Mids East 2011

The third regatta of the Florida winter trip was Laser Midwinters East held in Clearwater Florida, Feb 24-27.

The annual event has seen plenty of cold weather over the last few years but was back to normal this year with temperatures in the high 20's most days.

The racing began with a clear day and light breezes from the south. The Lasers and the Radials were split into two fleets each for qualifying races on the Thursday and Friday toward the final gold and silver fleet racing on the weekend.

There were 200 boats on the beach the first morning, ( 80 Lasers and 107 Radials, 15 4.7) , all sailing out the channel for the first race at 11 am.

Alexander Heinzman competed in the Laser Class and had been in Florida since early December training and competing. He accomplished the goal of making the National Sailing Team last fall in Kingston at the National Qualifying Regatta.

Luke Ramsay was competing in the Radial class, which is unusual because he was one of the highest ranked Laser team sailors on the national team for the last few years.

Luke decided to make a change and sail in the 470 class with Royal Van's Mike Leigh and he had lost a lot of weight to get to the proper size for a skipper. (The perfect weight for a Laser is about 80 kg and a Radial is about 68 kg).

Isabella Bertold had planned to sail but had a bronchial infection that caused her to jump on a plane and get home.

Becky Power was also hoping to attend but the healing of her knee operation over Christmas was going slower than hoped.

I took this opportunity to sail with the team during the event as we had plenty of on water support in coach boats from, Erik Stibbe , (based out of Vancouver) and Steve Mitchell of the Canadian National Team.

Alex began the regatta with a win in the first race and showed how all the training over the winter was paying off , he continued to impress all thru the event and I sailed near him a number of times and he showed me clearly that he will be a force on the National Team for years to come.

Alex finished the regatta in 11th and was hurt by an OCS where he finished 3rd. He is off to Europe to train and compete for the months of March and April.

Luke's skills in the Laser transferred well to the Radial class as he was very quick around the course even in the lighter air the first day, he was blazing fast in the solid breezes the second day and was held back by a OCS in a race that he won, in the end he had another OCS in a Gold fleet race and finished the regatta 10th.

Results are @ http://www.regattaprocessing.com/CLWYC/LMWE11/index.php

We packed up the trailer on the Sunday afternoon and began the long drive home, I had Chris Cowan again to help with the trip. The drive was uneventful (the way I like it) and we were back at Royal Van for training the next weekend.

The team has continued training at the gym on tuesdays and thursdays and on water on the weekends.

Since daylight saving time kicked in we are back on the water during the weekday evenings.

We are off to the Laser/ Radial Midwinters West regatta in LA , California next and the 4.7 Team is heading to a training camp in Puerto Vallarta Mexico for the week.