Mids West 2012

Mids East 2012

The next stop on the regatta circuit in Florida was the Mids East regatta for Lasers , Clearwater Sailing Centre, February 23-26 , with training for 4 days prior.

We had a good group of 10 sailors come for the Championship.
Becky Power, Ellie Shaw, Natalia Montemayor, , Alex Fritz, Graham Harney , Alex Kroitzch, (Radial)
Kyle Martin, Ricardo Montemayor, Dominic Fritz (Laser)
and Jake Cullen (4.7)

Kyle , Ricardo and Alex H spent time prior to the team coming to train in Clearwater and the results were very fruitful .

We had two condo's rented and everyone got along well cooking at home and living together for the week. Thanks to Diana Shaw for chaperoning the biggest group.

The weather cooperated and we had good sailing all the days , with heavy winds for most of the regatta , needless to say very good bang for the buck for the group traveling a long way for some good competition . A highlight finish was Ricardo winning a race against some of NA's best laser sailors and finishing the regatta 7th overall.

All the team (this group was more of our developing sailors ) gained real good heavy weather experience against top North American sailors.

Results are at http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=4658&show_sub_class=1

Thanks Clearwater Sailing Centre for all your hospitality! We'll be back next year.

Al

Miami OCR 2012

We decided once again to attend the winter regattas in Florida and California spanning from mid January to end of March.
The first is the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, the toughest of the three events , where quite a few top sailors come from around the world to compete in the second of the Olympic Classes World Cup events.

Chris Cowan , our other Laser coach and I drove the big laser trailer to Miami on January 10th , arriving for training by mid month.

We had sailors in the Laser standard rig- Ricardo Montemayor , Kyle Martin and Alex Heinzman and Isabella Bertold and Becky Power in the Radial Class. This was the second event in the Laser/Radial Olympic trials.

Hunter Lowden in the 49'er class, Mike Leigh and Luke Ramsay in the 470 and Bruce Millar in the 2.4.

The regatta had a variety of conditions and tested the sailors each of the five days thru the week with the final day a 'metal" race consisting of the top 10 in each fleet , Hunter's team made the race and finished the regatta with an excellent result.

Isabella fought hard to win a berth to the Olympics but fell a little shy and ended 2nd overall for the Radial berth. Alex sailed a good event finishing well up in the gold fleet .

All of our sailors gained valuable experience and were happy to compete against some of the best in the world.

Laser National Qualifying Regatta 2011

The team of Recardo Montemayor , Alex Heinzman, Kyle Martin in Laser Standard and Isabella Bertold , Becky Power and Joanna Moore in the Radial arrived over the weekend of September 24-25 to St Margaret's Bay Sailing Club, Nova Scotia in preparation for one of the key regattas of the season, (Sport Canada carding - read money for training).

We had the truck and trailer with all our Lasers and coach boat at the club , left there after the Canadian Youth Sailing championships in August.

We trained for a number of days prior and then the racing started on the Wednesday carried thru till Saturday.
The regatta was run with windward leeward courses each day , 3 races most days with 4 on the Friday, and one on the final day.
We saw winds ranging from 8 to 18 knots and had a good series with the best Canadian Laser sailors fighting for the top spots.

Isabella had a fantastic series as the defending champion and kept the title with a sting of bullets. She is clearly the odds on favorite for the Olympic selection. Becky had an excellent series and finished 9th and Joanna sailed well and was 10th.

In the men's side our guys had good moments with Ric getting a 2nd and Alex 2 4ths in an early races , in the end Alex was 9th, Ric 10 and Kyle 16th

A solid showing for a developing team, were hoping the event will be @ Royal Van next year , finger crossed.

See results at http://smsc.ca/images/raceresults/2011cyayouths/results.html


Al

Rocky Point Regatta

The annual Rocky Point Regatta happened this past weekend. The regatta was plagued with very light winds. Saturday saw 1 race sailed for the Lasers, Radials and 420's. Unfortunately for the 4.7 fleet the wind completely shut off right at their start.

The highlight of the regatta was Miranda MacGillivray who won the one and only race of the regatta. Great work Miranda!

Fall Dinghy Champs are happening this coming weekend in Victoria. Hopefully we will get some great wind.

Chris Cowan

Canadian Youth Championships , Aug 2011

We (Gabe, Alex Shepard and me) drove from the CORK Regatta to St Margrets bay for the Youth Champs , arriving on the evening of the 26th of August. Kyle arrived an hour later with the Manitoba truck that he was helping to drive.

Cameron and Ellie flew in on the Saturday 2 days after us. The first day of racing was the Monday with Hurricane Irene forcast to arrive the Sunday night ( not much came of this , a little wind and no rain) . We sailed for a few sessions prior to the event and everyone seemed ready.

