Laser European Championships 2010

We travelled to the Laser Europeans a few days after the finish of the Delta Lloyd Regatta.
This event was held at the Olypic Sailing site of 1980 (the one that was boycotted), in Tallin Estonia.

It is a beautiful city with a fully restored "old town" dating back to the 13th century.
The venue and facilities were top notch , as well as the regatta organization.

150 Lasers and 90 Radials came north for the event! This was as high caliber fleet as you will see, only a worlds would be a hair tougher.

Luke Ramsay towed our coach boat from Holland to Tallin on a route that took him thru Copenhagen and Stockholm. He took an over night ferry from there directly to Tallin.

All the teams from over 50 counties arrived a few days prior to the event and we prepared for measurement. A few days training were sqeezed in , then the regatta began.

Luke Ramsay and Ricardo Montemayer were in the Laser class for Royal Van and Isabella Bertold in the Radial.

It was a six day event with generally wind on the moderate side, there was a breezy day the third day in. Results for the group were encouraging with highlights on certian days. Luke placed 5th in one of the heats and made the gold fleet (top third), ricardo had a few decent races but still ended up in the bronze fleet ,(with excellent international experience gained), Isabella hung in really well in the international field and made the gold fleet, keeping good scores coming in that fleet.

The Regatta Website is excellent with Photos and video from the event, Results are there too- http://www.laser2010tallinn.eu/web/

Delta Lloyd Regatta 2010

The regatta formerly known as the SPA regatta was held over the week of May 26th to the 30th.

Royal Van had a solid group of 9 sailors spread over 6 Olympic Classes.
Mike Leigh, Luke Ramsay, Ricardo Montemayer in the Laser
Isabella Bertold and Jen Spalding in the Radial
Nicola Girke and Zak Plasvic in the RSX
John Romanko in the Finn
Hunter Lowden in the 49er

The event had a good variety of conditions with breeze most days a only a few canceled or delayed races and was an excellent tune up for the major summer events coming in Europe for the team.

Results were up and down for most. Highlights for the team- Nicola"s 12th and Isabella's 13th overall. (Isabella won the final race of the event).

This event, along with the other world cup events, is always a bit of a spectacle , with the major sailing countries, like Britain, France, Spain, Australia bringing their full support for their National team. A great environment for our sailors to hone their skills and well worth the trip.

Results are found @ http://www.deltalloydregatta.org/


Al

RVYC Opening Day 2010

This year’s opening day was a great success. All the sailors looked great in their yacht club whites, some even sailed past in them!

The weather couldn’t have been nicer and we had great turn out of race team members for this years sail past.

The lineup was lead by Kyle Martin in a 420 sailing with the junior vice commodore. Followed by a very large optimist team from wetfeet all the way up to senior opti raceteam. Next in line was the 4.7’s and the Lasers, followed by 3 420’s and finally Past junior commodore Chris Tulip brought up the rear of the line.

This was a great start to the upcoming season for the sailors. We are looking forward to a really great year ahead with lots of sailing and racing in 2010!

Spring Dingys 2010

It seemed a week before heading over for our semi anual event in Victoria that we would have a small group but ended up with 18 Lasers , 3 420's (6 sailors), one 29er and 11 Opti's.

35 sailors all getting on the ferry with parents boats and gear is a super turn out.

We had great weather this year, with a strong sea-breeze the first day and a rainy westerly the second. It felt like March , more than May on Sunday, but great to have wind both days.

For some of our older sailors , they are just finishing exams at UBC , so a few we haven't seen in weeks came out.

We had a number of very new Laser sailors making one of their first appearances in a regatta. This is part of a transition group coming up through the Opti fleet and entering the Laser group with the 4,7 and the Radial.

The Opti fleet is growing and seems very vibrant at the moment, Tine and Chris are doing a great job motivating their charges.

All in all success in all the fleets,

1st in 29er's,

3rd, 5th and 6th in the 420's,

2nd, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th in the Laser,

2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th in the Radials

1st in 4.7 fleet

1st ,2nd ,4th ,5th ,8th ,10th in the Opti's

Results are at -http://www.rvyc.bc.ca/results/1272842043.htm

Al

Kitten Cup 2010

This past weekend the Team sailed the Kitten Cup, held at RVYC. Royal Van's biggest youth oriented event of the season.

