Making it tough for yourself: In search of height

During a training session this weekend at Oxford (in preparation for next week’s inlands), we decided to use the flat water to work on our upwind height.  Whilst sailing in chop forces you to keep your bow down to some extent, flat waters are a great opportunity to test your boat’s boundaries, to see how high you can push it and to then put these tests into practice.

In the 49er we quickly learnt that the crew tends to move the mainsheet more than is needed, and the helm tends to steer to the jib telltails. So, when the gust comes in, the mainsheet is eased and the boat stays on the same heading. What we tried to do was to go half and half, by ditching 6 inches of mainsheet and pushing the stick a little bit to head her up.  This is a great way to sail, but it takes practice to get right (and also a really good rig set up..).

At Oxford sailing club, we decided to see how far we could push it. It was pretty gusty, and breezy enough to twin wire, so we started out aiming to ditch just 6 inches of sheet, and then moved onto just 4 inches, and then 2, constantly trying to find our limits.  It’s easy to say this before you hit the water, but in reality you always end up going back to your old methods without realising. Sometimes, making things extra difficult is a good way to learn more about your boat, so we decided to make this more difficult for ourselves by firstly marking the mainsheet (with tape) to the limit that Justin could ease the sheet, and then by giving him the very end of a shortened mainsheet (with a knot in) that would fully prevent him easing more than the allocated 6 inches. Sailing upwind in breezy conditions, Justin was holding the very end of the mainsheet tail, and was completely unable to let the sheet out more than a little bit, so was forced to keep us upright using steerage alone.

The effects were pretty interesting. Sure, everything was a bit more unstable when we hit variations in the wind, but once it stabilised we found we were sailing a good few degree higher through the gusts and using the tiller a lot more to alter our power.  We had to be quicker to bend our knees when the breeze dropped (due to our high angle, the boat was far more “on edge” so the slightest header would drop all power) but overall the exercise showed us how high we can push the boat before losing power and sailability.

Winter is definitely a time for testing new techniques, so why not get out there and try something a bit different?  Rake the rig right back, try a different gybing technique, get the crew to helm for a bit (a great way to learn more about each other’s roles), train with the rudder halfway up (teaches you to roll the boat more through tacks..), and just generally mix it up.

The joys of freezing fingers

Winter is always a bad time for sailing.  Ok, not bad as in “wasn’t the new Indy film bad?”, but bad as in “I’m cold, the wind has died, we’re being washed out to see and I didn’t give any money to the RNLI this year so I’m pretty sure they’re ignoring us” bad.   We’ve had a few training sessions were we’ve had ice literally form on the boat whilst we’re sailing, or we’ve decided to wrap up the session at around 3pm, started sailing in from mid-Solent only for the wind to drop.  2 hours later, the sun is down and I’m lying on the foredeck front-crawl paddling to get us home.

Unlike most people sailing on the Solent in mid-winter, I don’t usually have a problem keeping warm, so I have sailed many times wearing a short sleeved summer 3mm wetsuit with a rashy over the top.  This is great for windy days when I’m working so hard that I can keep warm without a wetsuit at all, however, it’s when we capsize or have a breakage that I really suffer.  Thankfully, after 3 months in the 800 we are still yet to capsize, even though we’ve sailed in up to 25 knots, so that’s not been an issue.  It does become an in issue when the wind dies though, and we’ve had a few horrendous trips home sitting in wet sailing kit paddling home.  It’s not fun.

Anyway, the point to this post is that, although sailing is tough in winter, and not always that much fun, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than sitting at home watching TV.  Just because your wetsuit has frozen solid and the ropes in your boat won’t bend around the blocks, you can still sail.  Ok, it sucks rigging up in the cold, it’s painful to walk into the water for the first time, yes your hands hurt, your ears are numb and you can’t figure out why no one else is on the water.  But isn’t it the best feeling in the world when you pop the kite and have the entire solent/lake/river (does anyone actually sail on rivers these days?) to your self?  We’ve sailed on New Years day many times before.  With horrendous hangovers, a distinct lack of balance or finesse, and wearing about ten hats, we had the entire Solent to ourselves and blasted down-wind for hours without seeing another pleasure boat (or, thank god, a sodding Jet Ski).  Yes, I threw up about 3 times and nearly got hypothermia, but it still goes down as one of the best sails of my life.  Totally worth it.

