Worlds Day 2 and 3

Days 2 and 3 of racing went by really fast for me.  I had a bit of another frustrating day on the second day, as the wind was very shifty and marginal.  The low pressure finally moved on, and the wind dropped to manageable conditions. The girls raced first, and I managed two 20th places, which I knew wouldn't put me in the gold fleet after the qualifying series, as was my goal for the regatta.  It was really unfortunate that I hadn't made the time limit on the previous days' races and scored DNFs.  After I got home and warmed down from the racing, I became quite sick with flu-like symptoms and went to bed early.

Sometimes feeling like crap can be really helpful, because I wasn't feeling so pressured for yesterday's racing.  The wind was marginal again but enough to fully plane downwind.  It was coming from over the mountain of the island of Portland, making the course pretty gusty, and racing was all about staying in the pressure.  I quickly discovered the secret of a successful race:  don't go course left unless there was serious breeze visible.  Course right was favored and most of the girls went that way on the upwinds, but downwind many were tempted into chasing stray puffs on the left.  I went hard right on the downwinds and many times came out ahead, ending the day with a 16th and 12th place.  After 3 days and 6 races, the qualifying series is over and we are now split into gold and silver fleets according to scores.  Although I had a "gold fleet" kind of day, I didn't make the final cut.

Sailing home from the day's racing

When I finished the second race of the day, the measurement boat motored up and told me that my equipment would be inspected.  I then got to de-rig inside the measurement area of the Academy facility.  Guess they got suspicious of me after a good day of racing.  I passed the inspection free and clear.

I'm class-legal, I swear

As the qualifying series ends, there is no doubt who is on top:  the Spanish team.  Their top girl, Marina Alabau, is head and shoulders above every other sailor here in terms of speed and good decisions.  She has posted a perfect score of 6 points for 6 races, meaning she's won every race.  Five points behind her is the next Spanish girl.  It is very impressive, as the two have a reported close rivalry and have been pushed to train together lately.  Both have obviously risen to the challenge both mentally and on the water.  

Among my Polish "teammates," the top youth girl, Maja Dziarnowska, has also risen to her new challenge of being on the Olympic team.  Her career is just starting, but already she has had some seriously good races and is much faster than last year.  Another girl, Agata Brygola, who didn't make the Olympic team a few years ago (but never gave up racing hard under her own resources), is now in medal contention.  Overall, it is very impressive how fast some of the girls in the fleet have improved, and it gives me more motivation to keep up!

Today is our lay day and I'm feeling a bit sick again, but have been resting.  I'm sure that by tomorrow I'll be ready to go and will have some good races in the silver fleet. 

Worlds Day 1

After a week of extremely windy conditions, the first day of the regatta was also extremely windy.  The morning showed 25-30 knots and the afternoon was definitely 30+ as a few rain squalls came through.  Temps were in the high 50s Fahrenheit, and may have even hit the low 60s.  We've had 25-30 knots for almost a week now, and it seems that in September, Weymouth is like the San Francisco of England (minus the gnarly chop).

Windy start for the men (event photo)

The men's fleets raced in the morning, and the women's fleets started after 1 pm.  It was a tough day for everyone with lots of falls and carnage around the slalom finish.  I had a few decently planned out races, but got tired quickly after falling a lot.  I finished the races, but not without a huge effort and several long swims after flying equipment.  I even had a run-in with a women's match racing boat that was training near our course, and had to bail out when they jibed into me.  Even with all the craziness, I was happy to find that my jibes and tacks are much better even in the very strong breeze, and I am sailing upwind well.

Hanging on:  Rounding an upwind mark.

More than Just Training: Preparing for the Worlds

Preparing for any major regatta is challenging and time-consuming.  Of course, training always is foremost, including water time, cardio, and weights.  Training is the easiest part, however.  The things that take up the most time and energy are logistics, budgeting, and equipment.  

Having good equipment is always the first concern for a big event.  Thanks to my great sponsor, Compass Marketing, I was able to order a new sail for event, and have it shipped to the Sailing Academy.  However, preparing a new sail takes a few days of work.  The sail must be broken in, meaning that you have to stretch it a bit to know how it will feel during the race.  This also allows you to figure out which settings on your boom and mast extension feel good with the sail.  This takes a few days of sailing.

