The last three days we have been doing battle with 77 other 470s, split into two fleets to determine the Gold/Silver grouping. It was a grueling six races for us, but in the end we skimmed our way into the Gold Fleet to keep ourselves in the game. The first day was kicked off with a lengthy postponement due to a lack of breeze- a fairly uncommon condition for Weymouth. Luckily though the wind filled in by 1pm and we ended up getting two races in eight knots of fresh westerly breeze. We sailed okay on the day- scoring an 18-23. Day t...
From teamrobertsmartin.com: The last couple months have included lots of training down here in Miami. Nothing of which was of much interest until last thursday in a training session off the South Beach coastline. Going into the day we knew that a cold front would be passing, and we would probably be getting rained on. None of the wind models predicted much of an increase in wind, so we decided to head out to the ocean and just see out the front and continue training once it had passed. To us the worst case scenario was that we woul...
Australia to date has been quite an amazing experience. The sailing can be absolutely amazing, but we have found that this time of year the legendary Fremantle sea breeze (a.k.a. “The Doctor“) is not as dependable as later in the summer time. We came down and were presented with a full week of awesome SW sea breeze ranging from 18 to 30 knots. However when it came time to have a regatta, the wind became fickle and only allowed us to complete four races in five days! Pre-event training The Perth International Regatta was luckily just...
Thunderstorms lazily passed in the morning, dragging the little breeze in circles with them forcing us to an on-land postponement to start day 4. It is amazing how different the conditions turned from the day before, where there was dry 100-degree northerly breeze. Around 4:30pm in the afternoon the postponement came down (in the middle of a rainstorm, blah) and we headed out to the course. After running through the entire cycle of pin settings because the breeze would not settle down, we finally got a start off in about 18 knots in the middle ...
When it rains, it pours. That is the expression that would best describe our 3rd and 4th races in the regatta. In both races we did not get off the starting line with a heavy left side bias on the upwind- not getting off the line mean you tacked off right into strong adverse current. We did all sorts of rookie mistakes tactically, the worst being our gambling problem. A couple times we would climb back into a respectable position in the races, then blow it all away on a stupid risk. Things may not be going well, but at least our boat name is no...
The wind finally calmed down for the final day of racing, with gusts only in the mid teens. In order to have a chance at making the medal race we needed to have two good scores on the day. Unfortunately, we had two bad scores and instead of moving up places, we dropped to 22nd. However, still our best finish all summer and we were top American! Overall, we have made huge improvements from the beginning of the summer. We have gone from struggling with our speed and tactics to being able to hang with the top teams. We still have a long way to go ...
Today was the first day of racing with the fleet divided into gold and silver. There is a total of 55 470s in the regatta, so the top 28 boats made it to the gold fleet. We qualified 23rd into the gold fleet, which we were happy about. The day started off blowing 20+ knots, so the upwind sail out and the beginning of the race. We started the race with the game plan of going right, due to it having more breeze. We started near the boat, and did not have such a good start, and were forced out early into a decent lane heading right- at least that ...
Day one of Sail for Gold began with strong NE breeze for the sail out, making sure to get us nice and wet before dying off to moderate during the racing. We were very excited to get our final regatta of the summer under way, after a very productive training camp. So the first race we had a decent start and were able to pick out way around the course with good speed. However a few poor tactical decisions kept us at bay, and we finished with a 12th place. That finish was not what we hoped for, but certainly good for the first race of a 10 (possib...
On day 3 we had a building southerly breeze. It was one of those days that the pieces just did not come together for us. We were burned off the line in both races, and had no options when choosing lanes on the first beats. When it was all said and done, we knew that we had some major speed issues to overcome from the day. We talked to some other teams to see what they were doing with their setup, and it was largely different from ours. We were setup much more full in the main, for power in the chop. However that was sending all of the energy fr...
Day three consisted of only one race, the final race of the qualifying series. We were close to qualifying for the gold fleet, only needing a top 5 finish to make it. This was a difficult task, but certainly not impossible. We started the race punched and looking good, but we were being pinned by another boat and thus unable to tack and head to the right side, which we thought would be favored. Unfortunately we were correct, but were not there to execute and rounded the weather mark deep in the pack. From there we were able to battle back to a ...
