fasterandhigher

Bacio wins 2nd National Title

2011-11-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

We just concluded the 2011 Audi Melges 20 US Nationals in Miami. We had three absolute great days of races with over 30 boats on the line. All races were held in planning conditions and all sailors enjoyed to be ripping along at 15 knots +. That's not bad for a 20 ft boat!
We started the regatta strong and never let go of the title. With a 3rd in the 7th race we didnt have to sail the last race of the day. Instead we just watched the start of the last race and enjoyed watching these great sailboats race upwind.
Key to our success this weekend was definitely having an upwind speed edge on everyone else. Speed makes you a tactical genius... It definitely made my life easy as a tactician.
There was also a bit of drama in the prelude of the regatta when some boat's modifications to their keel plate were deemed illegal. The boats were still allowed to sail the regatta but have to now change it back to its original state.
Our team, Michael Kiss, Jamie Kimball and myself, have worked hard on improving our sailing skills and it really paid off at this regatta. We spent the two days before the regatta practicing on accelerations, rounding marks and all the usual maneuvers.

Now its back to Switzerland for a couple of weeks of work, then back to Miami for the Audi Melges 20 Gold Cup in December.
Results can be found here: Results

Chris out

P.S

How to Rally Back

2011-10-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

"Chris, how are we going to win the Nationals?"

This is the kind of email I usually get about a week or two before another Audi Melges 20 event from our skipper Michael Kiss.

Our team has had a pretty solid track record since we started sailing together last year at Charleston Race Week. It includes winning last and this year's CRW, winning the Nationals last year, finishing 1st at one of the Miami Winter series events and winning the overall Winter Series.

Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, there are also plenty of regattas we didn't win.

The competition has caught up and they have painted a big fat bulls-eye on our mainsail.

So how are we going to win the Nationals this year? How will we keep our competition behind us?

Well, for starters, let’s stay humble. I mentioned that there have been plenty of regattas that we did not win. And usually it’s not because someone else sailed exceptionally well, but instead because we made too many mistakes and weren't able to rally back far enough up the ladder.

So what kind of skills do you need to be able to fight back after bad luck has struck you down? Here's a short list our team will keep working on:

Minimize the damage.

When things don't go your way, try putting a lid on it. By throwing a temper tantrum you will most likely loose twice as many boats, than if you focus on the next opportunity to get back in the game. It once again starts off by having the right attitude in such situations. Instead of mumbling the usual ".... why us again...", giving up on the race or blaming someone else verbally, always give it your best shot. The race isn't over until it’s over! Instead of blowing a gasket because the guy next to you at the mark has no clew what he's doing and is taking it extra wide (and by doing so letting 5 other boats come barging in), embrace the challenge you have been given.

Get good at sailing in thin lanes.

Too often I catch myself ducking a couple of boats more in order to get a clearer, wider lane. Instead, force yourself to pick thin lanes and hang in there, even if it sometimes means to sail in some bad air. So while you are out there practicing before the race, figure out where exactly that “bad” air really starts and how you can stay out of it in crowded spaces.

Get good at sailing in bad air.

This will prevent you from getting bounced out to the lay-lines too often. Usually anything over a 7 degree shift warrants to sail in a bit of bad air instead of continuing on a header, for who knows how long, until you finally get a clearer lane to tack on (by this time the breeze has most likely already swung back anyways).

Risk Management.

Opposed to my usual low risk sailing style, you must also sometimes take a bit of added risk in such situations. But this has to be calculated risk and not just some blind, “ring the bell” in the far right corner. Usually this also results in clearer breeze and therefore you can capitalize on your, hopefully superior, boat speed.

So these are my two cents on winning this next regatta. We'll see how it plays out!

Chris out

Starting, Italian Style!

2011-03-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Kiss the Madonna and Baby Jesus for good luck!

