Our biggest weakness the past few regattas had been starts, and after some intensive starting practice we got back into the starting groove halfway through the Bacardi Cup. Just in time to recover to a satisfying third place at the regatta. I think our new toys were a key to the turnaround with our starting practice. We bought some huge, regatta-sized buoys from Annapolis Performance Sailing and set full-length lines to simulate the size of the line at the Bacardi Cup, which was about a mile long. With lines this long it is very difficult to see from one end of the line to the other, then add 114 boats on the same line and you have a bit on during the pre-start. During practice we focused on time and distance runs and really familiarized ourselves with the setting so that we could be on our game by the time the Bacardi Cup starting signal sounded.
114-boat lines aren’t exactly great Olympics practice, but it is rewarding to see results in our training and that our hard work pays off. We had set a goal and tailored our preparation to reach it. Now the next step is to just make sure we do all the proper training to the specific conditions we’ll see in the Olympics. We’ll head to China for at least three training camps before the Olympics and those will be our best chance to prepare. We will fly out our training partners and have a full-on event training period so we can focus on physical endurance over a long number of days and sailing conditions at our Olympic venue in Qingdao.
Back to the Bacardi Cup for one minute. I can’t just claim it was smooth starts, and you’ll see from the results that the first two days were rough. One might see that in the second race we finished 39th… I hate to admit it but in all honesty we rounded the first weather mark back in 83rd place. We overstood the port tack lay line and with 2.4 mile beats it hurt… Oh by the way, when you crack the sheet on a Star boat it doesn’t go any faster like a tornado or a boat like that.
One of the worst parts of the week (for me) was the day the storm hit. Ask anybody I’ve sailed with and they’ll tell you I HATE lightning! It’s not in my contract and it never will be, I am not a big fan of the bad weather… When we saw those dark clouds coming we were one of the first boats into storm mode: sails down, sitting in the chase boat towing our Star behind. I could not have gotten out of there faster! I guess it was really windy and raining like cats and dogs. At least that’s what people told me I was cowering down below on the chase boat. Nice and dry and warm, and the best part is I couldn’t see the heinous weather we had outside!
Day 3 of the regatta was fantastic! We had one race, in which we finished 2nd place. (More than likely we should have won but I made a bad call on the gybe and split from the guy behind. Wouldn’t you know it he had some nice pressure to come back and beat us across the line to get the bullet. I promise I won’t do that again!) Aside from my bad call on the boat we had the mid-week award party hosted by Tito Bacardi Himself! Tito has been a friend of the Star class for a long time and he is a great guy. Well, this year the mid week awards party had a twist to it. The organizers were raffling off two jibs and we won one of them. The Star guys are my best buddies, and they all started booing once they heard us called up to collect the jib! They didn’t hate me; they just thought a huge program like ours didn’t need any freebies. After all, people don’t’ call us the Manhattan Project for nothing. A bit of heckling goes a long way, and so by the time I got up to the stage I just told the regatta organizers to keep the jib and raffle it off to the next guy. I got a lot of cheers from the crowd after that so it must have been the right thing to do! Hope the next winner enjoys the new jib! Karma goes a long way so I am sure it will come back two fold. I felt good about it…
Our awesome coach Rodney Hagebols had his birthday during the regatta so I have to give him a “Happy Birthday!” We tried to break out the model Lasers to do some birthday match-racing off our dock but they still need some tuning up. (We took them out in 25kts of breeze and we took a few waves over the bow as we were racing downwind so basically we need to replace all the servos because it’s all fried from the water…) Looks like I know my next side project. For now though, the main plan is to train hard in Miami for Worlds next month.
It’s been a great few months in Miami! Besides training our butts off on and off the water it has been great spending time with the team. When this is all over I think this is what I will miss most: The camaraderie between the guys. We have such a great team and everyone on it brings something different and positive. Rod has this fantastic attitude about him, it is so refreshing to be around, its motivating and contagious, I think after the Olympics I will hire him as a life coach. Hans Wallen is a silver medalist and he has an eye for things that are so specific its unreal. Hans had a vacation at the team house with his partner Annika and his two sons, who are fantastic kids. Not only is Hans a great guy but you can see what a tremendous father he is to his boys. Then Stevie Erickson, he is new to the team but fit right in from day one. This guy is a pro, no BS just a total pro. He is in his forties, never been married, no kids, no dogs and looks like he is twenty. He is a world champion, Olympic champion, Whitbread champion and he runs America’s Cup teams. He needs to write a book for all his stories… Just ask him about the helicopter… This guy is a legend.
I think I will get back to work… enough day dreaming about the water and winning…
Later
Austin