On Saturday the sailors experienced really tricky conditions with a super shifty southerly. In the laser fleet, 5 races were sailed and with Jason Rhodes, Luke Ramsay, Al Clark, Alex Heinzemann and Kevin Grierson having a great day.

Kyle Martin, Thomas Rhoerl, Andy Wong and Ben Scott were also well in the hunt challenging the leaders at every opportunity. Sebastian Fritz and Alex Shepard showed their starting skills having great starts in almost every race of the event.

Sunday brought a light easterly wind, which lasted long enough for one race before completely dying off. It was another tricky race, which hinged on having a decent start and getting a good lane. Al Clark lead this race with Ben Scott coming in second and Alex Heinzemann coming in 4th.

We ended up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th in the top 10

In the radial fleet on Saturday 4 races were sailed, Dominique Fritz had a great day finishing top 3 in every race.

Cameron Ho, Natalia Monetemayor, Alex Kroitzch and Eric Servais sailed really well also. In the last race Cameron port tacked the fleet and lead for the rest of the race. Tony Henderson was well in the hunt, but ended up upside down a few times, which was hard to recover from. Gabe Frame also had some excellent starts, showing that all his hard work at training is really paying off.

On Sunday, the radials also only had one race. Natalia dominated, winning the pin and leading for the rest of the race. It was a close race after that with Cameron, Tony and Alex Kroitzch right in the race, finally finishing 2nd, 4th, and 5th respectively in the race.

We had 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th in the top 10.

The Opti fleet had a good weekend as well with 5 races over the 2 days. We had good success in both the blue and Red fleets. A total of 16 sailors came out. Our Opti team has a busy summer plan and it seems the young sailors are starting the season well.

1st in the Blue fleet and 1st , 2nd , and 3rd in the Red fleet.

Congratulations to all 46 sailors!

As a side note it was nice to see Rob Douglas back in town with his group from Comox.

Thanks go out to Rob Scott for all his efforts putting together another fun regatta for everyone.

Results are at-http://www.royalvan.com/racing_results.asp?TID=3&RID=139&SID=270&DID=2


Jen

Flights of Spring Regatta 2010

We had a good time racing over at Jericho this past weekend, with 9 races done over the two days.

Andy Hunt and his crew ran an excellent regatta and made quick adjustments to the course for the changeable winds.

Most of Saturday we hiked, with the breeze peaking at 16 kts mid day. As far as the race teams participation , numbers were down with alot of the team either away or studying for exams.

Alex Hienzman. Kyle Martin and Thomas Rhoel came out and sailed well , with Kyle getting third overall. royal Van member Jason Rhodes put on a bit of a clinic and won the event comfortably.

The prize giving was fantastic , with a number of sponsors giving out sweet swag! Thanks to Rooster and SEA for the great gear.

A good tune up regatta for the upcoming Kitten Cup next weekend, where we traditionally get as many as 25 of the team out.

Mids West March 2010

We had a little smaller group than in past years that headed to California for the Mids West laser regatta.

Kyle Martin, Alex Kroitzch and Alex Shepard drove down with me in the truck and Alex Heinzman flew in from training camp in Mexico a day later. Alex's dad Mattias was there as well with a trailer.

We began training on the Monday prior to the regatta. The breeze in Richmond doesn't turn on till into the afternoon, so we had some decent light air training in the mornings with plenty of heavy air training in the afternoons. All in all a productive training camp fpor the group and good strrides were made in preparation for a windy event. Gabe Frame flew in the Thursday night and got an early start the next morning getting his boat ready for the racing.

Of course the regatta began with less wind than was first predicted and we had a generally light air day with some unusual course shapes that put a premium on experience. The group worked hard all day and learned some valuable lessons.

The second day was a good one with the breeze filling in from the sea breeze direction and all the group sailed well and enjoyed the conditions.

This years regatta seemed consist of Master aged sailors (many that were very good in their day, ie. 2 were silver medalist at Olympics) and youth sailors. This was excellent for all involved because they fitness of youth against the experience of age was tested throughout the event.

