Dale Jepsen One Design Regatta

The Dale Jepsen One Design Regatta was held at the Bellingham Yacht Club on September 15th and 16th.  This was the third year that I have gone to this event and the third year that I have won the regatta. There were 20 boats in my fleet. Full results can be found here.

As always this event was a ton of fun. There was delicious food after sailing on both days. Unlike in the past the winds were light for both days of the event. In the past there has been one light day and one day with great wind. The race committee did a great job with the conditions that we were given, learning after the first day and making some changes for the second.

This year the rest of the Royal Vancouver team came down to Bellingham and this was awesome as it made that event way bigger than it would have be otherwise. The team brought the 12 boat trailer, it was almost full, and the everyone had a great time. The regatta organizers were really helpful and welcoming to everyone. The huge amount of supplied food was a hit with the whole team. I am looking forward to coming back next year and I think the team will be making it an annual event.

-Kyle

CORK OCR

CORK OCR was held in Kingston Ontario from August 18th to 22nd. I finished 8th out of the 33 boats that were entered in the event. The full results can be found here

I drove to to Kingston from Vancouver with the club trailer which was a 50 hour drive. There were two of us sharing the drive. This was an interesting experience and it certainly was a great way to see lots of Canada however it tuned out to be an uneventful drive in terms of any great adventures or problems.   After arriving I helped coach the RVYC team for the CORK International youth event in which the team did really well finishing with seconds in both the Laser and Radial. This event ended on Thursday the 16th so I only had one day of training before starting the OCR (Olympic Classes Regatta). That one training day turned out to be a great day of sailing with strong wind and some awesome waves.

The regatta started off with light and shifty wind for the first race. As the day went on the winds built and steadied out a bit. The pattern of the first race being lighter then building for the second and third being the windiest of the day went on all week. The time at which the wind came in and the strength that it built to differed day to day but we did not miss one race for lack of wind. The laser course was lucky in the fact that we had the latest start of all the fleets which meant that there was more time for the thermal to fill in. It was also the farthest course from shore which meant that  it was the first to get the thermal. 

We had some very interesting racing, most of the time Kingston is a go left place but because of where our course was you could play the shifts and make some big come backs. However, as the wind built it was more and more important to get to the left side. This made it a lot more of a thinking game that it normally is in Kingston.

I am home how and am heading off to school for the winter. I will be doing my best to keep training as much as I can. The plan as of right now is to take some time off around Christmas and train in Miami before the Miami OCR.


-Kyle

Laser North Americans

The Laser North Americans were held at the Gorge  near Portland, Oregon. It was held from July 19th to 22nd. I finished 9th out of the 51 boats in the event. Full results can be found here.

I drove down about a week before the regatta with my boat on the roof. I was camping just off the regatta site at Cascade Locks.  It was an awesome spot. I picked up a BBQ for our campsite and we cooked on that almost every night. Because of the winds there was never any bugs at our site.

The team and I got a lot of training off before racing started. The first day was windy. It was 19 kts gusting up to the high 20s. However on the second day of training it got properly wind. It was steady 30kts gusting 36kts as measured by the weather station on the side of the river. Day three was a lot like the second with huge winds.

After that the the days of training started to blend together but most of them were really windy. We did a lot of training,  working hard on calling the lay lines in the current and finding the best way to take advantage of it up wind.

The day before the regatta started was my birthday so the team went Go Karting in Portland. It was a lot of fun and a great way to take our minds off sailing. That night the team got me an awesome birthday cake.

The first day of the regatta brought light wind and chaos at the regatta site. There were about 180 boats total in the event and all of them had to measure in their sails. The regatta organizers did a good job of sorting it all out. After an hour postponement to wait for wind we got the first race going. The wind built throughout the day however it never got that windy.

Day two started off light and again built throughout the day. Over the first two days I had some decent and some really bad races. Day three was a bit windier and it continued to build and build. By the end it was really windy. I won the last race having had a good start and getting to the right side. I was 2nd around the top mark and then the first boat and I ground it out on the right side. We had a big lead by the top mark. I did not look around on the down wind and by the time I got to the bottom I was winning. Then I just sailed a good reach and last up wind. I was pumped about this race.  It finally felt like my sailing was all starting to come together.

The last day was the windiest of them all. I was really pumped. I had an ok first race and then a horrible second. However in both of them I was top three the the top mark. The third and last race I was first to the top mark having started at the boat and been the first to tack off to the right. After the great rounding I sail a solid rest of the race. I lead the whole race winning the race. I was really happy with it. It felt great to end the regatta on a high note.