Day one saw real nice breezes of 15 to 20 kts and most of the team loving the fresh stuff. Kyle came out with a 1,2 and Gabe was top 5 twice sitting 4th overall .

The wind was light the next few days and we didn't see any real hiking breeze the rest of the regatta. As the days passed we settled into the routine, staying at a cabin right beside the club was a real bonus, we had our own dock too. I was using the new Rib Craft Inflatable and was more impressed each day.

So we gelled well as a team and had a good time racing against the best youth sailors in the country. As we finished the last day Kyle had the regatta in the bag without having to sail the last race which he won. Cam put together a real quality event and finished 8th (could have been 3rd without a small error), Gabe's regatta kinda fell apart after the first day but he saw many improvements in his game. Alex Shepard improved though out the whole time he sailed and finished 8th , Ellie Shaw was real good considering her newness to the Radial finishing 10th .

See results @ http://www.sailing.ca/features/trihedral_cya_youth_national_sailing_championships/

We had Liliah (Kyle's mum) for the last few days and she was a big help on the final pack up and the trip out to the airport .

Congratulations to the whole team that ventured out to far away places this summer , thats all except the NQR regatta for a group trying to stay on or make the National Sailing Team in late September at the same club.

Canadian Opti Championships Aug 2011

Canadian Olympic Regatta Kingston, Aug 2011

The CORK events have been going since the 1970's and the event is broken into 2 portions now.
The international and the OCR , held over a 10 day period with a day off between.

We drove the trailer from Gimli Manitoba from the Sail West Regatta and then dropped the trailer in the Olympic Harbor. Our team of sailors competing in the events were Gleb and Rachel Spenelli in the 29'er , Alex Heinzman , Alex Shepard and Kyle Martin in the Laser Standard, Luke Ramsay (taking a break from 470 sailing for a few weeks), Gabe Frame, Cameron Ho , Ellie Shaw and Becky Power in the Laser Radial.

The youth event started on the 15th of August and concluded on the 18th, 4 days of racing with a mass of boats , a total of nearly 500 sailors in assorted classes.

The weather was generally light and variable through out the event. Our team faired very well in the end with Kyle Martin dominating the standard Lasers , counting only first place finishes, Alex Shepard was 7th . In the Radials Cameron Ho was 6th , Gabe 20th and Ellie (very new to the boat ) 29th in a 150 boat fleet. Very impressive results, Cam and Gabe are trying for the Youth Worlds spot at the Canadian Youths so nice to see them do well. Ellie was the most pleasant surprise , she led a race all the way to the finish and sailed very well with a few bad races that dropped her back.

The second event was the senior regatta with a number of Canadian National team sailors in attendance. Ellie went home, Becky and Luke flew in , Alex Heinzman also arrived ready to go after a successful tour down the west coast at the Gorge regatta and the US Nationals in Cal YC , where he was 4th.

We saw good breeze for a portion of the event then some light. We had a stormy day on the Sunday when we didn't sail then a breezy last day where sailing was cancelled , so really a 3 day event from a 5 day.

The team sailed well, Luke dominated the radials with a number of wins, Becky was back from knee injury and had some top 5 finishes mixed with some deeper results and a missed few races from gear problems but looked good , Cameron had boat issues but sailed well without getting a good result, Gabe was solid especially in the breeze. In the standard rigs Alex was well in the hunt and finished 7th (he is a national team development sailor), Kyle Martin was 15th and is well on his way to making the national team. Alex Shepard hung in there well against top guys.

All in all a successful time in Kingston with wins in a few classes and top results though out, thanks for the great hospitality we'll be back soon.

Al Clark

4.7 Worlds , San Francisco July 28th-Aug 2nd , 2011

In July, three RVYC 4.7 Laser sailors, Graham Haney, Adrien Vlasic and Alexander Fritz travelled to San Francisco to compete at the North American 4.7 Laser Championships hosted by the South Beach YC and TISC, and thereafter the 4.7 Laser World Championships hosted by the St Francis YC.

Thanks to Peter Harney lending the team his truck, logistics could be pulled off in light of other Canadian events drawing on both vehicles and trailers resources.

With 50 boats entered the 4.7 Laser NAs provided an opportunity to train one more time in the usual San Francisco Bay winds, and with some of the Worlds sailors attending a very good stepping stone. The wind delivered with the usual strong breeze, especially in the afternoon, in the shallow waters in front of Oakland causing significant chop as the day went on. Tides were tricky at times as it affected the race course from the sides. All 3 sailors put together a solid start, with Adrien leading 2 races at the windward mark and finishing 4th overall.

The lay-day after the NAs was utilized to sail the boats across from Treasure Island, making for a great sail past the San Francisco waterfront and Alcatraz Island. The team arrived at St Francis in time to put in an afternoon training session.

