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

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

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

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

Squamish Training Camp

We had a good group come to Squamish for a 4 day camp this past week.

Alanna, Ryan, Ben, Alex, Chris, Mike, Kyle,Rick,Jaime and I sailed with Jen driving the coach boat and shooting Video.

We moved the boats from the Big trailer to the Opti trailer on Monday, and drove up Tuesday morning.

Tuesday we sailed in 15 to 20 kts and had a good session, Wed many did a double session and we had 20 kts in the first session and 15 in the second , over 6 hrs on the water.

Thursday was the epic day with winds approaching 30 kts and we sailed past Britania Beach with a long sail home at high speeds, 4hrs out there.

Needless to say we were tired and sailed a little shorter day on Friday , knowing we were going to have to load the trailer and head home.

All in all an excellent , exhausting camp , well worth the trip!
Were going to be ready for San Fran and the NA's .

Al

Isabella @ Youth Worlds Denmark

Day 1

Finally racing started at the 2008 ISAF Youth Worlds. The sailors were greeted by a weather forecast which stated rain and 15 increasing to 28 knots from the south, slowly going to the south west. After a great breakfast and a bus ride to the club, the sailors hit the water with their GPSs which are worth $400 each and are costing $500 a day per boat for transmission of information. All the data is sent to www.sportcasting.org where every move is tracked. What a great idea to follow the sailors and for talking about the races after. The coaches were put on 2 boats on the single handed course and I was able to get to the only boat which moved and had the ability to talk with the sailors. Isabella Bertold was in the top of the Laser Radial fleet all day. The waves downwind were challenging especially on the outer loop in that the angles and the direction were not easy to match with the wind direction. Isabella was in second and first around the whole course on the first race and ended up 3rd after a really close finish. A good solid start to the regatta. In the second start sailors were OCSed at the race committee boat end, but Isabella started 5th boat from the pin as the wind was backing. She led from start to finish to win the race. She is sitting in first and will sail with the yellow dot tomorrow. Isabella went straight to spin her legs out on the bike to prepare for the rest of the week racing. Today was to be the windiest day of the week and with gusts up to 38 knots, we are pretty sure that is the case. Day 2 at the 2008 ISAF Youth Worlds

Similar conditions to the first day. Southerly winds, huge waves and 10-15 knots of winds, increasing to 22 in the gusts and rain showers. The girls had first start and outer-loops today. Isabella had 2 tough starts where she started to windward of a sailor who pinched her out. Despite some tough first 200 meters , she sailed some excellent windward legs and finished in 6th and 7th today and is sitting in 2nd overall. Our single handed sailors are in top shape, ready for another 4 days of racing and all the training they have done over the past year is showing.

For complete results, please go to www.sailing.org

Mike wins again

Leigh from Canada wins Laser Europa Cup

On day five of the WARNEMUENDER WOCHE the sailors experienced showers and sunshine in turns. Increasing west winds up to six Beaufort challenged not only the Laser Europa Cup fleets. Canadian Mike Leigh snatched the title from leading Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Bernaz.

Results @ http://warnemuender-woche.com/eng/

Luke finished 11th

Way to go boys!

Al