Today was the first day of the 49er Worlds Championships here in Zadar, Croatia. It was exciting to be back on the water and racing again! While Nate’s back isn’t nearly 100 percent, he fought through the pain and we made it through three races. The day started with no wind, so we were postponed onshore for several hours. Eventually the wind filled and we started our first race at 1 in a light breeze with choppy waves. Our first start was not very pretty, but we were able to tack out and get to the right side of the course, which we thought was going to be favored. We made up some ground on the right side and rounded the first mark in about 15th place. Around the windward mark we decided to gybe set, which turned out to be a costly move and pushed us back to 21st by the end of the first downwind where we finished the race.

The second race was looking a lot more promising as we were the second boat to come out of the right side of the course. About two thirds up the beat we thought we were going to be in the top ten, but were then pinched off by a boat to leeward and had to do two tacks to get clean air, despite being on the layline. Similarly to the first race, we struggled on the first downwind and lost some boats. Nonetheless, we had a respectable finish this time, a 17.

1st day of the 49er Worlds

After the second race they sent us in for a postponement onshore, to let the other two fleets get in their races. Once they finished their 3 races we then headed back out to do a third race. We started the race off conservatively by starting at the pin where it was less crowded and it proved to be good move. We held a clean lane out to the left side of the course and rounded the first windward mark in 5th place! We held this position on the run, which was nice considering we had struggled on the first run in the previous 2 races. On the second beat though, the wind dropped down to 2 knots at times and it was still really choppy out. It was very difficult to keep the boat moving to say the least. While we played farther to the right than most of the top ten boats, we didn’t hedge our bets hard enough as a bit more pressure came in on the far right side of the course and 6 boats slipped around us. To make maters worse, we got tangled up at the windward mark with some other boats and were unable to get into the high lane going course right on the run. We were then rolled by several boats and slipped back to finish the race in 19th place. Nate and I were both very frustrated by this to say the least.

Three more races are scheduled for tomorrow. We hope to move up the standings from 66th place, and our confident we can do so! You can follow the results and racing at http://www.49erworlds.org/. There is even a live streaming video from the club that over looks the race course.

Hello all,

As some of you will notice from our results, Thomas and I were unable to compete in todays racing.

I have been having some lower back pain, and although I have been doing my best to remedy the situation the pain has not subsided and we were forced to retire for today.

We launched our boat in about 12-14 kts of wind, which I had set as my approximate wind limit for my injury.  As we sailed to the course however, it became apparent that the wind was building.  We arrived at the course in 15-18kts of wind and steep chop, and after adjusting our mast settings (a maneuver which I have to be hunched over to execute) I was in some real pain.

We started the race in the middle of the line with a top French team bow out and ahead of us.  Although we were not in a very good position, we had great boat speed and with a few blasting right shifts and a decent tack onto port we were looking to be in the top 10 boats.  After a bad call on a starboard boat and a slow duck, we were in 12th place.  I made the call to abandon the race as my back pain was increasing, and the downwind is certainly the more stressful leg of the race for me.

Right now Thomas and I have decided that it is most critical for me to make sure that I am as healthy as possible for our Olympic qualifier in Croatia.  As much as we would like to be out there racing, if racing this event precludes me from sailing the worlds then the choice is obvious.  I have seen a few specialists, and will be seeing another physiotherapist this evening. For now it’s lots of rest and Advil, and with any luck I’ll be ready to go for the Worlds.

At least we’re in a beautiful place, as you will see below.  We thank you all for your continued support in these frustrating times, and as always feel free to contact us anytime!

Love,

Nate and Thomas

Here’s an hors d’oeuvre for our upcoming post featuring content from our trip to Barcelona and along the mediterranean coast.  Enjoy!

The Segrada Familia

Inside a Cathedral

After three days of racing here in Palma, we are currently in 57th place. Our first day of the event was a particularly trying one in which we had 2 back of the fleet finishes and a black flag. We were certainly disappointed with the first day of racing, but realized our bad finishes were largely due to big tactical errors. With this being our first regatta with a big and competitive fleet, Nate and I knew we would have some diggers because of our inexperience. Keeping this in mind, we tried to keep our spirits up and looked forward to having a better second day.

