January 2005

Although we were not planning to attend and had not been practicing, we made a last minute decision to attend the Miami Olympic classes regatta.

The event was held at the same location as the Olympic Trials almost a year later. We were the biggest team then and now were were definately the biggest team, as both David and Ned had gained weight.

The venue is known for light winds and this was a typical scenario.

To make the story short. It was like the trials in terms of performance related to wind strength. The windier the better we performed. We were extremely fast when there was wind and struggled when it was light. In this regatta it was light for all but one race.

Amazingly, we were able to qualify for the US Sailing Team with a spot to spare.

Our next planned event is the North American Championships in the Gorge, which is known to be a windy venue. We won't get any time to practice before hand, but it should be a blast.

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July 2005

We had a difficult, yet very rewarding regatta at the North American Championships. 

Ned was delayed arriving to the event due to the tropical storm that was moving up the east coast so we didn't get much of a warm-up practice.  Only one day in light winds before the event.  The first day of the event was blowing 20-25kts and we were happy to see the breeze was up.  Unfortunately, our boat wasn't.  On the sail out the race course Ned was complaining that the wing was loose on the port side of the boat, but I thought it was just because it was windy.  Well, Ned was feeling something I wasn't and sure enough the wing was ripping off the deck of the boat.  We discovered it as it broke free completely during the first race. 

End result on the first day was 2 missed races and a couple of good races.  So we went out on the second day, which was also very windy, and were going very fast and improving our position.  Until we were about 50 yards from the finish of the second race of the day and our mast broke.  I managed to sail the boat across the finish line with a broken mast and the spinnaker up, but we missed the next race while we scrambled to put our spare mast up.

Second day was ok considering we missed a race from a broken mast and then had to sail with an un-tuned mast for the rest of the races that day.  Ned was feeling a little out of sorts in the boat and needed to regroup.  We talked about what the errors were and decided to sleep through the race course in our dreams that night.  Well, it worked.  We went out on the third and last day and dominated the racing.  We won all four races of the day by huge leads.  We were winning by over a minute in a 15-20 minute races.  It felt great and help us to improve our standings in the regatta.

In the end, we were 4 th , but the second US Team in the North American Championships.

It was an expensive trip for us and we are realizing that we are going to need to do some serious fundraising to get the capital we need to be able to continue.  We have opted out of the World Championships this year due to a lack of funding, but are putting our efforts to getting things together to be able to attend next years Worlds. 

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