So we finally managed getting off the line in the last race. And guess what, we were second at the windward mark. OMG, we DO still know how to sail! Jamie's main comment in regards to starting was: Beat the two boats around you. And he is sooooo right. Keep squeezing up to the windward boat until you at least can see the veins popping out out of the tacticians forehead or until you hear something like: " He, he, he gazzo dio, porca miseria!!!!! Then smile at them as you bear away at 10 seconds and leave them in the dust. Yeah.....
In the first race we actually got rolled, again. And that after repeatably telling ourselves that we were going to pull the trigger early....anyways, we managed to find a lane and were in ok shape at the first mark. Coming into the leeward gate it was full on with boats piling up and lots of Italian language. We positioned ourselves infront of another boat told them that they did NOT have an overlap coming into the mark zone, had to give the boat ahead of us some room so swerved a bit wide and guess what? The boat behind us just barged inbetween the mark and us. We end up having contact with them. We yelled protest and within two seconds we get a red flag and repeated whistles by my favorite Italian Umpire (who's name I will not disclose, but will tell you that I believe he is half blind). As I look back (after hearing the whistle, sure that the Italian boat was getting a penalty) I see that the flag is pointed at us. Not believing what my eyes are telling me, I shrug my shoulders in disbelief. The umpire completely looses and he's head literally almost explodes as he yells: USA 13, you will keep doing circles until I say so!!!! Madonna, take it easy pal......
Obviously we were in last after doing our circles and getting getting released from "circling-hell", caught a couple of boats and got ready for the last race.

Lots of good lessons learned. I'm super happy to have sailed this event with Michael and Jamie. At the end of the week we had found great upwind and downwind speed, adjusted to Italian starting and solidified our team under pressure.

31 Audi Melges 20 boats, ready to race!

Team Bacio is looking forward to sharing some Italian Starting Techniques at our next event at Charleston Race Week in a couple of weeks.... He, he, he, he :-)
More, less critical, reporting can be found on the Audi Melges 20 website here.
Congratulations are in order for the top Italian teams that sailed a really good regatta.

Chris out

Our new team car and driver....

Not getting off the line......

2011-03-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Team Bacio is currently in Naples, Italy sailing the first event of the 2011 Audi Melges 20 Sailing Series. I'm once again on board together with Michael Kiss and Jamie Kimbell. After a long winter series in Miami we are now measuring ourselves against the top Italian Teams.
Not so well so far.....
Today we had three races and in each off them we had more boats ahead of us than behind us. Not good! Hmmmmm.....
The conditions were light, very light at times combined with a nice bit of chop and some swell. The three of us just haven't sailed in these conditions and it showed. Nevertheless we remain determined to improve our light air sailing and keep learning new tricks in every race. Our upwind performance went from end-of the-fleet to mid-fleet as Michael's steering got better and better and we loosened our shrouds to the point where I thought the rig might jump out of the boat!
The other issue is that we're just not coming off the line. There are a lot more good boats here and they are aggressive little suckers! We just need to get in there and growl back!
Dare I say that I hope we have the same conditions tomorrow? Not necessarily good for our results but it will definitely make us work harder!
The event itself has been very well organized. Audi is spending some serious money on the Melges 32 and 20, putting up VIP tents, showing off their super cool cars and having some hot hostesses sweet talking you into buying one.
But that said it seems the class doesn't show the same kind of camaraderie as we have in the USA. Everything seems very serious, so serious that they have brought in 6 (yes six!) umpires to police the racing on the water. The chief umpire held a one hour presentation yesterday about how we was going to crack down on any kind of cheating and that he wasn't afraid of sending people home.... Wow, I'm happy we don't have that going on in the USA. Hopefully the US Melges 20 fleet will keeps its friendly character as I believe it is one of the main reasons why it is prospering so well.

Tomorrow we have another three races scheduled and Bacio will come out fighting! No more Mister nice American guy....
Chris out
more pics can be found here
P.S. We're laying in 20th position out of 31 boats.....

Improving our Game...

2011-03-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

Bacio wins Audi Melges 20 Winter Series!!!

