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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Starting

The races started today and there was no rain! So a decent breeze, not too strong and very patchy.
It was a joy to be able to sail 3 races with over 80 boats on a small lake. Where in the Netherlands there are only a few boats spread around the country here we have 80 flying sailing objects very close next to each other. Resulting in at least 3 collisions I know of. Luckily only damage to material and ego's.

The official press release gives a nice impression how it went on in at the front of the fleet.
As this time I had to witness also the top guys from a distance.
My strength is normally raw upwind speed, however the Moth being a development class shows that the developments moved on beyond my current material and that this speed advantage is no more and downwind even a big disadvantage to the more developed boats. Unfortunately I cannot blame my material for everything as I did three really bad starts. With 80 boats on a small lake it is very difficult to catch up after a bad start. From a tactics point of view it was also interesting as the were a lot of puffs and lulls and big shifts. Something i also have to get used to as it was a long time ago for me that I raced on a small lake. In the afternoon the wind was dying a bit and especially with my weight the call was to only tack when there was a gust. I made some good calls also downwind, then it is nice to see that you can overtake a boat who first overtook you on boatspeed due to having a more developed boat. Thanks to the bad calls I made i hopefully remember them to not make them anymore this week.
For the next coming races my goal will be to improve on the starting getting some good first line starts. Further to enjoy the racing with so many boats and ensure my skilllevel will be much improved by the end of the week.

Repairs and sailing.....

Yesterday we had for approximatly 45 minutes wind! We showed some sign of intelligence by learning from past experience to make sure to get on the water in time. I learned a lot in this short session. First of all that the lake is small and boathandling will be key, that i have still a lot to learn in that departement and last but not least that my 'old' bladerider was ventilating (getting air around the foil which makes the boat uncontrollable) continously....
We worked late on the boat to find a remedy.
Today there was good wind for a longer period. Enough time to find out that our remedy didn't work out. So sailing was nice but also a bit dangerous as the boat was very often out of control.
We got some good advice regarding a solution from one of the most experienced moth sailors around. We worked on this and some repairs. Master of epoxy and carbon, Constantijn went to work in our room as can be seen in the picture :-) assisted by myself.

I'm eager to sailing tomorrow and to see if all works and if the boat is more controllable in the cold water.

There was also the "dash for cash" race sailed in the center of st. Moritz. It was mostly a low riding affair won by the swiss hero, Arnaud. Subsequently there was a nice little opening ceremony with food. Whereby JP held a long opening speech. JP is a sailor and the driving force behind the organisation of this event. I have to say that i have a lot of repect for him as i know it is a lot of effort to organise a european championship let alone having time to compete.
Even more difficult is ensuring good weather as it has been cold and rainy, on the way home to our hotel we even encountered some snow. However the forecast and JP promised better weather for the coming days.



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