Moving Day

Today was an awesome day for Californians at the 2013 Open Orange Bowl, with Riley Gibbs and Quinn Wilson locking up the overall victory with 2 races to spare, and many other teams moving up in the results.  The performance of the day has to go to Max Brill and Zach Malcom, who scored a 1, 2, 2, 3 to move into 6th overall.  Californians now sit 1st, 4th, 6th, 10th, 11th, 13th, and 15th.  Full results can be found here.

Thanks to CISA and their awesome supporters for making all of this possible.  The kids have improved a tremendous amount this week, and Brianna and I are excited for them to put it all together on the last day of racing tomorrow!

Wake Up Call

With 2 days of racing concluded at the 2013, Open Orange Bowl, CISA and 29er HP sailors are looking strong in 1st, 5th, and 10th through 14th, but Florida teams are also making a charge, showing that California teams are going to need to get serious about organizing training schedules for the Spring in order to be competitive at Worlds this summer.

Check out the photos below, or click here for full results.

Great Tune Up Today!

Orange Bowl 2013

The 29er High Performance team is back in action at the 2013 Open Orange Bowl, and will be teaming up with CISA to show the world what we've been working on in California.  Should be an intense week with Orange Bowl and Nationals back to back, but with a motivated team and a very strong coaching team which includes 2007 Youth Worlds Gold medalist, Brianna Provancia in addition to our normal coaching line up, we are set to have a super productive time.

Stay tuned here for updates on the week!

Boat unloading this morning:

2013 29er Worlds in Photos

From July 25th to August 2nd, 213 teams from 25 countries competed in the 29er World Championship in Arhus, Denmark. US Teams ended up 8th-11th, and with the Worlds coming to Canada next year, this is the perfect time to get into the boat!!

Never been to a World Championship before? Here's a taste of the 2013 Worlds:


When we arrived, the boat park was already packed; fortunately, the charter company had marked our boats with small american flags so that we could find them amongst the crowd.











Upon arrival, each team is assigned a measurement time, during which they have to de-rig everything so that the boats can be weighted, and dimensions taken to ensure that the equipment meets class rules.  The process usually involves a lot of waiting around, so the good teams come prepared with clothing to stay out of the sun, and plenty of food and water to stay strong.






Opening ceremonies vary a lot from venue to venue.  In Arhus, the sailors from every country paraded a short distance with their flags for a photo opportunity, but other venues often demonstrate local customs with dancers, singers, musicians, and more.









2013 rigs in the air is quite a sight.  The calm before the storm.












Day 1 of racing is usually the first time that all of the sails get put up at the same tim, and when they do, it is important to be one of the first teams waiting in line at the launch ramp so that you can get out to the course and get a good warm up in.










Teamwork is crucial when warming up.  A good training partner can give you a huge jump on the fleet.

With 53 boats in each of the 4 fleets, bad air can be brutal.  This red kite lost 30 places in the last minute of racing because they didn't fight for the high lane around the last mark.











Dane and Quinn winning race #1 on day 2 of the qualifying series.  This race finished in heavy thunderstorms, and the fleet was sent in after a long assessment of the conditions by the race committee.










Max and Zach winning a race in qualifying with Zach Downing and Tyler MacDonald close on their tail.













Sponsored European teams are the norm.

Max and Zach finishing first after sailing a clean, fast qualifying race.  Go USA!!

The French who ended up winning the event were required to display the yellow dot on the last day because they were leading.  2nd had a blue dot and 3rd had a red dot.

Awards ceremony.

On the podium.  The only time that the US National Anthem has been played at a World Championship for 29ers was at the 2007 Youth Worlds in Canada, when Emily Dellenbaugh and Brianna Provancia won the women's skiff division.  Who will be the next US team to raise the American flag in front of the crowd?






Get ready for Kingston, 2014!!!

Sailing Scuttlebutt Press

Some great commentary that was recently featured on www.sailingscuttlebutt.com:

From Michael Mollerus:
Re, the 29er World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark. Although the French team of Lucas Rual and Emile Amoros won the regatta, after leading off and on throughout, the United States was also well-represented at the top of the 210+ boat regatta. Five of the seven U.S. teams participating finished in the top 20, with three boats finishing in the top 10 (the boats were 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 19th) - the U.S. had more teams in the top 20 than any other country, all without any formal support from a national sailing federation (unlike most other countries). I suspect that these results are among the better results, across the class, that the U.S. has seen in an Olympic-feeder class, and it is clear that the U.S. 29er organization, the sailors, their parents (disclaimer: I am a parent of one of the sailors) and suppliers and others that support the class must be doing something right, based on these results and the many skilled sailors that are currently in and have previously come out of this class.  I don’t pretend to know exactly what it is, but it is clearly something that U.S. Sailing should be actively looking at and building on.