Happy Faces on Bacio: Chris, Mitchell and Michael

Well we just finished the Audi Melges 20 Winter Series in Miami. With a 2nd place at the Bacardi Miami Race Week we secured the title and we are still the team to beat. The series consisted of three regattas, concluding with the Bacardi Miami Race Week which boasted a total of 26 Melges 20s! How is that for one design racing! Every event saw a different winner. We won the first event, Red Sky (Paul Reilly) won the second event and the last event was won by Mary-Ann Ward on M&M Racing.

An ecstatic Mary-Ann Ward!

This is a testament to the great nature of the Melges 20 class. Everybody has improved their game since we last won the Nationals in August and we are having to work harder and harder to stay ahead or at least stay even with the other teams.
When Michael Kiss got me on board his Audi Melges 20 Bacio back in Charleston last year, we immediately got along. We are both quite technically inclined and enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth.
I consider the AM 20 one of the best sailing training platforms out there. Apart from offering great racing on the water, the owners are a pretty tight knit group that enjoy the social aspects of the class as much as the racing.
For me as a pro-sailor my main objective is to help my owner improve his own personal sailing game. I believe it is way more satisfying for the owner to keep taking more and more responsibility on the boat than having a Pro-Sailor baby him around the course. With this in mind Michael and I set up a pretty intense schedule that would allow us to do exactly that. For every regatta we set attainable goals which aren't based on results but primarily on certain parts of racing. I keep pushing responsibility back in the boat (I do bow) and we talk about our mistakes openly after each race.
At times this can be frustrating but long-term I'm convinced its the way to go.

Enjoying having the fleet behind us

Bacio is now off to Europe where we will see how we face off against the top Italian crews. The Italians will certainly push us and make us work harder at improving our game once again.
Last but not least we would like to thank our teamgear suppliers Point Loma Outfitting and SLAM for their continued support.

Chris out

In the mean time...

2011-03-09T03:57:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since my last entry:

Finished the Moth Worlds in Belmont, Australia
Flew straight from Sydney to Key West for Key West Race Week on the Melges 32 Heartbreaker with Bob Hughes

Up to Miami to coach Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha (470 Womens) at Miami OCR
Back to San Diego for one week of picking up my life, surfing, paying bills
Returned to Miami for the 2nd Melges 20 Winter Series Regatta
Crossed the State over to St. Pete for the St. Pete NOOD on "Matros"

Back to Miami to coach 49ers

Blew out my back on the coach boat
Raced the Melges 32 "Delta" with Terry Hutchinson at the Miami Championship (more great pictures can be found here!)

Finally took a deep breath

Currently I'm still in Miami, getting ready for the Bacardi Race Week where once again I'll be sailing on board Michael Kiss' Melges 20 "Bacio. After our 5th place at the last Winter series regatta we are keen on getting back on top of the pack. The whole fleet has stepped it up and racing has gotten a lot tougher. Good, because it wouldn't be fun if it were easy!
In the mean time Dani Gamache and I wrote a cool article about upwind sailing for the Melges 20 website.

Chris out

DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF

2011-01-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

Bombing down wind...