The second day went a good deal better for us. Our finishes for the day were 32, 15, 23. For the first race we had a bad start and were tacked on a few times after, and struggled to find any clear wind lanes on the first windward leg. In the second race we finally managed to have a good start and hold our lane out to the left side of the course. The left side has been consistently paying off, so getting a good start has been really important. In order to balance out the distribution of the boats on the line, the race committee has consistently been favoring the boat end of the line so that the pin doesn’t get congested with everyone trying to be the first to the left side of the course. Due to this starting has been even more of a challenge, because if you start down the line and aren’t able to hold your lane you are instantly behind the majority of the fleet that started to windward. In the third race we again had a good start, and were looking really good two thirds of the way up the first beat. Pretty close to the port layline however, we entered a header that was also a lull and dipped our windward wing and both of us were dunked into the water. This pushed us out of the top ten in the race, but we were still doing pretty well. After rounding the windward mark down speed we were forced to gybe set, which turned out to be a costly move. After we gybed we were in the bad air of all the boats going upwind and lost another ten boats. From then on we battled between 20th-30th and ended up finishing the race in 23rd.

On the third day we continued to show improvement. This was especially true in the first race where we had a good start at the pin and were one of the first boats out to the left side of the course. At the first windward mark, we rounded in 5th! The was short lived, though. While rounding the mark and rolling a slower boat to leeward, we bore away too early and our tiller hit the leeward boat and snapped. Being in the wrong we were forced to do a 360 to exonerate ourselves from fouling. Making sure to get too rattled from the incident, we stayed focused and ended the race in 10th place! Our best finish, despite sailing over half the race with only two thirds of the port tiller extension. In the next 2 races we had bad starts, and were pretty deep at the windward mark. Learning from our first day mistakes, we made sure not too overreach and make big mistakes. This strategy led to more consistent and better results, a 24 and 25. This moved us up to 57th place.

For the next two days of racing the fleet will be split into gold, silver, and bronze. Unfortunately we are in bronze fleet. While we feel we have underperformed so far in the event, we aren’t getting down on ourselves. We are using this event as a learning experience and there have been plenty of positives to take away. So far we have not only shown steady improvement due to a better understanding of the fleet dynamics, but we are confident that our boat speed is already good enough for us to finish in the top ten.

Results can be found out http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/result.php?miclase=49er

Tomorrow is the first day of the Trofeo SAR Princess Sofia regatta here in Palma, Spain. After over a week of training, we are excited to start racing! The conditions so far have been moderate, around 8-11 knots, with a very light northerly in the morning that switches around to the south in the early afternoon. The forecast for the week appears to be more of the same.

For practice we have been speed tuning with our American training partners Fred Strammer and Zach Brown and have also been sailing in a number of practice races that are run by coaches. The practice races have been great for us because they have given us the opportunity to start on a line with a large number of boats. Stay tuned for updates about the racing and be thinking good thoughts for us! The regatta website is http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/

After a week of nonstop traveling, Nate and I arrived in Palma, Spain yesterday morning where we will be staying for the next three weeks and racing in the Princess Sofia ISAF World Cup Event. Our travels started with us leaving Miami and heading north to Boston last Saturday at 6 am. With 5 months of training in Miami under our belts, Nate and I were happy to be starting our journey to Europe where we will be competing in series of events and be given the opportunity to quantify our progress. While we were excited to be heading to Europe we were also sad to be leaving Miami, which had been a much welcomed stable home for us. In addition to some great months of training, it was nice to get to know the city well.

Farewell Miami, Hello I-95

We started our drive in the dark at 6am on March 17th with 18 hours travel until we reached St. Mary’s College of Maryland where we stopped to camp for the night with the Tufts Sailing team. The Tufts team had set up a camp site for their upcoming week of spring break training and their women’s team was racing in St. Mary’s that weekend. Camping at St. Mary’s is a long standing tradition for the Tufts sailing team, so it was nice for Nate to revisit and to see some of his friends from college.

