84-85kg range, and I didnt want to give them an advantage going into our trials. I'm not far off my China weight, and I am still very pleased with my performance in the breeze even at this weight. I head back to Europe in just over a week, and will get back into the training in a big way. My coach, Kev Black, and other training partner(Luke Ramsey) will join up with Abe and I for the remainder of training leading up to the Games.