Overdue update & next gen

I don't do regular updates of my blog. Although I tried to set a rule for myself to post an update during major regatta's. Already a month ago I participated in the Australian Nationals and I didn't do a single update, so in that sense I broke my own rule.
My excuse was that there was no wifi available, not in the village nor at the yacht club. The only access I had was via Nick his mobile account, due to the scarce availability of MB's I had to choose between skyping with my daughters or posting pictures and updates. Thanks again Nick for letting me use your mb's, the girls were very impressed by my tiger imitations, more than my housemates I think...
Thanks to an earlier blog post about my issues with housing I got an reaction of Mark. Thanks to him I had a great week in a villa in mount martha with Mark, Nick, Allen & Tracy. They introduced me to the joys of the rum squad and to the true moth spirit, as home builders. The self build moth of Allen with twin wands which are cross connected with half of the flaps and which has a canting rig was particularly impressive!

If you followed the nationals you already knew that the waves were big for a moth regatta and the wind was erratic.
My results were very bad. I started of with trying to let the boat sink... It was my first time in a Mach2 and with a bladerider you do not have to tape the boat.... I learned a lot during the regatta, about sailing in waves and about sailing and setting up a mach2. In the process I also suffered a number of bruises not in the last place my ego :-) but that is what you get if you show up ill prepared and not fit.
It was great to do some sailing again and to learn from a very competitive Australian fleet. Also thanks to Andrew (Mason) and Simon for ensuring the boat was complete and ready every day. And thanks to Andrew to supplying tips on mach2 setup and for renting out a boat.

Currently i'm in the process of replacing the bladerider and I try to make time to prepare for Garda. Although instead of training or working it is great to spend time with the girls. As you can see on the picture the next generation is getting ready! On the way back from Australia we visited friends in Hongkong and one of the days we were invited on a 40 footer. We couldn't get my eldest daughter of the wheel!

Looking forward to see many people I met in Mornington again in Garda!
However tomorrow I will start with some ice skating as it is currently freezing -10 in the Netherlands.

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Australian nationals!, Accommodation, No more winter sleep

First of all the best wishes for 2012!

My Moth winter sleep will come to an end soon. As I will participate next week in the Australian nationals! If all goes well.

Currently I'm in Australia with my family-visiting friends in Sydney. This holiday was planned some time ago and not till only recently I found out that the AUS nationals were on when I would be in Australia. Secondly I figured out that it was possible to arrange a boat. After some discussion with the family it was decided that I would go for it. 

Last year I only sailed one race, the Benelux championships, and that was also the last time I sailed my moth. So with some added 'winter weight' it would be interesting to see how I will fare in the very competitive Australian fleet and probably it will be watch, learn and learn. 

The plan to join the races in Mornington was made a bit last minute, currently I'm still struggling to find an reasonable priced accommodation. First of all as ignorant European I had no idea that the beginning of January is the very high season in Australia, as now found out that almost the whole of Australia is on holiday. 

Secondly in the last minute it was decided that the wife and kids will stay in Sydney, so this changed the need for the sort of accommodation needed and I would be contend with a modest accommodation for myself. This proves to be difficult at the moment. So if someone has additional tips regarding accommodation (besides what is already mentioned on the official website and besides the help of Leigh) and/or also if there were an other sailor who has the same issue and would like to share an accommodation, this would be most appreciated.

When I will make to the races in one piece I will try to keep you posted on the races and my experiences "down under"

All the best,

Open dutch skiff trophy 2011

Directly after the Open Dutch Skiff trophy I started to write something on the blog.Halfway my post I became distracted by all kind of daddy and other duties. Finally after some weeks now I found some time, to fulfill my own goal to write something when I sailed a Moth race. Due to the birth of our second daughter and other priorities I didn't made it to other Moth races this year, so the open dutch were my only moth race this season.

Koos http://internationalmoth.wordpress.com/ and Gio http://giovannigaleotti.blogspot.com/ already covered the event from their perspective.

It was great to see new faces in the moth class during the open dutch Skiff trophy. The weekend we had 8 enthusiastic moths at the start of the Benelux open skiff regatta. Saturday it was mostly a windy affair with showers. The latter ensured that we got some impressive gusts! The moths showed the other skiff's what real performance looks like. Arjan impressed with an complete see through knited trampoline and sheer determination during the day. As some of the 25+ knots gusts proved a bit too much for most of the mothies. The last race of day became due to breakages of the other moths a two boat race between Constantijn and myself. 

Jaap Groenendijk was unlucky by damaging his main foil due to the unpredictable rocks near the breakwater, he had to miss the next day. He is a great sport and on sunday he supported the remaining mothies from shore.

Sunday the wind was moderate and apart from Jaap and Gio [Link to Gio Blog] everybody was ready to foil! 

It was impressive to see Morgan in his first moth race improving every single race and that is a promise of what we can expect from him in the future! Chris showed improved skills, however his personal fight with his push rod made his flights not completely stabile. Koos enthusiasm is as always contiguous and his cheering when he nails a flying gybe is a joy. Buddy Constantijn had great straight line speed on his new black monster and became 3rd overall.

My VRX was performing well and by not capsizing on Saturday and staying (mostly) in the patchy breeze on sunday I could win the races. Although Morgan was getting closer every race, thereby becoming second on his first moth race.  