Breaking in the new sail during a day of training.

The sail must then be logoed.  Sometimes this is very time-consuming if your stickers are complicated, or you have to make your sail numbers by hand.  Cutting and measuring stickyback letters usually takes me around 2 hours.  They have to conform to class measurements.

Making and applying sail numbers by hand

Although they look really cool, my sponsor's stickers are a little complicated too.  Luckily I had some help.

Christoph helps me apply stickers.

After this, a giant American flag had to be applied using soap and water.  This eliminates air bubbles under the sticker and lets the sticker be easily slid around and positioned on the sail.  The water can be pushed out from underneath the sticker by a squeegee or credit card (a good use for my maxed-out MasterCard).  The sticker can then be dried in the sun leaving no effect from the water.

After preparing the sail, I had to make sure the rest of the gear was up to par.  On my old board, I re-did the centerboard gasket and fixed the bottom.  The gasket was stiff and had become warped, so I removed it, scraped the glue off, and installed a new one.  This was time-consuming as there was a lot of scraping and filling involved, and the gasket had to be sanded to fit flush with each half, and also the deck.  On the bottom of the board, there were gelcoat bubbles from the board's exposure to moisture and temperature change during travel.  I sanded them off and put gelcoat filler on them.  The next day, I sanded the entire bottom of the board.  I also worked on roughening my boom grip and replaced lines on the boom and downhaul.  

I also needed to replace my fin, so I spent about 20 minutes at the Neil Pryde distributor's truck looking through a box of about 15.  Not all fins are created equal, even though they are supposed to be.  Christoph and I sighted down each fin to see if it was straight, and compared them side by side to determine thickness.  Basically, a good RS:X fin will be straight and thin, which reduces drag.  We did find a nice one.  Then the fin had to be sanded and shimmed to fit in the board's fin box.  After all this, all the gear went in to the measurer, who took serial numbers, and approved and stamped the sail, fin, centerboard, mast, boom, and hull.

Having a good logistical setup is also important.  I'm staying with my teammate Ben Barger, who had a rental car for a day.  We spent the entire day shopping for hardware, clothing items, miscellaneous parts for RS:X, used bicycles to get us to the venue, parts for said bicycles, vinyl stickers for sail numbers, British adaptors, and food for the house.  I ran out of money because I paid in full for our house, so I was running a tab with Ben.  Then he realized he was overdrawn because a check hadn't come in when he expected it.  The day of shopping left us both broke and figuring out how to make it through the next few days.  Luckily, we are both getting everything sorted.  After two days of commuting by bike, we are figuring out how to get around and the timing of riding from place to place.  We're also lucky that one of our neighbors has an unsecured wireless network, so we can sit in a front window of the house and have internet access.  We are looking forward to tomorrow's racing, which looks to be a very windy day, and getting on a good schedule.  It's just another few days in the life of an Olympic-class windsurfer at large in the world.

40 Knots in Weymouth

What do you do when it's too windy to sail?  A Star class sailor friend of mine says that "if you show up to the site, you have to go out."  However, he did mention that "if" is the operative word.  Although we did show up to the venue, we soon found out that all 350 youth competitors from the Bic Techno Worlds  were beached.

Only one RS:X sailor from Korea, training for the worlds, was brave enough to go out.  He got beat up and slammed for about 15 minutes, and then came back to the ramp as fast as possible.  He was greeted by a standing ovation and cheering from about 100 kids and other sailors hanging out on the club balcony.

Normally when conditions are dangerous, sailors will do another kind of workout.  I ended up going running and doing calisthenics.  It's also an opportunity to check out the area and be the tourist that you never get to be. I joined in a group of RS:X sailors visiting the Portland Lighthouse and cliffs near the seaside.

Rock climbing on the sea cliffs

  Two sailors from Canada and the Netherlands enjoy the enormous swell.

Close Call Before Weymouth

I almost didn’t make it to Weymouth to train.  One of the many things I was working on in California was getting a visa to the UK.  On a normal tourist visa, Americans are allowed into the country.  Unfortunately, last year as I flew in from Poland trying to visit a friend, I wasn’t allowed entry.  The UK immigration officials weren’t satisfied I wasn’t trying to steal British jobs (really long story).  Having two competitions in the UK, I needed to make sure I would be allowed into the country.  Four days before the start of our training camp, my visa was granted.