In total the US Airforce Team reported seven DNFs yesterday, which gives you a flavor of how the conditions were. Again it was overcast and not necessarily super windy when we launched, but by the time we started the first race everybody knew they were in for a beating. This was some of the most gusty conditions I've sailed in for a while.
My results: 11th, 25th and a 23rd aren't great and I knew something was wrong by the start of the second race. In race one I flunked the start, found 5th gear and solid boat handling to capitalize on some shifts to eventually pass the line in 11th. Looked like it was going to be a great day!
But as the racing went on I seemed to loose my upwind Mojo more and more and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was hardly capsizing, but the boat was feeling "sluggish". By the time I made it back to shore I barely could get the boat foiling. We needed 4 guys to carry my boat out of the water! Somehow she had taken on a lot of water, the exact quantities are up for speculation, but it seemed to be half of the lake from my perspective. Good to know why I wasn't going fast, but I havent been able to pinpoint where the water entered the hull yet. I didn't exactly do a thorough examination yesterday after draining it for 30 minutes, as the smell of the BBQ and and the taste of beer were far more inviting.
So today we'll bring out the stethoscope and find ourselves the leaks. There haven't been a lot of days that I'm happy not having to go sailing, but my body is really enjoying a day off.
Looking at the score board, Nathan continues to dominate, but got a minuscule chip in his armor yesterday when he eventually showed his second "none-bullet" by finishing 4th in the last race. Out of twelve races he has won 10 so far.... yeah, hmmmmmm
Bora had a very decent day with a 4, 3, 7 and now sits in 5th overall. I'm currently third American sitting in 18th, but that is largely due to the fact that Dalton had to score two DNFs. One because of breaking a mast and a second one after loosing his rudder horizontal. Also Brad Funk had some issues in the first two races and then had to abandon when his rudder gantry ripped apart. George Peet sailed consistently in the teens and now has climbed to 15th, nice effort on his part.
In the wing department we had some disaster hit, Charlie ended up breaking two wings in these crazy conditions. It seemed like both wings should reparable and I'm sure Rob Patterson was working over time last night to get them up and running again. Charlie has shown great promise with the wing, duking it out in the front pack yesterday. It just seems we should have added some more carbon!

The day ended with the Moth AGM which showed a bit of tension as the future of the wings was discussed. There are a couple of sailors (and mast makers) that want to down right ban any development of wings, which I find absolutely absurd in a development class. We haven't even yet really started and they already want to ban it? I can just see the headlines on the sailing websites: Moth Class bans Wings! Right next to the other headline: The next AC to be sailed with wings!

On a positive note: The USA gets to host the 2013 Worlds (we had to beat a bid from Hayling Island in the UK)!

US Airforce Team out


Me telling Nathan that his expiry date is about to kick in...and him thinking: dream on!

Crunch Time...

2011-01-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of qualification, before the fleet gets split up into Gold and Silver fleet. Conditions were again mostly breeze on but with a bit more overcast, which kept the windspeeds down when the clouds were in. As soon as the sun would pop out the breeze would increase a couple of knots. Being in the blue fleet I got to race twice on the outer loop, which had some flatter water and big gusts off of the shoreline. My main goal of the day was to improve my boathandling. And I did! No capsizes or pitchpoles resulted in three top ten finishes, albeit I might have been OCS in the last start. I pulled the trigger a second too early, realized my mistake, tried to slow down and almost capsized in the process. It was a good races nevertheless, battling back into the top ten and eventually finishing ahead of Simon Payne. Sailing around in the back end of the fleet on the first beat (after that lousy start), I noticed how my confidence level dramatically improved. I knew that I was going faster than everyone around me and that my boat handling was going to be better. That all led to a lot smoother sailing, than when I was duking it out with the top guys at the front. Now I just need to do the same when I'm ahead of those guys.
Bora had a good day with two 2nds and a forth. He's going faster now after having replaced his rudder vertical which was splitting down the middle! Nathan Outteridge had another 3 bullet day, so he will start off the final racing with a 1st on his scoreboard. Pretty impressive on his part!
At the BBQ after racing everybody was more or less complaining about beat up bodies and sore hands. We all need a day off, but Gold Fleet racing commences tomorrow! Hopefully on Wednesday we get to relax a bit and lick our wounds.
Have a look a Thierry Martinez' website for some cool pics and of course the official Moth Worlds website has some cool videos as well!.

I leave you with a short on the water interview which was taken between race 2 and 3 today.
Chris out

you win some .... you lose some...

2011-01-09T00:32:00.000-08:00

Lets start off with some humor to lighten up the day a bit!

The name of my boat is a play on "Lorenzo Van Matterhorn" which was a scene in the Series: How I met your mother. Check out the youtube clip...We have been watches the complete series on Bora's MacBook and it definitely is funny!