For the winter period training sessions are planned and it would be great to jointly getting the level up. 

I decided to start selling my loyal Bladerider VRX and decide later what his replacement will be. As it seems the Ninja is also performing very well. So pending on when I can sell the trusted NED 3454, so I will join the winter training with or without a boat :-)

It is over...

It is over. The non-europeans dominated the European championship by taking all the podium places. Nathan (AUS) winning before Bora (USA) and Scott (AUS). The European title was for Simon( GBR) just in front of local hero Arnaud (SUI).

Today it took some time for the wind to build up, while for the first time it was really sunny and warm. Only two races could be sailed in a moderate gusty breeze. The wind was a bit too light for my liking as it was difficult to keep foiling. It was really important to sail in the pressure and to ensure the tacks were made in a gust.
The first start i was very sharp and to my knowledge not over. However a individual recall was called from the starting vessel and i didn't want to take any chances and went back, starting DFL. Also the start of the second race was not brilliant as I took to long to get up the foils. I sailed tactical some good beats and could overtake a big part of the fleet.
Overall I improved a lot in my sailing this week and know exactly what is needed to be again competitive next time, from material perspective and what skills to further improve.
Overall for the competition it was good that there have been different wind strenghts ensuring that everyone had conditions to his or her liking.

I competed in two earlier major moth events and the experience there was that the last night was a great get together where with some drinks the fleet mixed more beyond the usual sub groups (divided by nationality and level). However this time the last evening was a big deception. Half of the fleet was already gone before the prize giving and the next half after the free diner. Rod tried to get some more atmosphere in with the tiller of doom, but I think this scared away the remaining group :-) When we wanted to thank the big organiser of the event for his efforts he seemed more eager to get away then ensuring some social activity.
The organisers for the next Europeans already promised to improve on the social side of the event for the whole fleet.

Last but not least i would like the one who made it possible that I could sail this regatta, as i broke my repaired foil and could lent a spare one for the regatta! Luckily i could also buy one from someone else today so that I have complete boat again.

This was Silvaplana,

All the best !

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Plain sailing

Today the sailing conditions were again excellent. We had 3 races in a good breeze.

Attached you see the benelux 'mint tea boys' flying over the Silvaplana lake. Thanks to Inge, a friend of Constantijn who made a lot of very nice pictures.

I had typed already a longer blog about how tight the battle is in the top of the fleet. Why i refound my joy in sailing my Bladerider today, how my Dalai Lama shirt helped with this and that I was happy with my best race coming 2nd at the topmark and doing reasonable after that with the means I had.
Unfortunatly i lost all what i typed previously due to not understand the features of the blogpost application I'm using.

So as it is already late i will leave it to this. I'm looking forward to racing tomorrow. The forecast promises plenty of sun. Sun = wind in Silvaplana !


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Location:Dorf,Bivio,Zwitserland

Sun and dealing with the cards you have

Today the sun was out and it was very nice sailing weather with some good wind. From the picture you would even think we would be sailing in the Caribbean. However the water temperature was still very cold as the lake fills up with melted snow and the air temperature was also around 15 degrees....   So it was still needed to be fully suited up.

Unfortunately Koos, a Member of the dutch team could not fulfill his goal of finishing all races as his rudder broke down. When we left the boatpark in the evening he was still busy with the repairs. He was confident still to make it to the start tomorrow. I fore sure hope so !

Today I had two good starts and one bad one. However the sanding didn't fully solved the ventilation problem. So after rounding the top mark in the top ten I lost a lot places downwind. Could win some back upwind and losing more again the next downwind....
I know I shouldn't be bothering myself to much with this. As in competition you either make sure you have competitive material and be well prepared or otherwise you should not complain as you didn't prepare well enough. Still it is at the moment bit difficult to cope with the frustration for me on the race course. I think I will take a 'Zen' moment on one of the mountains here :-) And tomorrow morning I will try to enjoy the excellent competition, good atmosphere and 'handle the cards I have in positive way'

ps In the photo you see my boat as second from the group (with the Puma), I managed here to keep on foiling in lull and overtake a few boats at the top mark

The ventilator

Today there was more wind and again no rain. The day started with a bit of luck. My forestay line broke and did some damage to my boom. The luck part was that this happened when the boat was still onshore. And I could get everything sorted prior to the start.

I managed to achieve my goal I set for myself yesterday and that is to improve on the starting. With the added breeze starting is always a bit easier as the line is not so crowded. However the first race was direclty a good start and i had good upwind speed and even some decent tacks. This resulted in going around the first mark in a tight group as 4th.
Then the downwind started and when i push a little bit directly my rudder ventilates. Losing a lot of places in the process as the more developed boats in the front of the fleet do not have this problem. I have to shake off a big spray at least 4 times every downwind.
The other two races i was also in the top ten at the first mark. But finished in the high teens or low 20's.
After the races i resanded the rudder.

After sailing we had sailors diner at one of the ski restaurants half way up the mountain. The view was very nice, attached a picture of the sailing area.

Tomorrow there will be no layday and 3 starts staring from13:00 onwards are planned.
So the goals for tomorrow will be do good starts and trynto lose less boats on the downwind.... At least it should make nice pictures a foiler with a big spray coming from the rudder.....




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