Speed Rigging

How fast can you rig? Tensioned + kite, main, and jib rigged in 4:04

Preparing For Your First European Event

In the last few years, I've had the opportunity to coach several US teams leading up to and during their first international events, and as the US team begins arriving in Arhus, Denmark for the 29er Worlds, it's important for the new teams to be careful of the pitfalls of preparing for an international event.  The first mistake that I see many teams make every year, is trying to take shortcuts for the sake of simplicity.  With 200 boats on the line, there will often be 20-30 teams who have equal speed, boat handling, and tactical knowledge to you; of those 30 teams, half will usually take themselves out of the game through lack of preparation.  A few things you can do to ensure that you will be comfortable and prepared at the venue are:

• No matter what the forecast is, pack for all weather; bring everything from wetsuits, to board shorts.  Make sure that you have comfortable clothing for on and off the water. 
• Bring spare parts such as extra sails, shackles, pins, etc.  There is no guarantee that there will be a marine store within 30 minutes of the venue, so don't limit your tool box to 1-2 shackles, pins, blocks, etc.; bring lots of each in all different sizes
• Bring your own lines, wires, and anything else you can fit in a bag.  You don't want to spend the first few days getting used to charter equipment, so you should bring everything you can from your boat at home.  $50 for an extra checked bag is nothing compared to the time and money wasted by not being 100% prepared on your first day of European training.
• If you cannot bring your own lines (ISAF Youth Worlds for example), try to find out what the stock lines will be, and start practicing with them on your boat at home prior to the trip.

Here is a packing list of things you should not forget at a European event (or any other event!)

The second mistake that most new US teams make is failing to prepare for the mental aspects of sailing in a large fleet.  With so many teams who are so similar in skill level, "pecking orders" rarely get established even by the end of the regatta, so it is incredibly important to treat each point equally, and just keep making good decisions and let results take care of themselves.   Too often, US sailors who are fast, smart, and good at boat handling get frustrated when less experienced teams beat them.  Frustration changes their decision making process and results tend to spiral downward from there.

As you pack your bags for this season's European 29er events, be sure to avoid these two major mistakes!

Warnemuende Week Champions

For the last 3 days, 29er HP A-Team members Campbell D'eliscu and Connor Kelter have been battling with international teams from Australia, Hong Kong, and Germany at the Warnemuende Week in Germany (also Warnemeunde Week), and when racing was cancelled today for strong winds and huge seas, Campbell and Connor ended up on top, winning the tie breaker against fellow Americans, Duncan Williford and Matt Mollarus. Despite the abandoned racing, the Americans headed out to get some big breeze practice ahead of the 29er World Championship in Denmark at the end of the month. Be sure to read Campbell's full wrote up on the week, and follow his other adventures on his blog at www.campbelldeliscusailing.com.

Congratulations Campbell and Conner!! Awesome way to open a European season!

Results can be found by clicking here

Trick Your Ride

  Bungee attached to the floating block

1. Spin bungee uptake: If you don’t have this on your boat, you’ve probably seen it before.  It’s a bungee that takes up slack in the spin halyard when the kite is down.  To rig this system, tie a bungee to the floating block for the jib sheet, then run it back underneath the thwart, through a block that you tie to the aft most support for the middle toe rail, and tie the end to a floating ring or block, which the halyard should run through.  The idea is  that when you ease the jib sheet around the top mark, the bungee goes slack allowing all of the halyard to pay out.  Alternatively, tie the first end to the pole launching block so that when the pole goes out,  slack is created in the bungee.


2. One pull adjustable bridle height: Instead of having to adjust both sides of your bridle to get the right height, try rigging the below system so that one sliding splice controls both sides.  In the picture, the oval in the bottom left corner is the sliding splice.

3. Magical shrink tubing: Lines don’t get caught on it!!!! It’s so much better than springs or rubber things.

   

4. Normal trap bungee: Don’t go in front of the mast or around the bow.  The bungee is the perfect length if it’s barely tensioned when it’s  not hooked on to anything.

5. Bic pen spin halyard roller: Put a bic pen around the bungee that prevents the spin halyard from re-cleating.  It protects against chaffing from the spin halyard on the bungee.

6. Spin pole retrieval knot: Tying a knot inside of the spin pole makes it so that when you douse the kite the pole retracts all the way.