I am pleased with finishing in the top ten and know that my result could of been better with the level of sailing I was doing however rounding the top mark in the top three spot a lot of the time and my up wind speed, which I think was some of the best in the fleet, are big achievements.

I now have some time off before CORK so I will be doing some coaching.

-Kyle

Waves Regatta

Waves regatta was held at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club from June 23nd to June 24th. I finished 2nd out of the 24 Boats entered in the event. The full results can be found here.

Most of the regatta was sailed in light winds out of the west. It was really tricky sailing with lots of current as there always is on Waves weekend, you had to go the the beach to get out of the current but if you went too far you would run out of wind. We got eight races off in total over the two days. At the end of both days we got into the hiking straps.  I was happy with where I finished and this was by far my best Waves Regatta yet.

Next up for me, I am off to the Gorge for the Laser North Americans.
-Kyle

Sail For Gold

Sail for Gold was held in Weymouth, the  2012 Olympic site for sailing,from the 4th to the 9th of June. We only ended up sailing three of the days after the regatta was cut short when a storm came through and winds started to blow north of 30kts. I finished 79th out of the 95 boats that were entered in the event.
We arrived in Weymouth after Delta Lloyd and started training right away. We did five days of training before the regatta started. Training was really good because we were able to train with a group that included  the three best Laser sailors in the world. It was a great experience.


The regatta started with one of the longest days that I can remember  having at an event. We were at the club at nine and on the water at quarter to ten for the scheduled start time of 11 o’clock. After towing 45 min out to the course we started our first race on time. However the wind quickly died and the race committee was forced to abandon the race and send us all to shore to wait for wind. Finally at around 5 o’clock our AP flag came down and we all went back out with another 45min tow. We did get one race off but it was past 8:30 by the time we were off the water.  The race that we did get off was in light wind with some really strong current.

Strong currents, shifty winds and skewed sloppy waves were the norm for the event.  By day two the wind had started to build and we got three races off. Though they got us caught up and back on schedule, r it was another long day with a very long tow in.  On day three there were about 18-20kts and the trickiest down winds that I have sailed in a long time.

On the fourth day the forecast was for the wind to build throughout the day so the race committee moved the sliver fleets start  back in the day. This was to make sure that the gold fleet could get their races off before the storm came in. Gold fleet did get their races off but when it was time for our fleets to go it was too windy to send us out.  We spent a long time at the club waiting around for something to happen but in the end the wind never did die down and we did not get any races off that day.

For our last day they moved all of the races until later because the wind was forecast to die later in the day. After some time waiting around it became obvious that the wind was not going to die and the race committee blew off the day. After that we packed up the trailer and that was the end of Sail for Gold. It was a bit of a disappointment not to get any sailing on the last two days of the event but we did get a lot of training before the event. I am now on my way home for bit of a break after almost two months on the road. I am looking forward to it. The next event that I will be sailing will be the Waves Regatta out of Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. Then it is off the Gorge for the Laser North Americans.


-Kyle  

Delta Lloyd Regatta

The Delta Lloyd Regatta was held in Medemblik from May 22nd to May 27th. I finished 30th out of the 43 boats entered in the event as well 3rd Canadian and 5th in the last race.  I was very happy with that. The full results can be found here.


After the Laser Worlds Al and I spent two days in Berlin doing some sightseeing before flying to Amsterdam.  Then it was a short drive up to Medemblik where we were sailing. The place we were staying was a three bedroom cabin on the other side of the dike from the sailing center and it was great.

It was windy the first day that we sailed. After that the days were pretty similar with winds out of the North at 5-15kts. By the end of stay the weather had started to get really nice and we were in shorts most days.

We had five days of training before the regatta started and I missed only one for a lack of wind. Sailing here was a nice change from Boltenhagan as the water was warm and because it is a man made lake, fresh. 

Racing started with three races per day for the first two days which made for long days. On day three we were only doing two races but after sailing the first 4 legs of the race it was blown off for lack of wind. Then we sat around and waited for the wind to come in and finally at four o’clock we started the race again. In the end we did not get to shore until 6:10 and having launched at 9 am made it a really long day on the water.

The next day there was more wind. The combination of the lake and the wind made for some tricky waves. Sailing down wind was not easy.  The last day of racing was a one race day. I had an OK start by the boat and then I flipped and went a bit right. I sailed a nice beat and got to the top mark in 7th. I sailed a good downwind rounding the bottom mark in 6th. I had another good beat and was 8th at the top mark, then a great downwind finishing 5th.

The Delta Lloyd Regatta was great event with a lot of good guys in the fleet although it was considerably smaller than in the past. Now we are off to Weymouth,  the sailing site of the 2012 Olympics,  for Sail For Gold.