I don’t know about you, but winter sailing IS worthwhile, you just need to focus on the positives.  And give generously to the RNLI..

Christmas training

It’s always been just one of those things.  We’ve always wanted to train more but have always been restricted by pesky things that hold us back, namely University, Girlfriends, the need to not freeze to death, etc.  At the end of every month we have a meeting (well, a few beers in the pub, but I do bring a notepad so it looks official) to decide what we have done well and whatwe could have done better.  Every single month we look back and say “hell, I wish we could have sailed more”.  Weekend sailing just doesn’t cut it, but we rarely have the chance to sail more.  However, during the Christmas holidays we have always put the effort in to make a run for the door to get a few hours in each day on the water.  We bravely side step the mince pies, leap over the pile of presents, duck under the flying, erm, ham…. (I’m not sure where I’m going with this…) and drive over to Lymington for a sail.  The last two years it was in the 49er, this year we were in the 800.

Happily, our main sponsor, motivator, back-up driver, coach and biggest fan (out of the two fans we have, the other being my girlfriend.. who isn’t big..) managed to take time out of his job  (running the world) and jumped into a RIB to take some photos.  That’s right, our Dad was out braving the cold in the SMALLEST boat you’ve seen in 25 knots of breeze and waves to shoot some photos and provide some general coaching tips.

We sailed for 2 hours in 18 to 25 knots (Easterly, ish).  Considering this was our 4th sail in the boat (Jus has had a number of Uni commitments to attend… *cough* skiing *cough*), and first in more than 14 knots, I think we did pretty well.  We were throwing in gybes, downwind 360’s, gybe drops and s-curves without any issue and didn’t capsize or get anywhere near messing it up, even when the big breeze was rolling in.  I’m fairly confident we can handle the boat in all conditions so it’s just down to working on upwind boat speed before we’re ready for racing.

Here are a few pictures of the training:

49er result from the Court of Arbitration (Sport)

So after the amazing 49er medal race, and 19 hours of protests lodged against the Danish from the Race Committee and the Spanish and Italian Olympic teams, the medals were finally agreed upon (once all of the protests were thrown out).  However, the Italian and Spanish Olympic Committees decided to try to drag it out even further (this 49er result has had more drag than a Dame Edna look-a-like contest) by taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for sport.  Now, I’m no Lawyer (nothing to do with a lack of intelligence, motivation, study skills, ability to communicate effectively or any knowledge of actual law, I just don’t look good in a wig..) so I can’t really comment on why this has gone further.  Surely after the protest committee threw out the cases filed by the countries and the RC, it couldn’t have been taken further?

Anyway, this episode has taken far too long (and has been about as enjoyable as french kissing a toaster), so I’m glad to say that all further protests have been dismissed and the Danish can finally take their well deserved Gold medals home.  They were the best boat throughout the regatta and are deserving victors.

49er Nationals 2008

We’re just getting ready for the 49er Nationals in Weymouth this weekend.  I personally think it’s a shame that it’s only a 3 day event, which is nothing compared to most other classes getting week long events for their National Championships.  Anyway, 3 days means that you really have to get the good results in early to do well, so it’s going to come down to who has the best start on Saturday.

We’ve worked hard on fitness over the last few months since Kiel.  We’ve both been riding 3 or 4 times a week for about an hour and a half each time.  We’ve been hitting the gym very hard, trying to get the extra weight needed (and have seen an increase of 3kg to bring us up to 150kg since Kiel) and have worked on flexibility and overall conditioning to reduce injury risks etc.  Although we were fast in the breeze in Kiel, with some good boat handling in the big stuff, the extra weight should help us out for the next windy event.  Lets hope it’s the Nationals.

I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

The greatest dinghy race ever?

