Sail For Gold Starts on Monday

The final 2009 World Cup event, the Sail For Gold Regatta starts Monday at the Portland Sailing Center in Weymouth England, site of the 2012 Olympic sailing regatta.  This is the first of three annual pre-Olympic test regattas for the sailors to become familiar with the local winds and currents that will influence our training over the next three years.  China's local conditions for the 2008 Olympics were light winds but the Weymouth venue promises to provide more all around conditions with the likely potential for strong winds just as we saw last week at the RSX World Championships.

These pre-Olympic regattas also provide an opportunity for the various countries to ramp up their organization, logistics and support structure to maximize their team's medal winning potential.  The US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics officials held a meeting tonight with all the US sailors present at its impressive operation center.  The facility is being provided to us for the next four years and is directly across from the Olympic venue.  It provides a place for us to meet before and after racing and we can store our equipment and coach boats there year round. We are sure to have multiple training camps here outside of the Sail for Gold Regattas in the coming years.   

    

weather briefing at US Team facility

The weather has been great during the break as you can see in the picture below that was taken from Weymouth's Chesil Beach of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Weymouth / Portland Sailing Academy

Not quite the Cote d'Azur but the smooth rocky beach  shows the powerful storms that must pound this shore

I've been feeling under the weather since the end of the RSX Worlds ended. I have taken the last three days off from sailing.  I'm still trying to shake my cold and other related aliments.  The racing starts tomorrow (Monday) and my coach told me not to worry because I sail better when I'm sick.  We will see if this holds true.  

I'd like to thank Compass Marking Inc. for their support which has allowed me to compete in the RSX circuit this year.  Their website  http://www.compassmarketinginc.com/  

To view the Sail for Gold website go to http://www.sailracer.co.uk/events/18401/