Back to reality.....
Tough day on the race course for me today. The conditions were challenging with breeze in the low 20 knot range and some nasty chop at the bottom of the course. Again we sailed three races and the top guys had big smiles on their faces even before the race started! They knew it was going to be a boat handling day that would separate the boys from the men. Unfortunately I'll have to count myself to the "boys" group , still. But I'm determined to change that! I'd be looking real good up the first beat, showing great speed of the line. But then the dreaded moment would arrive: I would have to tack! and in the process lose all those hard fought meters, hiking my butt off, keeping the boat at the perfect angle, keeping an eye out for those big puffs rolling down. All of it would be obliterated within two seconds. It kinda reminds me of that movie : Anger Management with Adam Sandler. It's not really THAT bad, but I might start singing "I'm pretty, so pretty, la la la la" soon if I don't sort out some more consistent tacks.
Needlessly to say my results weren't anything worth writing home to about. After a day like today I usually force myself to find all the positive aspects of my racing, so here we go:
Good placement on the starting line, great upwind speed, good laylines, Never-give-up attitude, nothing broke, finished all races, beat the current world champion in a race, sailing upwind at 16 knots, beautiful weather, nice temperatures, great team mates that are happy to help you.
Now, how is that for some self coaching!!! OK, I'm pumped up again for some more racing tomorrow, bring it on!
For me, you must understand, it can be quite frustrating having to deal with sub-par boat handling. In the 49er with Tim, we had put a serious priority on boat handling. We had set ourselves the goal that no one could "out-boat handle" us. We were a light-weight team, so every move had to sit perfectly. Good boat handling is the basis for your confidence and confidence is needed for good decision making. Good boat handling leads to good speed, good speed leads to good tactics and good tactics result in good finishes. Pretty simple, huh?
Any ways, I leave you with two short videos. The first one introduces the team members of our Moth Air Force Team and the second one is a compilation of some interviews.

Beat up team member of the US Airforce Team out

and some interviews:

1st day at Moth World Championships in Belmont, Australia

2011-01-07T23:43:00.000-08:00

The first day of racing is over and everybody is enjoying the BBQ and some beer.... just the way it's supposed to be! The forecast called for lighter breeze today and it was actually pretty spot on. I opted to use my second sail, the MSL 13C which is a bit more powerful and I think it was the right choice. My speed was decent around the course, except when I hit the occasional patch of weed, which was a test of dealing with frustration. I believe I finished 4th, high teens and 6th, so obviously I'm fairly pleased. Bora had all single digits and is getting his Mojo back. All the other top players had decent results so no big surprises there... Except that Brad Funk sailed in the wrong group in the first race... Aaaarrrrgggh! Anyways, he bounced back nicely for the other two. Results aren't up yet, but you should be able to find them here, once they are posted.
We have six more qualification races and then hopefully a day off before the finals start.
Instead of pictures I have posted some more video.

US Airforce Team out

Interview after the race

Interview with Arnaud (SUI) and Simon (GBR) and an interview with Charlie Mckee about sailing with the wing

"Breaking" news...

2011-01-06T19:05:00.000-08:00

"I was doing 24 knots downwind when I stuffed the bow and stopped radically. The leading edge buckled and the rest, well the rest you can see..." was Charlie's recap of what happened.
About an hour after Charlie had given an interview to media guys at the event and launched for another sail with wing #2, we saw Rob Patterson towing Charlie back into shore with the wing folded in half on top of the coachboat. "That doesn't look good.." said Bora. We retrieved all pieces and brought them back to the container for further inspection. (We believe the FAA is coming by tomorrow for a more thorough analysis.) This was wing #2 which had shown some buckling early on and we had fixed it... or so we thought. The leading edge buckled again a couple of inches below our repair. Charlie opted to sail again with it today in order to validate it and pushed it pretty hard. As far as we can tell the failure is due to inconsistent bonding with the core. The 75 gsm prepreg that we used is extremly "dry" with minimum resin content. While building the elements we did our best to maximise pressure in the molds in order to ensure proper bonding, but in the end obviously an autoclave would have been best. Lets make this clear, there is not a problem with the pre-preg. This TPT stuff is awesome, we just didn't quite give it the proper attention it needs.
Yes, this is a set back for us but we will take some valuable lessons away from it and we are confident that we are on the right track. Charlie will continue sailing with wing #1 and #3 for the worlds.


