NL For Gold

Zadar Worlds

Jonathan and Daniel — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:50:47 +0000

As far as the weather is concerned, this event worked out well. It was pretty light to moderate winds as expected, but there was always enough to race without too much delay, and we got all 17 races in. It’s a good thing the competition wasn’t a day longer because today it’s 11 degrees, pooring rain with thunder & lightning. We had a good final series and actually moved up a couple of places to 27th out of 74 boats. It’s a personal best and this is the first year ever that we qualified for two senior cards with the National Team at a World Championships. Usually we have to do it in Miami. In the final series we raced very well, which was a bit better than our starting, but we always made a start. We generally minimised risk while still taking enough to capitalise if it was good, but be able to get to something else as good damage control if needed. We have to be happy with the event, because we actually did pretty good. The 49er is the best boat to sail so why would we stop going for sails when we can? That would be crazy! It is pretty exciting in a way to be starting a new chapter, because we’ve been doing this more full time than any other team in the World for the past few years. We do have a hell of a lot of information and coaching to pass on that would dramatically increase the level of the local Canadian fleet and we thought it would be amazing to run a open camp and regatta in Newfoundland! We’ll see what happens!

OUR WORLD CLASS FIGHT

Jonathan and Daniel — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:29:04 +0000

As people say, don’t send emails when you’re pissed off! It wouldn’t hurt so much if we weren’t close, but we were right in there, and the only thing worse than going to bed to a failed olympic campaign, is waking up to one, but this is day two and we’re ready to honourably finish this event, and dissect our qualifying series. Two incidents will always be fresh in my mind that made the difference. One we came in under the port layline in a top 5 position, tacked and as I glanced over my shoulder I saw NZ 2 coming in hot, but 20-30 metres back, we tacked and did a text book rounding, as he held super high and was on top of us in no time, and when one rolls over you they just keep on coming until all the good guys are gone. Next was DEN 5, AUS 1, and more on the way, they all smoked us in 10 seconds, and we ended up 19th. I should have called for a high hoist, but they were so far back I didn’t think they were an issue! On the final day of qualification, we opened with two really good races. Our starting strategy was to come in late (after 2 minutes) from the pin end. The line was big and relatively square so it wasn’t super important to start at the slightly biased end, just in a good lane, and so we were off the line and ready to make our next move, but it was always a fight and Gordo took advantage of the opportunities to cover us in both races, and we were quite fortunate to be able to break free in both of those. Our 3rd and final race for that day we said that we can not afford to to fight up in there and we have to be in front from the get go, so we aggressively moved to the biased end of the line and fought for our lives, and we got off the line, but we were unable to hold our lane all the the way out and were forced to tack in efforts to find another opportunity to get back, but we didn’t get the top five that we needed more than anything. An ironic fact about this World Championships is that this is the only regatta ever that we haven’t lost a single race against any Canadian team when head to head in the same fleet! That’s pretty fuinny, but not in a haha way!!
We really appreciate all of the kind, justifying comments that everybody has sent us, but we cannot blame our failure on lack of experience, or lack of talent, because we believe that one can build the skill set required for any task, in any field, through hard work and dedication over nature. that being said, we acknowledge the fact that we surpassed most peoples expectations. we are very greatfull for the opportunity to all of our sponsors, friends and supporters, but most of all our families!
We can’t get too hung up on what’s now history, no matter how recent, because we’re in the middle of an event, and we still have some of the top tenners from the Perth Worlds in our fleet, and an Olympic gold medallist that we need to keep behind us, so lets go racing already!!!!

Up against the wall

Jonathan and Daniel — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:44:13 +0000

We’re in a tough spot and the only way out is to get 3 top ten races tomorrow. We’ve already done it a few times, but we now absolutely have to do for the whole day tomorrow. We need to have good starts and speed like today, but we must hold our lane longer to get to a good spot to tack. It’s very doable, we just have to pin it that extra bit.

Lets go racing!!

Jonathan and Daniel — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:49:28 +0000

It really doesn’t seem like that long ago when we were ready for our last World Championships down under. The time has flown by as usual. Our boat looks so nice that not only were we distracted by other sailors complimenting it, but it was a shame to put it back in the water! We went out with our Swedish training partners today for some starts and practice races. It was a quick session because we do start racing tomorrow, and we are so ready. We feel fired up, but no negative stress because we have done everything we can to prepare. It will be important for us to get on the water in good time tomorrow because we need to adjust to whatever conditions we have, go through a few routines, and do a few timed run ups to the start line at the boat, middle and pin end. It’s no secret that we need to put together a near perfect event, and although we’ve only beaten the guys once at a big event, we’re looking to make this the second. As for the rest of the ten unqualified countries for only 5 spots, if we sail as well as we’re planning to, we’ll be loving life even more than we already do. We’d also like to welcome back European Champion skipper and one of the worlds best sailors, Pietro Sibello. He’s had a hard time over the past 9 months, and after recovering from a life threatening illness, he’s back at the helm with his brother, and they seem really happy, which is great to see!