The sailing medal races have been a hotly contested subject over the years. After many trials of varying formats, they were finally introduced for the Beijing games to try to increase the television potential of the sport. Gone are the days of a team winning gold with a day to spare (the poor TV viewers couldn’t understand that..), and we have been dropped into a situation where a weeks work can be lost from one bad call.

The first idea for a “medal race” was brought in at the 2005 49er Europeans, where ten boats would sail on tiny courses in short (ten minute), knock-out races (the last boat being dropped after each race) until only one boat was left. this boat would take home the victory. Sounds great, but in Copenhagen in 2005 Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes had led the event from day one, taking a huge lead into the knock-out medal race. However, they ended up losing in the second race, with Chris Draper and Hiscocks taking overall honours. Was this fair?

So finally the medal race was introduced, 1 short race (30 minutes) with double points that have to be counted. Now, in the past it has been rare to see the winners lose the event on the day, but in the Olympics, you never quite know.

In the 49er medal race, the Danes were leading buy a fair few points as they sailed out to the startline. With big wind and waves, it looked like it would be a pretty exciting race, but they had no idea.

Sailing out to the start, their mast buckled (strangely in the same spot ours broke in Kiel.. build defect maybe?) and they were forced to limp home. Everyone watching assumed they were out of the medals, as they had no way of getting a new stick up in time. The race starts, to see boats flipping and capsizing everywhere. Heavywind specialists like the Spanish and Italian teams were falling over, and it looked like the winner would be the guy whio capsizes the least. Even though we had the best sailors in the world on the water, they just could not keep the boats upright the whole way round. Halfway up the first beat, 4minutes and 56 seconds after the start (the startline closes after 5 minutes), a Croatian 49er screams over the line to start the race. Yet, the Croats didn’t qualify… The cameras zoom in to the sailors…. It’s the Danes! They borrowed the Croatin boat, rigged up (with the help of about 20 other guys) and managed to make the start. All they have to do is finish the race in 7th, and hope the Aussies or Italians don’t win, and they take home the gold.

3 laps later, the race is being led by the Italians, followed closely by the Aussies. The Sibellos pull the stick around the windward mark and pop the kite, in big wind and increasing waves. The Aussies closely follower. After a few big troughs, the Italians plough into the back of a steep wave and take off, flipping the boat on its back.

The Aussies overtake, and just need to finish to win Olympic Gold. 500 metres to go. 200 metres to go. One two sail gybe for the finish line, but Nathan slips and they capsize too.

Finally, at the back of the fleet, the Danes are catching up. In 7th place, and with the Spanish winning the race, they just have to finish without losing any places and they have gold. But they too capsize just before the line, but manage to get upright again to finally finish in 7th, taking the Gold medal after a long and hard fought series.

However, it wasn’t over. The race commitee protested Denmark for sailing someone else’s boat. After a long Jury hearing, the protest was thrown out and Denmark were finally awarded Gold.

What an epic race. What a finish to the 49er racing. And what a great advert for the sport.

The greatest Olympian of all time?

Is Phelps the “Greatest Olympian ever”, as has been described in a number of newspapers and on the BBC?  Sure, the guy has broken the record for most Gold medals won in a single Olympics, but it doesn’t make him the best ever.  No where near..

What’s really bugged me about the Olympics, ever since I began following it, was how in swimming a guy or girl can win several medals just by being a VERY good swimmer.  Sure they are different strokes and distances, but why is it that at the last three Olympics, a guy has taken home a haul of several medals?  Is it right that they can compete in as many races as they want when other athletes like sailors have to work for a full week for the slim chance to win a single medal?  Also, 1 gold medal means the world to a sailor, but does this look like a man who’s excited to have just won a gold medal?

I’m not taking anything away from Phelps, he is the best swimmer of all time, no doubt about that.  But it’s just a shame that he can win so many medals when other sports have to battle for weeks for the chance to win a single one.

