Sunday, August 24, 2008

Jaime Bone wins Cadet National Champs


Jaime sails Radial with our team and is a Cadet as well.

Very versatile .

He sailed their national champs in the Pirate Class and cleaned up.
He had eight first over ten races and with two drops finished with a perfect score.

Well done

Al

Thursday, August 14, 2008

More Youths Pics



Canadian Youth Championships, Halifax






We had a good group of sailors competing in the Regatta this year with Jen Spalding as the Coach and Team Leader. Jen, Gina and Natalia flew from Los Angeles after the PCC's in Monterey . Alex Ninow, Alex Shepard, Tony Henderson and Gabe Frame fly directly to Halifax Sandra and Micheal Shepard (Alex's parents) accompanied the team. The Team training in the YOTs pre training camp, as Jen was one of the guest experts. The regatta began on Saturday August 9th , ending on the 13th. Generally a light air event with high points for the team depending on the race. Tony finished in 2nd overall in the 4.7 Laser. Gina was 8th , Natalia 13th ,Alex Ninow 14th in the Women's Radial. Gabe 25th and Alex Shepard 33rd in the Mens Radial. Overall a great success for the team with good breakthroughs for Tony and Gina.
Good experience for all the sailors , with sights set on next years regatta in Victoria.


AL

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

More US Nats Photos


US Nats, ABYC California






OK, this could be the best place to hold a regatta in the summer in North America! We sailed the event with 9 races total, 3 each day , generally the breeze was the lightest in the first races of each day and then built to 15 to 18 kts. A good quality fleet in bothe the Laser and the Radial classes provided excellent racing all 3 days. We arrived on the Monday night after driving down from Monterey, the 2nd leg of the tri-fector. Tuesday and Wednesday were perfect training days with a hard day of 3 1/2 Hrs on the final day. Thursday was rest day as a few went go carting, or surfing. In the end the team performed brilliantly with Luke finishing 3rd, Abe 4th and Kevin 9th in the Lasers . Isabella was top women, 5th overall in the Radials with Jon Scott ending 12th. Overall I was very pleased with the finishes of the team. Everyone hiked hard and learned a lot. A trip to remember, complicated logistics with very few glitches. Thanks again to Jen for all the Hotel bookings. Al

Thursday, August 7, 2008

PCC's ,Montery California






We arrived in Monterey for the PCC's regatta right after the Slalom in SF.

The trailer was unloaded on the Thursday morning , prior to the Friday start of the regatta.

This venue was expected to be lighter than SF and was. The first day of racing saw 10 to 12 kts of wind and the left side of the course was favored.

Abe and Luke in the full rigs and Jen in the Radial came out of the gate hot (Jen won the firsr 2 races).

The 2nd day was lighter and tricky with the one lap course configuration.

The final day we saw 3 races and nice solid breeze thru out, Jen wraped up the Radial prize with a big lead and didn't need to sail the last race,
Abe was solid till the end and finished a close 2nd , Luke ended 6th. Ricardo was 9th and Kevin 10th.

The weather was again a little cold and foggy and we were happy to begin to head farther south for the final event in LA, the US Nats.

Al

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Laser North Americans ,San Fransico


This was the first of our 3 regatta California trip that everyone was looking forward to.

To say this was a large logistical effort for is an understatement.

We had 18 sailors , 2 coaches going south, with Kevin pulling a 5 boat trailer and Andy pulling another 5 boat and we had the 12 boat and one on the roof ( with the coach boat as well).

We left right after returning from Halifax on Monday July 21st.

The caravan of boats arrived Tuesday afternoon with the team unloading all the boats.

We did a quick practice on Wednesday , and felt ready to get down to heavy weather sailing beginning on Thursday till Sunday .

San Fran didn't disappoint , and we had great breeze thru out the event.
The first 2 days we had Flood tides , with everyone heading to shore (Excellent for spectating from the club house).

We had a strong group in the Laser Standard (Abe, Kevin,Luke, Andy, Ryan, Byron, Chris, Ben and Alex) and the Radial ( Isabella, Alanna, Rick, Kyle , Mike, Jon and me) as well as the 4.7 (Diego, Natalia and Gina)

In the end Abe faired best in the Standard fleet with an impressive 4th overall.
I ended up winning the Radial title, (I defintley learned alot about the set up of the Radial in breeze).

Results @ https://app1.regatta-manager.com/Regatta/RegattaResults.do;jsessionid=18D4FF858E802EA135C773283C0AF135

A great start to the trip, Jen was tireless riding the coach boat and supporting the team for all the racing over the 4 days with staggered starts each day (up to 8 hours on the water per day).

After the regatta ended we stuck around for the resurrection of the Laser Slalom.
Abe won the inaugural event, (there hasn't been one for 13 years or so).

It was a lot of fun for the sailors and as much fun to watch.

We loaded up the trailers and headed down the road to Monterey, a few hours away.

John Craig ran an excellent event and we would love to go to San Fran again in the near future.

Al

Laser Canadians Halifax


Well we've been extremely busy for the last 3 weeks.

Kevin , Andy and I went to Halifax for the Laser Canadians , while Jen ran a pre Youths training camp at Royal Van.

We flew out on the Tuesday, July 15th after having the weekend off.

Actually a few of the team went to Merritt for a Laser weekend event.
Ben Scott won the full rig event and John , his brother, won the Radial event.

We arrived in Halifax and were billeted at Sue Douglas near St Margret's Bay sailing club.
She was a great host and we really appreciated the hospitality.

Two days of training prior to the event went well as we got used to the charter boats.

The regatta began with Kevin sailing to the lead on the first day with Andy and I close behind .

I had a real good 2nd day and pulled out to the lead, Brendan Wilton was beginning to pull up in the standings.

The final day was close , I won the first race of the day with Brendan 2nd and Kevin 3rd.

I had won the event and Kevin had locked 2nd, the question was who would be 3rd.
We had a black flag start during recalls of the last start and Brendan was out so Andy ended 3rd

A great result for our team, we had a good time and definitely did a little scouting of the venue in preparation of the NQR's in October and the Worlds next summer.

Al