Taking on the world

Jonathan and Daniel — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:18:21 +0000

What French Olympic Sailing Week was all about for us was to get us ready for the World Championships. It was a heavy wind regatta and although we spent two days on shore due to high winds, we still managed to get enough racing in to achieve our process goals for the event. We consider the event a success because we had big improvements in exactly what set out to take care of. I was kicking myself a bit too hard when we were so close to a personal best overall score, but Mark did his job as a great coach by refocussing my attention on our goals for the event which had nothing to do with the score sheet.
Here we are in Zadar for the Worlds and our Olympic qualification. Not only was the past week dangerous, but so was the drive down here because our trailer tire exploded in a tunnel on a mountainous Italian highway! Dan was behind the wheel and instinctively took full control of the twitchy trailer as it was smokin and sparkin away! All kit and persons are in good shape and we’re looking forward to start training on Monday!! We feel at home here in Zadar. We know everybody from the month we spent here in ‘09, we know the conditions, and we believe this is OUR event. The details are between us and our coach, but the outcome goal is obvious…qualify for the Olympic Team. We don’t have to make any huge improvemts here, just stay rested, focussed, and perform at our full potential. That will be more than enough.

The second first day

Jonathan and Daniel — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:26:32 +0000

We had a long day today, and that mountain wind has got some bite to it! Not the best morning at it, so maybe we weren’t fired up enough, but we answered back with a 5th and 6th in the two afternoon races, and we worked hard for those results. Our risk assessment is getting a lot better and we didn’t dig too hard into any corners so we were able to capitalize on more shifts and puffs, while still playing our side and fighting only 1 battle…you can’t be everywhere. The most important part of our time here is still the starts, and we’re working on finalizing our pre-start script that will aide us in being consistently in the front row.

Le SOF

Jonathan and Daniel — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:59:37 +0000

French Olympic Sailing Week starts today! This is our 4th year in a row doing this event and not once have we endured the famous Mistral wind, until now. It has been amazing conditions, but a handful at the same time. To open the regatta today we have 25 to 30 knots. Our focus for this event is starting. That’s why we came here. We have to make sure that we stay out of trouble and don’t get caught up with others because people are going to get hurt today. I’m already not 100%, and although I almost never get physio, i’ve been to see the team one twice lately because of my stupid neck. She thinks I may have shifted some vertebra in a crash or something, but either way |I can’t really move it very well. No matter what happens, we’ll stick to our process goals, keep the letter scores off the board, stay out of pile ups, keep the sails in the air, and enjoy some of the best/craziest conditions available for a 49er!

Starts & Wrangles

Jonathan and Daniel — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:44:22 +0000

We’ve been on a mission to fix up our starts, and it was successful! We had about 10 boats on the line, and they’re all gold fleeters all the time, and a few consistent top tenners. It was a good fleet and we were very relieved to see big improvements in our starting. Next on the list was some boat handling which we went at today. It was too windy, but there was a small window that was sailable between 1100 and 1400 hrs. We had a time out there especially cause there was some serious chop to go with the powerful winds. We did take away some good from the session and learned a lot during our debrief, but it was a bit of a beating out there. Out of the 15 really good boats only 4 could make it around the course, and unfortunately we weren’t one of them. Tomorrow will be another crazy day of boat handling and then we’ll be blown out with gale force winds for 2 days before the regatta.

Change of Plans

Jonathan and Daniel — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:38:34 +0000

Change of Plans: We’re headed to Hyeres to compete in French Olympic Sailing Week. It’s pretty much back to back with our Olympic Trials which happen right after in Croatia, but we need to be sharp from World Cup racing, so as long as we rest good between events, we’ll be set up good to get the best result when and where it counts the most, in Croatia in early May.

End of Qualifying

Jonathan and Daniel — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:44:45 +0000

The fleets have officially been split into 3. This has never happened to us here, but it’s the biggest one yet so it does make sense if they want to keep the damage to a minimal. We definitely didn’t make gold fleet, but we avoided bronze with a good day to finish off the qualifying series with a 2nd and 3rd in back to back races. Both canadians will again be fighting in silver fleet. Our goals for the 2 final series days remain the same as at the start of the event…move up! Our speed is and always has been fantastic when we break free and put 110% into moving the boat through the water, and that’s why we couldn’t be caught once we punched the start in the face. A good start is really a race officers decision, and that means that anybody that’s in the first row is so damn close to the start line that they don’t really know if they’re over. If you’re not willing to risk your neck on the start line then you don’t deserve to win the race.