The final day started very light but the race committee hung in their and got the races off in nice breeze and everyone sailed in happy. Our group definitely reached their goals and it turned out to be be quite a nice event at a small club on San Fransisco bay.

Thanks to Lillah and Tony Martin who were a big help at the event.

Our next events are closer to home with the spring regattas - Flights of Spring at Jericho, Kitten Cup at Royal Van and Spring Dingys in Victoria, all on consecutive weekends ending on May 2nd.

Thanks for the support Royal Van

Al

March Madness 2010

Our annual first of the season regatta was a success this past weekend.
We had over 20 Lasers and Radials come out and were treated to a good southerly (10-14 kts) the first day and a light easterly the second, (we actually had moments when we saw 20kts on the beam on one of the windward legs, lasted about 20 seconds).

Luke Ramsay led the way with a 2,1,1,1,1 on the first day in the Laser fleet, Isabella Bertold had a slight lead over Becky Power after day one in the Radial fleet.

Luke and Isabella held onto their leads after the second day and everyone was happy to hit the showers as the more seasonable March weather had arrived.

Thanks to Brett Wilson for being the PRO for the event, he did a great job getting races off quickly and made the smart decision to end the day after 2 races on Sunday.

The final results were:

Laser: Luke Ramsay 1st, Ricardo Montemayer 2nd, Al Clark 3rd, Kyle Martin 4th, Andy Wong 5th

Radial: Isabella Bertold 1st, Becky Power 2nd , Jaime Bone 3rd, Natalia Montermayer 4th, (She recently qualified for the youth worlds in Istanbul), Eric Servais 5th, Alex Kroitz 6th, Joanna Moore 7th


Al

Training Early March

Mids East Feb 2010

We drove the big Trailer from Fort Lauderdale to Clearwater beach right after the Radial and Finn regatta.

The weather forcast was bad but I had a chance the next day to patch the Joker coach boat before it began raining for the next 5 days. Temperatures went down to 3C at night with highs of 9 in the days, this made training very similar to Vancouver in the winter so we should have been used to it but it still seemed cold!

The bulk of the group arrived on the Saturday the 13th. We had 11 sailors at the event: Mike Leigh, Alex Heinzman, Andy Wong, Chris Tulip, Beckey Power, Joanna Moore, Isabella Bertold, Jaime Bone, Jen Spalding, Ricardo and Natalia Montemayer.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were hard training days. We had plenty of breeze with tired bodies at the end of each day. Some of the best Laser and Radial sailors in the world had hung around after the Miami/Ft Lauderdale regattas,(something to do with such a cold winter in Europe, I suspect). This allowed for some excellent training opportunities for all our team.

The regatta started with solid breeze, both the Lasers and the Radials were split into 2 fleets , so there were 5 starts for each race, (with the 4.7 ).

My job at this point was to be at each start for the 4 starts our sailors were in then maybe a quick shot to the weather mark and then down to the finish line.

2 races on the Thursday and 3 on Friday , the breeze was less the 2nd day but it seemed to be the coldest day by far, many were afraid they wouldn't last the day.

By mid regatta Mike and Jen were well up in the standings with good moments from the rest of the team. Excellent training regatta in a high caliber fleet.

The weather improved for the last 2 days and were becalmed prior to the racing on the Sunday. The race committee did a nice job all thru the event getting the races off and had 2 races in decent breeze to end the regatta.

Jen finished the event 4th with many races in the top 2, Isabella was going great prior to the event and had some real highlights but couldn't quite put it together , she ended 29th.
Mike was his consistent self ending in 5th overall, winning one race and 2nd in another.
Ricardo had some real bright moments and finished 27th, right on the heels of most of our National team sailors.
Chris Tulip had a number of great first beats but had issues getting to the finish up the fleet. Andy and Alex did well and made the Gold fleet, but struggled after that.

Becky , Natalia and Joanna all were in silver fleet and all seemed to improve thru the event with Natalia making a charge to lead this group at the end. She was 8th and Becky 9th.

The rain held off for the trailer loading on Sunday afternoon and a few hours later we were set to go. Chris Cowan came out to help drive the rig home and after a drop off at the airport Monday morning we were heading north on the 95, only 6,300 kms to go.

The next event is the Midwinter West Laser Champs in Richmond California on March 26-28.

Al