-Kyle

Laser World Championships

The Laser worlds were held in Boltenhagen, Germany from May 2nd to May 10th. I finished 140th out of the 168 boats that were in the event. I was 28th in bronze fleet just making the top half. I was pleased with that. The full results can be found here.

Ricardo, I and our coach Al landed in Hamburg, then Ricardo and I picked up our new boats from the Laser Dealer in Hamburg. We stacked both of them on top of our rental car and headed up north to Boltenhagen. The place that we were staying was a nice sort of cabin house. It had a big open  living room/ kitchen which was great for putting on sail numbers. From our house it was about a 10min drive to the sailing center which was on the other side of the town. The nice thing with staying where we were was that we were right beside the gym and grocery store.

We were lucky to have about 10 days of training before the event started.  For the first three of those the wind was over the land from light to 12kts and shifty. However for the remaining days of training there was a sea breeze  and it was between 15kts and 28kts depending on the day. It was the kind of place that when you went outside you know that it was windy because there was this whistle in the air. Ricardo and I came to call it the howl. Every morning it was there  until we started racing!

 

There was almost no wind on the day of the practice race. Ricardo and I went out, started,  did an upwind and down wind leg before the wind completely died and we got towed in. The first day of actual racing was a bit winder to start but was dying by the end of the day. Race one was one of my best of the event, I started at the pin, flipped on to port right away and got a bit of a lane. After tacking a few more times on some shifts I rounded to top mark in 20th. By the end of the race I had bled some boats and was back to 35th. The next race was similar to the first but with a bit lighter wind.

Over the following next three days of the qualifying series we got off all the races that were scheduled. The wind was quite similar, light with almost no hiking breeze. The forth and final day of qualifying was by far the coldest day of sailing that we had had the whole event. It had been cold during all the training and that did not surprise us because we are in north Germany very early in the year. At the end of qualifying I was sitting 155th and would be sailing the rest of the event in bronze fleet. Ricardo had made it into silver fleet which was great for him as it meant that he would have a shot at getting an Olympic spot.

The temperature was warming up for the three days of finals and with that came some more wind. Day one of finals was still quite light but by the end of day two we were hiking. on the last day we were full out hiking but the wind still did not ever get over 18kts.

I had some great races in the finals. In the very first race I was forth around the top mark but lost it all on the second up wind when  the wind from the right and I was on the left. The next race was also good for me I got a top ten. The next day I had a great start,  starting at the boat and going right. I got a nice shift and was 2rd to the top mark. I lost one boat on the second beat and finished the race 3rd. My second race of the day was similar to the first one  I missed a shift and was 22nd in the race. The last day of the event was the windiest one that we had had. It was still a land breeze and was really shifty. I had two solid races and a great start in the last race.

This was my first Laser World Championship and I was happy with how it went. There were some times that I would have liked more wind. Now we are spending some time being tourists in Berlin before we head over to Holland for the Delta Loyd Regatta.

-Kyle

Laser Midwinters West

The Laser Midwinters West Regatta was held at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach California from March 23rd to March 25th. I finished 7th out of the 44 boats entered. The full results can be found here.

I drove down from Vancouver with a coach and we pulled a second trailer. Our big trailer had been driven out straight from Florida. We left on Saturday morning and rolled into Long beach on Sunday night. We were staying at a nice hotel about as close to the Yacht Club as you can get although it was still a 10min drive. Our Royal Vancouver Yacht Club representation at this event was one of the biggest that we have had in years. There were fourteen sailors plus two coaches,six of us in full rig Lasers and eight in Radial.

We had four days before the event, spending the mornings making sure that all of the boats were set up correctly and then sailing in the afternoons as the winds started to build. There was hiking breeze for every day of training with clear blue skies. It could not have got much better.

As is so often the case the first day of the regatta brought light winds, overcast skies and smog. We did get the three races off that the race committee was trying for but after the first race there was no hiking to be done. The second race was my best of the day. After a good start at the pin I immediately tacked and got going on the lifted tack. I was third to the top mark passing both boats on the reach. One of them got past me as I protected the fleet on the second beat finishing the race in second and really happy with that.

Day two was a lot like day one with light wind and no hiking. The Race Committee was trying for four races but only managed to get three off. I had a solid day and was reasonably pleased with how I was sailing. It was nice for us to get some sailing in lighter winds as we have not had much of that over the winter.