Our Rig Arrives at North Field

On Sunday we watched some of the college racing and got the chance to visit with our old college coaches and other college sailing friends. I was particularly amused by the ongoing commentary between all the coaches. I couldn’t help myself from wondering what my coaches must have been saying about me as was racing and making mistakes. The coaches truly make up quite an amusing peanut gallery.
By lunchtime on Monday, we had made our way up to Newport, Rhode Island where we stopped by our rigging sponsor to pick up 2 new full set of lines and 2 protect tapes 49er kits. Thank you Gorilla Rigging, this stuff is awesome! We then made our way up to my Aunt Leslie’s house in Plymouth, MA to drop off our trailer box for storage. Aunt Leslie was even so kind to treat us to a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie!

One seriously large pile of seriously nice lines

Tuesday was the day of our flight to England. With a red eye flight to London we were able to do some last minute packing and even had the chance to visit family members that were in the area. We made it to our flight on time and were off to London that night on a direct red eye from Boston.

A Racky Road

In London Heathrow airport we met up with our training partner Fred Strammer and Zach Brown, and were even picked up by the rental car company. The rest of the day was spent trying to make a roof rack for the car that our 49er would go on top of. With Nate and I’s boat going on top we didn’t want to take any chances with a weak roof rack, so when we saw that the Thule rack unique to our car model had a maximum weight capacity of 165 lbs we decided to build our own. After hours of driving from store to store looking for the right size bolts and of contemplating how to build the rack, we finally had a sturdy rack built by 5 pm. It should be noted that we did this in a small town about half an hour from London where we were almost certainly the only Americans and off the beaten path. When pulling into a local pub, our roof rack got some looks and we were told that they couldn’t believe we had a roof rack made of “timber.”

Our Traveling band of 49ers

On Thursday we made our way down to Southampton where both our boats and Zach and Fred’s trailer were being stored and after being shipped over after the Miami Olympic Class Regattas. After loading up we grabbed some famous English Indian food and then took an 11:45 overnight ferry to France. The overnight ferry was quite surprisingly a scene. There were hundreds of teenagers running around and there was even a dance floor on the top floor. While this was amusing, we were exhausted and quickly searched for a quiet corner to pass out in.

Get to Barcelona!

Once arriving in France we were on a tight schedule to catch the ferry from Barcelona to Mallorca. We had a 12 drive ahead of us and our ferry left in 15 hours. With not much leeway we had to drive straight through France and could only afford to stop for refueling the car. This was quite a shame, as we passed through some beautiful areas and quaint towns with castles and cathedrals. Fortunately we had no hiccups on this portion of the trip and we made it to the ferry 3 hours before it was scheduled to leave. The ferry was an overnight ferry, so for the second night in a row we slept on a ferry. The second ferry ride for me was quite the experience because I was given a bed in a shared cabin that I shared with two strangers. I didn’t even think twice about sharing a room with strangers. I was pretty tired from sleeping on a chair the night before so sleeping on a bed was really enticing.

Hola Palma

Finally, early on Saturday morning we arrived to Palma and quickly made our way to the yacht club. After all the traveling we were excited by the prospect of sailing and setting up the new gear we had just received from Gorilla Rigging, so we spent the whole day rigging the boat. It was not a horrible place to have to rig up in either and spend the day. The boat park is located on a nice sandy beach with crystal clear water and beautiful mountains in the background. With the boat all set up, we then moved into our apartment and had dinner at a local restaurant.

A Palma Sunset

Roadtrip Recap

To say all the traveling was tiring would be an understatement, but all in all it was an enjoyable experience that we both look back upon fondly. We had no major disasters and were able to make it to Palma on time, which we feel really good about considering it was our first time traveling in Europe transporting 49ers and that we had a considerable amount of distance to cover.

Stay tuned for updates about the training, racing, and of course more photos and video. We would like to thank our sponsors who have made our travels and sailing possible; VisitUSVI.com, Gorilla Rigging, Motive Pure, St. Thomas Radiology and all of our individual sponsors. Without their support and the continued support of others, our campaign wouldn’t be possible. Make sure to check out their websites, and follow us and other Virgin Islands sailors at the Sail USVI Facebook page.

And for the Grand Finale… Behold!  Our New Custom Spinnaker!

Like it says, VisitUSVI.com!