Charlie getting interviewed before his sail

Bear inspecting the damage

On the bright side Bear noted: "Well this is going to make the loading of the container easier..." :-)

US Airforce Team out

Countdown

2011-01-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hmmmm, seems like there is pretty good competition out there! That Nathan pulled off 5 bullets is nothing less than frightening from our perspective. The conditions for the Aussie Nationals were extremely difficult. Shifty, light to medium breeze, tons of kelp and an unpredictable Race Committee. There are a couple of other guys missing in the top ten (who mostly didnt sail all races) including Simon Payne, Brad Funk and Tom Slingsby. They will definitely also be up there once the Worlds kick off. The format of the Worlds is based on a qualification (4 days) and final phase (2 days). Interesting is that we will carry the finishing position of the qualification phase forward as a single, not-discardable race. That means it will be another open wide ball game once the Final phase starts. Good for me as I'm still kinda struggling with some boathandling and speed issues, which I hope to have sorted out by the time the finals come around.
As you all know by now Bora, Bear and myself have opted not to sail with the wings at this event. A lot of time and effort was spent getting them to point where they are now, but we are still missing some down wind speed. Having to go back to the "soft" sail was tough, but the right thing to do if you are serious about winning the Worlds. And that's Bora's main objective here. It's going to be tough to pull off another win for Bora as he did at the Worlds in the Gorge two years ago. Then he was simply faster, had better boathandling and felt at "home". This time there are more serious contenders for the title and the speed differences are smaller. Bora can definitely pull it off, he has all the skill needed to do so. Key will be to focus on tactical issues, not trying to inch out another half a knot of boatspeed.
The forecast calls mostly for good breeze out of the East / North-East (less weed, hurray), so this will mix up the results as well and be in favor of Bora's skills.

I will leave you with some pictures from the boat park where you can see why this class is sooo cool. Some of these Moths are works of art!
US Airforce team out

Wooden Moth with wing mast!

Over the years this moth has seen its fair share of fairing!

Brad Funk shows us how to drain water from a Moth

Check out all the weed on the Headstay

Double Wand action

One of the more radical designs...

Another wooden Moth

How to rig the wing....

2011-01-04T21:33:00.000-08:00

So finally racing has begun here in Belmont. It's about time! Racing is actually still underway as I'm writing this. I opted to give my body a break as my hands are killing me right now (a little remainder from the thin lines during my 49er times, thanks Tim! ;-) )
For the next two days the Australian Nationals are on and everybody is checking in to see how well their boats and crazy designs actually work. Obviously one of the big questions is: Will we actually race with the Wing? Answer: Yes and No. Our testing phase was too short to really validate all points and get comfortable to race with the wing. Nevertheless Charlie McKee is biting the bullet and is committed to sail the Australian Nationals and the Worlds with the wing. Together with Rob Patterson they have worked hard to get all systems working well and finding better downwind speed. Successfully so far actually! Ever day Charlie has been going better...

To give you guys a better idea of what it takes to rig a wing on to the moth I have attached a little video explaining the process.