On the third day of racing we arrived at the club to see sand blowing and the palm trees swaying. Most of the team was quite excited about this. However, shortly after arriving the Race Committee put up AP saying that it was too windy and and that they were going to wait for the front to go through. At 12:00 AP went down meaning a 1 o’clock start. We got out of the harbor and did a long upwind warm up before going and finding our committee boat. It turned out to still be windy with gusts up to 25kts and some nice big waves. The start line was really pin favored I started up the line abit but not in an ideal position. There were four of us from Royal Vancouver that were loving the winds! I got to the the first mark in third. After two more laps of the course and some rearranging of the fleet I ended up fourth behind three sailors from our team. We were hoping for more but there was only one race sailed that day. I finished the regatta in seventh and happy with that as it is a step up from my tenth last year at this event. Royal Vancouver Yacht Club ended up winning Laser full rigs with the boat in first and four boats in the top seven.

Up next for me is lots of gym work and training as I prepare for the Laser Worlds in Germany at the beginning of May.

-Kyle

March Madness

The annual March Madness Regatta was held out of Royal Vancouver Yacht Club on March 10th and 11th. I won the event and six of the nine races. There were 10 boats racing the results can be found here.

On Saturday the wind was out of the East with a lot of velocity changes. During the first four races the wind was quite light although for the 5th and last race of the day it started to build. On the Sunday the wind was stronger, out of the South and blowing right over the Yacht Club. This made for some interesting and shifty racing. We sailed four races on Sunday.

The race committee did a great job getting off lots of races without keeping us on the water so long that we all froze. Next up it is off to some warmer weather in LA and Laser Midwinters West regatta.


-Kyle

Laser Midwinters East

It is Monday morning and I am sitting in Denver airport on my way home after Laser Mid Winters East. The regatta was sailed between February 23 and February 26. There were 48 boats entered in the Laser and I finished 16th. The full results can be found here.


I took the day before the regatta off. This felt great after the busy training schedule that we had been on. The morning of the first day of racing we woke up to solid white outside of our apartment windows. We got to the club at 9 for the 11 o’clock start only to be postponed on shore due to the fog. The fog started to clear around 10:45 and we were racing by 11:30. We did three races on the first two days of racing. With hour long races and 18-20 kts of wind out of the S they were tiring days. Day two was a lot like day one with fog and an on shore AP in the morning.


For the third day the wind did a 180 and we got even more of it out of the N and with the current going S it made for some BIG waves. It was a day when not tacking too much and putting the bow down paid.


On the last day the wind started out looking a lot like the day before but as the day went on the wind started to swing to the E. However with the waves still rolling N to S it made for some really interesting sailing. It was easy to lose track of where the marks where when sailing downwind if you started to sail with the waves. I was able to make some gains by going what looked like high road but really was the rum line.


I am happy with the way that I sailed. I am still going fast up wind in breeze but I think that the biggest improvement for me is the fact that I am not losing on the runs.


As for now it’s back to Vancouver for some time at home. After almost 2 months away I am looking forward to my own bed. I will be doing some sailing in Vancouver and a lot of gym work. As always after a windy event one thing is clear, you can’t be too fit. Then around March 14 I will be heading down to LA for laser Mid Winters West.

-Kyle

Clearwater Training

After the Miami OCR regatta I traveled to Clearwater Florida to spend three and a half weeks training before competing in the Laser Mid Winters Easts. We have now been here for just over three weeks and training has been going great. During our time here we have only missed out on sailing three of the days due to lack of wind.

I am here with Ricardo and our coach Al. We have been sailing three hours plus a day as well as fitness with biking and gym which have made for full days and good sleeps. The days are starting to blend but on most we did cardio in the morning then on water around 11 and gym after dinner.

On the sailing side of things we did it all; long up winds, short course, long course, mark rounding, and some really long down winds. For those we would drive the truck 25km down the coast to a landing spot and bike back to the sailing center. After sailing down the out side in the open ocean in some huge waves we would de-rig the boats, put the spars in the truck and tow the boats back to the sailing center with the coach boat on an inland water way. It does take a bit of work but it is totally worth it. We get 25km of amazing down wind sailing in big
waves and great wind.

It is funny how when you stay in a place for long enough the weather will give you a bit of every thing. The norm seems to be 22°C and sun with winds of around 15kts but lighter in the morning.
That said there was a two day cold snap that brought some high wind and then there was the day it was over cast with light wind. We have had a bit of it all but only one day with rain.

We are staying in a awesome corner apartment on the 16th floor. The place is nice with two bed rooms, two bath rooms  and a great chilling
area - Ricardo is happy about that. There is a pool and hot tub down stairs which we have been getting some use out of.

With the training portion of our stay coming to an end I am starting to get stoked to race again. The forecast is looking good and I think that we are going to be in for a super event. From what I have seen in my time here Clearwater is one great place to sail.

-Kyle