Sailing Update

It has been a busy last couple of months on the sailing front. I took about a month off after the games to sort my life out, and figure out what I want to do, and then back into the thick of it.

The farr 40(Transfusion) I race with has been doing well so far this year. We had a great start to the season winning the first event of the season in Port Stephens. This was followed up by another win at the Pittwater regatta a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately, we couldnt keep the streak alive at the CYCA regatta, and ended up 3rd. The next regatta on the program is the Rolex regatta, which starts tomorrow out of the CYCA. It is one of the more important regattas on the schedule down under, so I'm sure there will be quite a few teams fired up for this one. Hopefully all the racing will be offshore, as Sydney ferries seems to have it in for Tom Slingsby(Transfusion's tactician).

I have also started doing a bit of etchells sailing this year. Tom Slingsby has invited me to join his etchell program leading into the 2009 Worlds in Melbourne. We have now qualified for the worlds, and are putting plans in place to have a successful worlds program(need plenty of gybe set practice!). I have also done a bit of fill in sailing at regattas, racing two days at the Milson Silver Goblet Regatta on Sydney Harbour, and a day at the NSW Etchell State, where the boats finished 5th and 6th respectively. This has been a great experience, and has really improved my trimming as I am very new to this boat.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to call tactics at the NSW J24 States. The team on board Kaotic spent a fair bit of time preparing the bottom(a fair bit of growth on it to say the least), but by the time we put her in the water, she was ready to race. Both days of racing were fresh to frightening. The RC could only manage one race on the first day before it got too windy, and racing was called off. The following day started out fresh, and built from there. The wind was gusting into the high 30's and we managed 2 races before being postponed and seeking shelter in one of the many coves around Sydney harbour. Just when we thought the regatta was going to be called off, the RC managed to sneek the required fourth race in to complete the series. It came down to the last race for the championship, and we ended up taking it in the end, after a bit of a mach race with code violation.

The final regatta I have competed in over the last two months was the Sydney International Regatta(SIR's), which finished up two days ago. I was a bit nervous about my preparation going into the event, as I had only sailed a laser the four days preceding the event since the Olympics. I knocked off most of the rust relatively quickly, and had a really good battle with Javier Hernandez throughout the event. By the time the last day came, we had amounted quite a big lead over the rest of the competition, and spent most of the day attacking each other as the points were very tight. It came down to the last race, and whoever finished in front would win. After a prestart duel, we had a small split up the first beat, which was enough to have me come out ahead at the first weather mark. Unfortunately, Javier was pushing it on the first run, and capsized, which ended our battle for the championship prematurely, resulting in me winning SIR's for the second year in a row.