Next day Coach Al had the team go over their boats, several things needed fixing, and optimizing in preparation for measurement. Measurement was stringent down to having to modify letters on the sail numbers and straightening out top sections and booms. After going over sailing instructions for the 4.7 Laser Worlds, the boys were especially happy about being able to sleep in every day due to the fact that girls’ races were to be in the morning and boys the afternoon.

However the smug celebrations were cut short when at the Opening Ceremonies announcements were made about the final format, changing to alternating starts at 11am and 3pm. Many of the 28 countries had clearly brought older and heavier sailors in expectation of the conditions and both boys and girls were well prepared to compete in the usually stiff San Francisco Bay afternoon breeze.

This alternating start time made it important in the mornings to study the tide charts very closely, as conditions varied every single day – in fact every single race, usually ebb in the morning race, then slack tide and flood from the early afternoon onwards. Winds in the morning were lighter, starting at 8-12kn and very shifty, increasing, and steadier throughout the day to 20+kn of wind.

As with other regattas previously, St Francis did a terrific job accommodating the over 250 Youth sailors, with their coaches, parents, all the gear and everything ran very efficiently.

Graham, Adrien and Alexander certainly benefited especially on race day 1 and 2 from the previously (as Optimist sailors) gained knowledge and sailed the 4 day qualifying races very well. Races were very long, lasting 1.5 hours and spanned the entire waterfront between the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.

In the end all 3 just missed the Gold Fleet, but had 2 final terrific days in Silver Fleet, all with top 10 finishes in individual races.
During the final 2 days, a lot of things coach Al focused on in training and the earlier racing days came together nicely. Overall, despite having just been out of the Optimist for barely a year, all 3 were able to compete very well, testimony also to the high level knowledge gained from RVYCs (coaches Tine and Chris) Optimist race team program.

Thanks to Coach Al Clark for the work and education on and off the water, nutrition and ice baths included. The biggest learning was certainly also boat specific knowledge.

Thank you to Susan Harney for the team shirts and Bruno Vlasic for the great sailing team bags.

It was great fun having had the chance to accompany the team.

Harald Fritz

Jr Standard/ Radial Worlds, La Rochelle, France 2011

We decided after the good experience last year in Hayling Island , UK, that we would go again to the Jr Standard Worlds (under 21) this year in La Rochelle. The Mens Radials Worlds were held in conjunction.

We had Alexander Heinzman, Ricardo Montemayor and Kyle Martin in the Standard Rigs. In the Radial we had Alex Kroitzch, Gabe Frame and Cameron Ho.

The plan was to fly to Paris and drive down 400kms to La Rochelle, we ended up with 5 in the car with Alex H driving from Germany and meeting us on July 12th . Lilliah Martin (Kyle's Mum) had booked us 2 nice apartments right beside the marina and we were happy to have full kitchens in both. We did all our grocery shopping the first day and were out training for 4 days prior to the start of the event on the 18th July.

Of course the weather was sunny , warm and light breezes for the early training, that changed to the opposite by the weekend.
The wind came and eventually the rain and stayed for the regatta with the exception of the last day, when we still had plenty of breeze but with sunny skys, ( a nice way to end an excellent event).

The racing was pretty standard for a Worlds, 2 races a day running about an hour or so long, generally we started around noon, (they posted the schedule each night at 6).

The routine was awake 3 hours before sailing, then breakfast, then walk to the dock,get course assignment, rig the boats, get all gear to coach boat , sail to the race course, plan to be there 30 to 45 min before the first start , (the fleets were split into 3 starts).

So the racing commenced and it soon was clear that Ricardo and Alex were well in the hunt, (they were posting single digit results all thru the qualifying series). Kyle had also improved greatly since last year and was in the low teens many races.

The Radial boys were in tough with a high calibre fleet , (some were full rig sailors too old for the Jr Worlds), but improved daily and hung in till the end.

As the regatta heated up fine tuning was needed to increase boat speed in the heavy air, as well as a lot of work on starting techniques. The boys worked as a team each evening and as we got to the club each morning to help each improve, (it was a pleasure to have such a agreeable group of sailors).

In the end Alex H had a super event finishing 12th , (very close to the top 10), Ricardo was 20th and Kyle was 67th in a 147 boat fleet. Excellent results and both Alex and Kyle will have another chance next year.

Alex , Gabe and Cam learned heaps about big fleets at a worlds in heavy air and had very respectable results for their age and experience. Mostly I think it was the experience of living together in a foreign land competing against the best in the world.
With close to 300 sailors with many coaches and parents at the site and it was quite a spectacle.

Always nice to see our up and coming sailors representing the club in a fine fashion on the world stage.

Check out the results @ http://www.srr-sailing.com/world-laser-radial-and-standard-results/



Al Clark