The final day of the Miami OCR had the windiest conditions of the regatta with the biggest waves. When we first got out to the race course the wind was around 10 knots, but right before the first race the wind picked up to 15 knots with even bigger gusts! Mac and I struggled to get the boat set up for the conditions and ended up making it to the starting line with only 2 minutes before the start. Due to the boat not being properly set up, we were pretty slow in the first race. We rounded the last windward mark in 14th, but unfortunately we flipped over while gybing.

Before the 2nd race we had enough time to get our boat tuned properly and were definitely faster. On the 2nd upwind they had set a new windward mark, but Mac and I weren’t able to locate the new white mark until we had over-stood the port layline by about 10 boat-lengths. This cost us a few boats and we ended up finishing the race in 15th.

Going into the last race we were trailing the Russian team by one point and were in 11th place. After a great start at the boat we rounded the first windward mark in 9th, and after a good set and rest of the downwind we rounded the gate in 7th. After a bad second beat though, we rounded the windward mark in 12th behind the Russian team. We finished the race in 12th and ended up being 3 points out of 10th place. We were also passed by a Swedish team and the Bermuda team, which put us in 13th place for the regatta.

Mac and I were disappointed that we didn’t make the medal race, but are still proud of how we did and are generally happy with the way we sailed. For never have been in a 49er before training, Mac was a great fill in for Nate. He picked the boat up really quickly and I think our inexperience as a team only showed on the last day in the windier conditions.

Right now we are packing the boat up for a container to go out to Europe later this week. After taking care of loading the container and taking a week off from sailing, Nate and I hope to be back out on the water and practicing. I am really looking forward to having Nate back out on the water with me!

Today’s racing saw a slightly stronger breeze coming from the southeast. In addition to being windier it was a lot wavier on the race course and the wind shifts were more unpredictable, since it was a new direction. In the first race of the day we had a pretty good start at the boat, but quickly tacked off as we wanted to go to the right side of the course. After a bad tack though, we were rolled by port tackers that had ducked the fleet at the start. We continued out to the right side of the course in bad air, which put us pretty far behind the leaders only half way up the first beat. Mac and I chose a good time to come back to the middle of course and continued to play the shifts well to round the first mark in 15th, but we were close behind the lead pack. After a good downwind we rounded the leeward gate in tenth. On the second beat we got stuck going out left and would lose 3 boats to round 13th where we would finish the race.

The second race started well, but didn’t end well. After a good start we got pinned out to the left side of the course and weren’t able to tack over on the first left shift. This put us pretty deep at the first mark. We also had a bad last downwind where we lost 5 boats by going to the opposite side of the course from everyone else. We ended up finishing the race in 19th, our worst race of the regatta.

The third race was quite an improvement. After an alright first beat, we had a great run to round the gate in the top ten. While everyone decided to gybe set around the windward mark we held for awhile before gybing and then we were able to lead everyone back on starboard. We held our place on the second beat and on the last run to finish in 7th.

Tomorrow is the last day of sailing for the full fleet. Currently we are in10th place. If we stay in 10th or move up we will be in the medal race on Saturday!

On the third day of the Miami OCR we saw more of the same conditions and had similar results. Three races were sailed and after 9 races we are currently in 8th place. The first race was the best race of the day for us. After an alright start at the boat we quickly tacked off to the right side of the course. About two thirds a way up the beat we got a nice right shift which we took back across the course crossing every boat! At the windward mark we were in second place, which we held until the next windward mark. On the final downwind we had 3 guys who have all had top ten finishes in world championships right behind us, and unfortunately they all passed us before the finish. Nonetheless,  we were very pleased with our boatspeed and were excited for a top five finish.

In the second race we had a good start but were pinned out going to the side of the course that was not favored. In a desperation move to get to the right side we tacked over, but were then tacked on by a person with a slightly better start. We were then forced to left side of the course and were in the low teens for the rest of the race. We ended up finishing the race in 15th.

The third race was a great race for Mac and I. After a tough start we were ping ponged around the middle of the course after being tacked on twice. For the rest of the race we made some great calls and kept on passing a couple of boats each leg. We ended up finishing the race in 10th, which we were really happy with after our start.

Tomorrow we have three more races scheduled with a later start time of 1:00. The forecast for tomorrow is calling for more breeze from a similar direction. Results can be found at http://rmocr.ussailing.org/index.php/results/49er/