Naturally, I was en route from Oregon to California at the time (part of my backup plan for training).  I made a snap decision to turn around and drive back across the country.  After four days of nonstop driving to Annapolis, I had one day at home to pack and run errands before driving to New York to fly to London.  It was about the longest trip of my life!

Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy; upper body of water is Weymouth Harbor; large beach Chesil Beach. View from Portland.

As you can see, I felt the opportunity to train in Weymouth before the Worlds was one not to miss.  The crazy trip was entirely worth it as I entered a week of coaching and testing at the Weymouth / Portland National Sailing Academy that was intensely productive to my sailing.  Again I was working with Christoph Sieber, and two other athletes, Carolina (sailing for Portugal) and Arne (Belgium).  In addition to us three, many other international sailors showed up for training this week at the National Sailing Academy. Quite a few of our practice sessions were like a real regatta with 15+ girls on a starting line.  Our group worked on technique heavily, and Christoph made and analyzed a lot of video.  Weymouth harbor is a good place to work on technique, especially in breeze.  When there is sea breeze, the harbor is flat and fast, and it is easy to work on speed with a partner, or perfect tacks and jibes. It was a good and professional feeling to have a coach on the water with me, and it helped my focus immensely when he could give me specific goals for practice races and tuning.  Learning things like how to set small goals can be extremely helpful for when I’m training without a coach.  It keeps my focus to the immediate task at hand and improves the quality of the training session.

Sideways:  On the boat, Christoph gives me advice.

International sailors and coaches grill out and enjoy the evening after training.

I am finally visiting my friend after my thwarted attempt last year (she is stationed at RAF Mildenhall near London) and the time here has been a great break before the Worlds.  It is almost a relief to settle into “real life” for a short time.  In a few days I head back to Weymouth to begin the intense schedule of two back-to-back regattas, the RS:X World Championships and the ISAF Grade 1 event, Sail for Gold. 

A special thanks to my sponsor, Compass Marketing, this month, for really making it possible to compete at a higher level at these important regattas.

2009 National Championships: First Place Formula Women

I guess I didn't make it clear enough in the last post.....I've been getting a few questions. :)

US National Championships; San Francisco

Living in a van has its downsides...like not being able to blog! For the past two weeks I've been back on the road in the USA for some high wind training on the Formula board. My schedule has included both San Francisco and the Gorge, an itinerary which one of my coaches, Mike Gebhardt, once called "running the gauntlet." The two venues have some of the highest wind sailing in the entire United States, and possibly even the world.

Trying to blog in a van

I spent a week in San Francisco, commuting to train with some really good Formula sailors in Berkeley. My first day on the water I had forgotten how crazy the San Francisco Bay can get, and it took a few days to learn the gnarly conditions. San Francisco really goes off in the summer, and the wind, current, voodoo chop, cold water, and boat traffic all make for some of the most challenging sailing found anywhere. I dialed in my gear and technique and by the end of the week was ready to take on the Ronstan Challenge, a distance race from the St. Francis Yacht Club, to a mark near the Golden Gate, all the way downwind to Berkeley, and return.

Before the wind comes up in San Francisco

I made a strategy for the Challenge based on the tidal conditions. We were experiencing a maximum flood tide right during the race, so on the downwind I decided to sail all the way across the bay, to Angel Island, to go with the last of the flood tide. the strategy for coming back upwind was the same, because the tide would be starting to ebb right after my planned mark rounding time. The wind hadn't filled all the way in after the start, and a few sailors and I were trapped in a hole above Alcatraz Island for a few minutes. Most of the sailors decided to go downwind along the San Francisco cityfront, because the wind was usually a bit less there. However, I thought I could take advantage of the less windy conditions to hold to my original plan. After I got out of the hole, the plan did indeed work as I passed quite a few other sailors by going across the bay. As soon as I rounded the Berkeley mark, the wind began to fill in and although I was on my way back up to Angel Island, the conditions soon became survival. With gusts up to 30 knots, I decided to try the cityfront. The new plan worked fairly well although I did get picked up and thrown by a few crazy puffs below Alcatraz. I finished the race in just over two hours, and was really happy that I had just made it back! We finished up the event with a few course races the next day.

