Finished 14th at Melbourne World Cup - moved up in world ranking

A 14th place finish is enough to move me up in the World rankings to 26th!

I was psyched to watch Ali Young from GBR win the regatta in Melbourne with a big margin.

Regatta end - Melbourne

So my regatta ended in an anticlimactic way. No racing on the last day - so I stay in my finish position of 14th place. Despite all the shoulda' coulda' woula's  about how I could have saved points here and there to finish higher,  I am pleased with improvements to a couple key parts of my game: namely starting. My awareness of the fleet positioning upwind is also improving. My upwind speed in flat water and chop was good, but now I know that I really need to work on technique upwind in big waves, and as always I need more work on downwind speed. I am also going to do more research on how to identify a persistent shift, so that I can be more confident deciding whether to take sterns to get to a side or be patient knowing that the wind will oscillate.

All in all a great experience. The Laser Standard Medal race is about to start, and the Radial Medal race is after that. A great crowd up here on the race deck overlooking the stadium course. Wind is about 8 knots out of the south with some clouds.

Melbourne day 5 medal races

Everyone is out to watch the '9er medal races. So cool.

A new direction - Day 5 Melbourne

The last two days have been windy out of the South - today is windy out of the North. The forecast is for the sea breeze to mess with gradient, so who knows what we will have at 3pm when we sail on the South course - a deeper course area than the last two we have sailed on. 49ers should be heading out soon for their medal race.

Day 4 - Melbourne

My best day yet, 11th and 7th. The breeze started around 7 knots and built to the high teens I think. The waves never got as big as yesterday, and I discovered that I was very fast upwind. That helps me narrow down my diagnosis of mediocre upwind speed yesterday to wave technique. Here's what I think: I tend towards a bow down speed mode of upwind sailing. I think that it is well suited to a day like today with small chop and oscillating shifts. The low fast mode works well on a shifty day. Yesterday was shifty too - but the waves were big. I suspect that the low and flat mode is not as effective in big waves. I'm not totally sure why - maybe the low mode gets way too low if the waves are pushing you sideways. Isabella was fast in the waves yesterday and told me she was focused on keeping the boat balanced, and a constant angle of 'happy' heel. 

Anyway today was good - I had two good starts at a crowded end - one where I bailed out at 30 seconds and gybed around to find a spot last minute - and one where I held my spot and pulled the trigger just right to be really punched out. That race I maintained 3rd place all the way around the course until I choked at the end of the last run and let a pack of 4 boats pass me. I panicked that they were gaining and I was on the right of them, so I sailed left to be on the inside, and in doing so I think  I went sideways too much and gave up vmg. Then I went slow because I was worried about them instead of just doing my thing.

Despite that frustrating end to the race, it was really cool to do most of a race very well - particularly the starts!

Day 3 recap

Okay, so I'm not as fast upwind in 25 knots and big waves as I thought, but regardless, today was awesome! The upwinds were grueling, I have some more work to do on the wave technique and fitness. The reaches were just as hard, since they were tight enough that it was hard to decide when to surf a wave down, you could only surf a few, most of them you would have to let roll under you so you could stay high enough. The down winds were amazing. Sort of in between big Santa Cruz waves and steep San Fran or Gorge waves. The wave surfing was really really fun.

I can't wait to do it again tomorrow! The forecast is similar, although starting later in the afternoon. We are back on the Green Point course with an early start. I'm anticipating a tamer version of today, which should be just as fun.

Oh - results - I moved up into 14th place. It might take a miracle to get in to the top ten for the medal race, but I am trying.

Dinner:

World Champion Heiner from NED and BEL dueling at the front of the men's fleet:

A new day - day 3 Melbourne World Cup

So this was yesterday:

 We waited on shore and on the water until a late afternoon breeze filled in under overcast skies. Our two races were tricky, and I think I overcomplicated my thinking. It's hard not to be discouraged and get down after a day of poor decisions that cost you many positions in the regatta.

Today is a new day - I am psyched to be here competing regardless of the conditions or having a bad day on the water. I walked down to the boat park to find this:

I am sitting on the yacht club deck overlooking the stadium course. The mens laser fleet is about to start. Can't wait to race after them! Reminds me of San Francisco.

Today's mantra: Dominate the start and keep it simple. There is nothing better than racing on a day like today, getting good results would just be icing on the cake.

Melbourne Day 2

I have been watching the tracker from today's races and it is painful! I made a couple big very bad decisions - see below.

I started at the wrong end of the line in race 1 thinking that the breeze was starting to shift back to the right. In retrospect I didn't have solid evidence of this.

In race 2 I was leading for a portion of the 1st beat but decided I thought that we were seeing a persistent left shift. Being afraid that I was on the outside of the shift, I continued to the left taking sterns until I had a lane to the left of the fleet to tack into. I think it was a hasty decision, again I didn't know for sure that we were seeing a persistent shift - I was just guessing since it seemed to be winding slowly. Looking at the tracker, I should have tacked and crossed boats to get left as soon as I could cross them, but when I couldn't cross them I should have tacked back instead of assuming that the shift was persistent, I should have hedged my bets since I really had no idea what the wind was going to do. The thing is, I think it was a persistent shift, but there were some small shifts as well and my timing was just bad - I sailed the wrong tack at the worst time.

Feeling discouraged after two days with time spent at the top of the fleet only to post scores mid fleet. I hope I can put it together tomorrow and post a top ten race!

Tomorrow:
pre-race homework
have a plan
worry about the left side
execute two good starts
be patient with tactics

Melbourne World Cup Day 1

Sail Melbourne - Day 1 - Wind 14-17 kts SW ish

In 12th place at the end of the day. Not too bad, but would like to improve. I had potential to have to single digit finishes today, but had a couple slow runs where boats passed me. I nailed 2 out of 3 starts. (The second race was abandoned half way up the first leg when the weather mark was moving or something, so we re-started that one.) Third start I had a nice hole to leeward, but got a little too head to wind and let my German friend Sophie steal my hole. I think she was getting me back for not letting her cross me on port the race before! After tacking out to the right I was looking okay for a while on the right side of the fleet, but the left came in and I was never able to make gains on the leaders.

Goal for tomorrow - 2 more good starts and try to find a nice rhythm downwind.

Melbourne World Cup

Got to Melbourne a day later than planned - but managed to register and measure in, set up boat and go sailing before walking home to the airbnb house where I am renting a room. Today is Sunday in Australia, I have one more practice day and then racing begins.