US Airforce Team out

Wing and Moth Worlds update

2010-12-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, there has been quite a bit of controversy in regards to the legality of the wings in the Moth Class. Look through the SA forum here to get a feel for how polarized people feel about it
But in the mean time the class has now officially decided to let the wings measure in at the Worlds, and that takes some worries of our plate for the time being....
Yesterday marked the first day I spent a couple of hours sailing with the wing. After a morning session with my soft sail I took Wing #1 out for a spin. For all you Wing newbies out there, here are a few high lights of how it feels and what it does:

Weight wise it's really similar to a standard soft sail rig, so the dynamics are pretty similar (inertia)
You only really play with two controls: Main sheet and camber and on both there is hardly any load (my hands were really happy about that)
It was pretty shifty and gusty (5-12 knots) and it was really easy to change gears by just adjusting the camber of the sail (one small line with almost no load on it). The Softsail guys kept on having to work the vang and cunno.
Boat handling is a lot easier because you have more space to get across the boat, A LOT more space.
Speed wise the wing is performing well upwind in anything over 10 knots, but we haven't quite figured it out downwind.
Rigging and De-rigging takes 2 minutes
It looks cool

We are currently giving Wing #3 the finishing touches and when Bear arrives back from the Sydney-Hobart, we should be able to get all three wings out at once. Should be a good look.
In the mean time the rest of the fleet hasn't slept either. There are canting rigs out there, some more chopped off foils, crazy wand systems... the list goes on.
On the water, Scott Babbage and Nathan Outteridge are looking quick around the course.

Time to get up and get some cereal in me. It promises to another long day in Belmont!
Chris out

Houston, we have lift off!

2010-12-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

So I got to Belmont on the 22nd (a couple of days ago), by airplane, train, bus and walking.... Bora,, Bear and Matt had already unpacked the container and put their boats together. Since then we have been furiously working on sorting out the wings. Unfortunately Bear had to leave yesterday for Sydney as he will be sailing on the Volvo 70 Ichiban (ex- Brunel) and wasn't with us when we took the first second generation wing for a spin. Bear's rigging controls all worked beautifully and the wing is an absolute work of art!
Here are a couple of pics and a video at the end...
enjoy

Stepping the wing for the first time to sort out control. Bora, Matt and Bear

The Master at work....

Chris out

Bacio wins first first Miami Winter Series Event

2010-12-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

The Audi Melges 20 Winter Series have started with a bang for us! It was great to get back in the boat again since our last event on Lake Geneva at the beginning of October. We had two days of practice on Thursday and Wednesday to shake off the cobwebs, which we used mainly to work on maneuvers and starting. Our boatspeed has never really been an issue so it's a bit on the back burner right now. New on the team for this season we will have Jamie Kimball joining us for a couple of events, substituting for Mitchell (Michael's son) when school or his Laser radial sailing has priority over the Melges 20 schedule.
With an incredible 26 boats on the starting line and various teams practicing hard in November and December we were really excited about this regatta. Obviously the competition had stepped it up and as the number 1 ranked team in the USA they were coming after us!
On Saturday there was only very little wind on Biscayne bay and the Race Committee found a small window of opportunity to get one race in. It started with 4 knots (class minimum) and by the end of the first run it had more or less fizzled out again. John Arendhorst's "Blink" with Scott Nixon and Dani Gamache showed great overall performance to take the race win ahead of Mary-Ann Ward and class new comer Ryan Devos.

Light air action on "Blink"

We, on the other hand, only looked good in the beginning. Showing great speed for the first two legs, but then we picked the wrong side of the course for the second upwind and lost over 9 places on one upwind! Puh, tough one... Luckily, we rallied back on the last down wind to finish 9th.
Needlessly to say, not quite the start to the Winter Series we had envisioned.
But better times were on their way with some solid breeze in the forecast for Sunday's racing. And Aelous delivered on his promise.

Three more races were held on Sunday in increasing breezes with gusts over 20 knots. Just what the doctor had ordered! Luckily we had just received our new SLAM team gear from Filippo Bovio (US SLAM destributor) so we were all set to go.
Now it was time for Bacio (Italian for "Kiss" by the way) to pull out the plugs. Again it was Ryan Devos with Morgan Reeser and Drew Weirda that was challenging for the top spot in the first race, but eventually we reeled them in and scored our first win.

