Sunday, October 2, 2011

CYA National Sailing Championships

The CYA National Sailing Championships regatta was held at the St. Margarita Bay Sailing Club between Sept-28th and Oct-1st. I finished 16th out of 22 boats. The regatta results can be found here.
Ricardo and I flew out four days before the event started. The first day there was not a breath of wind so we unloaded our boats from the trailer and did not sail. Later on that night Al (my coach) got in after multiple flight delays. The next day brought more of the team and enough wind to sail. We had a great session sailing, at the end the wind swung a round and we got some hiking breeze out of the SW. There was more of the same the next day and we got great training in with some really good sailors. The day before the regatta started we went out for a shorter session and it was by far the best wind we had had so far.
The first day of the event brought winds of about 10-14kts. I had a good first race after which I had some good up winds and some slow down winds. I was not overly happy with the way I sailed. Day 2 brought almost a carbon copy of the first day and I sailed about the same. On day three I was just hoping for something different and I got just that. We woke up to some serious fog but by the time we were to start racing it had burned off a little. There was 12kts for the start of the first race then it built to a round 18kts by the end of the day. This was my best day so far, I could finally make the boat go. My results got better throughout the day although my down winds were still nothing special. The last day was a lot like the first two; I had a good start although I was OCS. Despite that it was a good race and I was happy with how I sailed.
Overall the event was excellent. We had great accommodation as we were staying a 30sec walk from the sailing club and we had our own launch ramp and dock right outside of the place we were renting.

As for right now I am happy to be home and looking forward to spending some time here which is something I have not done in a long long time.