After the Ronstan Challenge, I headed up to Hood River, Oregon for another few events. This is the summer of the distance race, because a day after I arrived the Columbia Gorge Windsurfing Association was holding the annual Gorge Blowout, a 26-mile downwinder from Stevenson, WA, to Hood River. I once spent a summer in the Gorge working, and I always wanted to do this race but wasn't able to. Finally, this was my year. Luckily, my training buddy, Eric Rahnenfuehrer, was around to be my blowout partner.

The launch at Viento, in the narrowest section of the Columbia for the Blowout.

We left Eric's van in Hood River, and carpooled up to Stevenson. On the way up, we noted that the wind was pretty filled in and strong throughout the river. Before the race, Stevenson started to really go off. It was about 18-20 at the start, and I chickened out and took Eric's 5.6 Sailworks sail instead of another borrowed 7.8, which actually felt great with the Formula board, but was way too small for the entire race. Through the narrow part of the river, the wind had really backed off from earlier in the morning. Many people had taken slalom equipment, and had to pull out halfway through at a launch called Viento. It was funny passing them as they were cursing the wind in the Narrows. I floated through on the Formula, and by the time I reached the Hatchery (a launch for hard-core waves and wind), the wind was back up again and I flew through all the funboarders to the finish at the Hood River Event Site. I was pretty annoyed at having taken the wrong equipment, but it was great to have at least finished.

After racing, I waited on the beach for Eric, but he was a no-show. He took his slalom equipment and didn't make it past Viento, so I had to take his van to pick him up, and swap all the gear around back at Stevenson. All in all, it was a pretty satisfying event, but you won't ever catch me using the wrong sail again!

I then had another few days until the US National Championships, which included both slalom and Formula racing. Eric and I did massive amounts of jibing around buoys with our shortboards to prepare for the slalom part. We sailed all around the river on the shortboards, upwind and downwind. We also got a good day of Formula sailing in Cascade Locks, in some smooth easterly wind.The regatta opened up with two days of hardcore slalom. We had three heats and knocked out 11 rounds of racing in two days, on a fun and inventive course that included tacking as well as jibing. The first day we saw winds gusting almost to 40 knots, which was pretty incredible. I don't think I've ever sailed the Hood River Event Site on a 4.0, but that is just what I was doing. The second day the wind backed off a bit, but was still enough to run a few more great rounds. The Techno 293 class for youth sailors also joined in, and these first-time Gorge sailors got some good experience jibing around the buoys. I had a great time at my first real slalom event, and even though I don't have slalom equipment right now, my 1990's Pro-Tech shortboard and wave sails made it around the course just fine. By the end of the slalom, my jibes had significantly improved, which I am quite pleased about.

Boards on the beach at the Hood River Event Site

The last two days of the regatta were awesome Formula races. The wind ended up being fairly light, but we had enough to get some good racing in. At the event site, the wind progressively gets stronger the farther upwind you sail towards the Hatchery. Our course was a windward-leeward with two windward marks, one at halfway up the course. We first rounded to the halfway mark, and then we were sent farther upwind for the second lap. At the most windward mark, it could get quite choppy and windy. However, down near the event site it was very light with gusts. If there were more gusts coming south from the Oregon side of the river, it was sometimes profitable to go downwind on that side, out of the current on the Washington side. The most strategy was found in playing the gusts, and watching their pattern on the north and south sides of the river.


The week in San Francisco paid off as the Gorge conditions seemed somewhat tame in comparison. I had great starts and my upwind technique had improved quite a bit, and I was hanging in there with mid-fleet finishes (fleet of 40, mostly big dudes). The second day of racing, the training paid off even more as the race committee moved the course west towards the Hatchery for better wind. We had some great fun sailing in the swell and breeze up there, and it was nice to be able to take advantage of classic Gorge conditions. I finished 18 out of 40 overall, and first out of the Formula women's fleet. Overall, I felt happy with how I sailed and know I have made some strides forward in the past few weeks.

Formula women at the awards