Secondly, I feel it’s a huge shame that in some sports a country can have many entries to each event, yet in sailing only one guy from each country can go.  Yes, I understand that it is to increase worldwide competition and to prevent team racing, but there are sailors out there who are in the top 5 in the world who will NEVER go to the games!  Yet we have British track and field athletes who have been quoted this Olympics saying “I’d like to see if I can reach the Semi-finals..”!  This hardly seems fair!  If they are not good enough for a medal, Team GBR shouldn’t fund them, unless they are young.  Surely the best athletes in the world should get to compete?

Back to the greatest Olympian.  Phelps is not him, not after only 2 Olympics. No way.  If he ever wins golds in 5 Olympics, like Sir Steve Redgrave, THEN he will be worthy of the honor, but this won’t happen, and Steve Redgrave will remain at the top of the pile for decades to come.  Winning golds in 5 consecutive games, whilst managing with diabetes, in an endurance sport, is just plain incredible.  Sir Steve Redgrave is the greatest Olympian of all time, and no over-the-top media claims will ever change that.

Training and photo shoot

After trying to organise it for a long time, I finally managed to get Felix Hemsley over to Lymington for a bit of a photo shoot.  We wanted to get some new shots for the sponsors, as well as some film for training purposes. There’s nothing like filming yourself to work out what you need to imporve on, so armed with a few thousand pounds worth of camera equipment (his, not ours..) and a promise that “dude, no worries, you won’t break a thing and it’ll be dry”, we rocked up to Lymington to be greeted with torrential rain and 20 knots of breeze.  After sitting in the cab for ten minutes, the low passed over and the we stepped out into wall to wall sunshine. 

After rigging up (it’s very difficult to rig up plus ensure that the photographer is getting your best side….) we wandered over to the gruff RNLI men to find out what conditions we could expect.  “You’re going out?” he said with a grin….

“erm, yep.  looks ok to me.  what’s it blowing?”

“Hmm, 25knots, gusting 30.  If you’re going out, how about we keep the boat on the water for you shall we?  You know, just in case….”

Right.  Ok, we didn’t have much choice so we pulled the sails up (whilst trying to look all casual and unfussed as the boat did it’s best to jump off the trolley and fly away…) and launched.

After sailing out through Lymington river, both in the toe loops on a broad reach, we hit the Solent, or rather, then Solent hit us…  in the face.  With 25 knots of very angry wind and waves that just didn’t appreciate the finer arts of trying to keep a boat flat.  To avoid having to go downwind too much, be blasted off towards Cowes in the death zone (an angle to the wind where everything just seems to go wrong, in a very sharp, painful and altogether upside down way) to practice our bearaways.  However, we very quickly realised that with the strong wind against tide current, bad things were about to happen.  Besides, I was getting the “lets call it a day” cut throat gesture from Felix on the RIB, as he fought to keep his camera equipment dry and in one piece.  We decided to stay out a little longer, but it was getting to the stage where, even though both sails were completely let go, we were still nearly getting blown flat..

So after much conversation ( Me: “WE SHOULD GO IN…”    ….Jus:  “WHAT?”   Me: ” I SAID WE SHOULD GO IN!”  Jus: “I CAN’T HEAR A THING! WE SHOULD GO IN!” Me: “WHAT????!” ) we called it a day and pulled a bearaway (yes, it’s 25 knots and there are steep choppy waves around us.  Why tack when you can bear away and learn something?  Why drop the spinnaker when you can gybe drop?) and blasted back home.

The photos are now up on flickr so go and have a look.  Felix could only shoot whilst we were still in the river or in flat water, so they don’t really do the conditions justice.  We’re all very happy with the photos though, and Felix turned out to be a pretty hard nut to risk all of his equipment in those conditions.  Thanks goes out to Felix (check out his site:  www.felixhemsley.com) and our elegant RIB driver Maria Claridge.

Powerbars! Ho!

So during big events, we can be competing for 4 races, each lasting 45 minutes each. During each race, when it’s breezy, I average a heart rate of between 160 and 180 beats per minute, and have to work hard all the way round the course. Sailing is one of those sports where “social loafing” is not possible. Unlike sports such as football and rugby, I can never say to myself “right, I need a rest, I’ll take it easy for a bit and let others take the slack…”. When you’re racing a 49er, you can never rest your arms, so when tiredness sets in, you’re in trouble.