7. Tape hooks: Tape the control line hooks so that they don’t fall off while you’re sailing.

8. Jib head safety shackle: Put a small shackle around the jib halyard and the forestay to prevent the white plastic piece at the top of the jib from coming off when you pull tension on the jib halyard.











9. Remove spin pole eye: The metal spin pole eye, always gets caught on the double block. To fix this, just drill out the rivets for the eye, and use the top hole to tie the line through. Most new boats come like this now I believe.








10. Longer bails: Make your bails long enough that you can drop all the way to horizontal when you’re back in the foot strap.  The stock lines aren’t long enough.

11. Beads on pole preventer: Put beads on the spin pole preventer to reduce friction in your sets.

12. Spin sheet block bungee: To prevent the spin blocks from falling over without running the risk of getting lines caught on the block, use bungee to bungee the block to  the chain plates.  Tennis balls or springs work, but lines often get caught on the balls or springs.

Club 29er

Matty Pierce and Ryan Satterberg (130lbs combined)
practice capsize recovery.  Ryan is 8 years old.

The 2013 Summer Program is in full swing at the Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation with week 2 wrapping up today, and for the last two weeks I have had the opportunity to coach a beginner 29er clinic using club equipment.  The event was largely experimental, as there are very few clubs who own equipment, and even fewer who offer support to the kids sailing the boats.  The two weeks have been a learning experience for me as much as the sailors, but the resounding success of both weeks has prompted me to schedule another 2 weeks in the middle of July.

The first week attracted 11 participants, many of whom had told me that they were taking the summer off from sailing.  The sailors ranged from 8 to 16 years old, with backgrounds in FJs, optis, and sabots, but little else.  Of the 11, 5 were girls and 6 were boys.  

"Boat yog-in'" with Niles Sterner and Frankie Doyle.

The first week focused on rigging and boat work subjects, while rotating the participants through 2 club boats to practice capsize recovery, balance on the trapeze, and teamwork.  The curriculum was designed to help the sailors achieve measurable proficiencies in a variety of skills that I outlined in a chart at the beginning of the week.   By the end of the 5th day, most of the sailors could consistently right the boat from a turtle in less than a minute, and could balance while performing a variety of "boat yoga" positions.

During week 2, the curriculum got a bit more technical, introducing some tuning ideas such as "Light", "Side Force", "Driving Force", and "Windy" condition tables, as well as boat handling mechanics.  After lectures on these topics, kids took written tests before going on the water to experiment with their new knowledge.  The strange new struggles of sailing a tippy boat with a trapeze kept everyone engaged, and asking questions, and as a result, the learning curve was steep all week long.

After the two weeks, we had some missing gel coat, and one broken tiller, but in general the boats held up to the abuse with few unexpected issues.  That's pretty good for 12 year old gear!

The most convincing takeaway from the two week program was that this is what kids want to do.  Of the 11 who started the first week all 11 came up to me at some point throughout the two weeks to ask if I would please run another 29er clinic soon.  Even the boat work lessons kept the kids riveted, as they learned how to splice and whip lines.  This is the future of the sport, and I think that this small experiment proved that skiff sailing can be incorporated into club level programs with great success.

For photos of the week click here

To view public 29er High Performance resources click here

4 Hours Of Misery + 1 Hour Of Racing, Or 5 Hours Of Practice

Day one of the Hamlin #4 event in Santa Barbara saw light, shifty winds from the south and the south west, which only allowed the Race Committee to get in one race despite a 5 hour day on the water.  At the 29er HP debrief, coach Craig Wilson explained the opportunity that he saw on the water by comparing two different ways of looking at the situation; "Days like this can be 4 hours of misery and 1 hour of racing, or 5 hours of practice."  An interesting point that he emphasized was that light wind provides a very unique opportunity for immediate feedback that sailors should seize when they have the chance.  

Similar to heavy wind, where a bad maneuver will provide immediate feedback in the form of a capsize, in light air it becomes painfully obvious when mistakes are made because the boat will stall out, and stop moving forwards.  Small mistakes can cause large speed differences, and often times these same skills that are required to keep the boat moving in the light air are the skills that need to be refined in order to sail well in moderate breeze.  By practicing in super light conditions, sailors can learn to perfect skills like boat balance, smoothness, and patience during boat handling, which will ultimately translate to speed across a wide range of conditions.

Next time you get a light air day where you are waiting for wind, take advantage of the opportunity to refine your techniques by finding a training partner, and working on speed and boat handling upwind.  Work hard 

Poster-boys

Check out 29er HP A Team members, Connor and Campbell on the NHYC/ABYC Summer 29er Program flier.  If you're in the area, this is a great way to get going in the 29er this summer!

RSVP for the 2013 Skiff Festival Clinic