One major area we have worked on later is nutrition. It’s not enough to eat a past meal each night and some cornflakes. You’ll never get round the course. You need to be eating between each race, and it is here that we have made one of the biggest gains. Before, we would take out bananas, chocolate bars or cereal bars, and yet I’d always feel lethargic going into the last race.

However, we recently bought a big bag of Powerbars (Powerbar Performance stage 1, to be exact), and have been pretty surprised by their effect. We’re now going through them at about 4 or 5 each per race day, and have had far more energy during and after racing, better concentration levels and more motivation. We’ve started taking them cycling as a mid way energy boost and again have been surprised at how easy they are to digest (no stomach cramps) and how quickly the energy hits your limbs. It’s been such a huge boost to our sailing, being able to train for much longer without needing a decent meal or longer rest stops.

So the moral of the story? If you want to sail just as well at the end of the day as you did at the start, get some Powerbars.

Kiel Week day one

Ok So I’m going to try to recount the racing on each day for the 4 days we raced at Kiel week.  I meant to do this earlier, but we struggled to get wireless during the event.  I’ll try to keep it as factual as possible, so if I start talking about 50 knot gusts or dragons then I apologise.  I have a very active imagination…

ok, so day one gave us onshore breeze of around 16 – 18 knots with pretty big waves.  This was our first day of Grade 1 racing all year due to us missing Palma and Hyeres with family problems, and we couldn’t have asked for more difficult conditions.  Upwind we were wiring higher than usual to clear the steep waves, and downwind we were making big turns and choking the kite to keep us from pitchpoling.  Our aim for the day, due to us being a little rusty in strong wind and waves, was to get the boat round the track upright and get some decent starts.  We pulled some turns on as the breeze built (up to 34 on the shrouds) and started hunting for the gaps on the start line.

At our last event, we worked out a decent starting sequence of waiting for half the fleet to park up at around 1.30 to go before finding a hole and parking.  At between 1.30 and 30 seconds we would look for a double tack to put us right under the windward boat.  Judging our distance from the line, Jus would take the jib from me at 30 seconds and I’d pre-set the controls before triggering anything between 10 and 4 seconds to go.  Now for some reason, at 1.30 the entire fleet was parked up wing to wing on the VERY short startline.  Oh crap, plan B it is then.

We hunted for a smaller hole at the other end of the line and ending up starting front row but a little slow.  At the top we rounded 12th after clocking up some good lanes and having some pretty decent speed.  We pulled the bear away (easy stuff, our bearaways kicked ass all week, even in 25 knots) and popped the kite.  Down the runs we were rapid (new kite) and gybed in the waves without any problems.  We rounded the leeward mark (for some stupid reason, a big life raft full of photographers who were there all day but didn’t manage to take a single decent picture…) and ended up finishing the race 16th after dropping a few places at the second leeward mark.

Second race was very similar.  Lots of capsizing for many boats and plenty of kite choking downwind to slow the boat before we slam into the next wave.  Second race we finish 15th.

Final race, we nail the start and throw caution to the building wind by refusing to choke the kite in the waves.  We scream down both runs picking up places as other boats flip out.  We come into the final gybe on the second run (out of three), nail the boat onto the layline and charge into the mark, picking up another place to jump up to 4th.  As we round the leeward mark, following nose to tail with the guy in 3rd, we both hit the wire as Jus sheets in the main.  The guys we had just overtaken were gybe dropping round the mark in a pack, and we sailed into there big bad air at the wrong time.  The boat pitched into to windward without giving us a second to think, and we dropped back to 20th at the finish.  The day should have been much better with us finishing in 27th (gold fleet qulification standard after two days) if it wasn’t for the capsize.  We made a few mistakes that were so stupid but easy to fix with more practice, so we aren’t to unhappy with our work.

A few of the Brits had a great day.  Dylan and Alain and Rashley and Shrek both sailed blinders.

We got off the water and headed back to the tent for some Pasta and lots of water.