As the wind increased for the the last two races, more and more teams struggled with boat handling and we capitalized on superior upwind and downwind speed to take two more bullets and the overall win. This also allowed us to win the most important race, the one back to the hoist at Shake-a-Leg before all the Etchells would come in.

Chris, Michael and Jamie

Obviously a great start for "Bacio" for the Audi Melges 20 Winter Series. Full Results can be found here.
Our thanks go out to the Audi Melges 20 Class and their superb class secretary Joy Dunigan for organizing a great event and also to SLAM and Filippo Bovio for our outfitting our team.
All Pictures by Joy Dunigan

Stay on the long tack!

2010-12-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

My roommate Steve Hunt has a couple of important tactical guidelines that he teaches his high school sailors. One of them is to stay on the lifted tack towards the mark. Today's racing conditions were challenging to say the least and his advice was spot on. The breeze was coming exactly offshore and this provided for some very shifty winds. We saw a 40 degree range in direction and velocity was between 8 and 20 knots. In our team huddle before the first race I told my team that we were aiming for three top 6 finishes and that we were going to achieve this by not getting caught out to one side of the race course in order to still be able to capitalize on all the shifts which became more and more random towards the shore line (the windward mark was 100 yards from the beach). The plan worked out and we rounded the first windward mark twice in 1st and once in 2nd!
With a 7th and two 2nds we won the day and finished 6th overall (on count back with Jeff Ecklund's Star).
Our team steadily improved over the last couple of days and it has been another interesting and rewarding learning experience for me. I would in particular like to thank our "Pit " Linda Lindquest-Bishop for some good advice in regards to our team communication and role distributions.
Obviously my thanks go out to all of our team members for having put a great effort into getting Delta its first really good result on the score board. Bob Hughes (our alternative driver for Saturday and Sunday) Morgan Reeser and Willem Vanwaay kept our boat fast and we all know that the best tactician is called "Boat Speed"!!!!
Last but not least I'd like to thank Doug and Dalton Devos and their awesome shore crew for enabling us to sail this great event.
For me its off to Miami tomorrow, getting ready for the first Melges 20 event of the winter. I'll once again be sailing with Michael Kiss on "Bacio". Can't wait to bomb around Biscayne Bay!
Chris out

Full results can be found here

The Good and the Bad...

2010-12-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

Farlet Fontenot, our coach, put it in the best possible way today: Chris, your fortune is that you are sailing with some really great sailors and your problem is that you are sailing with some really great sailors. Sounds confusing, but he totally nailed it...... I will explain:
As I mentioned in yesterday's post we have some new people on Delta. Some really GOOD new people. Willem Vanwaay (former Bliksem Trimmer) is trimming and we have Morgan Reeser doing Main for us and also providing great tactical insight being a Ft Lauderdale resident. For me as a tactician it's a two sided sword. I tremendously respect Morgan as a very accomplished sailor, having known him from back in the days when we both used to sail 470s. So when he does provide his tactical opinion and it doesn't concur with my own current tactical plan I start second guessing myself. I need to learn to trust my instincts while considering other opinions, no matter who it is. After all, in the end it is my call.
I feel truly very lucky for being in this situation and having the opportunity to grow as a sailor with such good people around me. Not something which should be taken for granted.
We ended the day with a 3rd and a 12th and are now laying in 10th overall, fairly close to 6th. Tomorrow we are expecting westerly breezes which are known be very shifty. So I'm sure we'll have some more interesting tactical discussions on board!

Chris out

Team Confidence rules...

2010-12-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

The Melges 32 Circuit has started off again and the fleet has regathered in Fort Lauderdale for the Gold Cup. It's a three day event and we have a solid 21 boats on the starting line. There have been a few crew mix ups since the Worlds and our two teams, Volpe (Dick and Ryan Devos) and Delta (Doug and Dalton Devos) were able to pick up some really good sailors. Sam Rogers has joined Volpe as a trimmer and on Delta we have Morgan Reeser doing Main and Willem Vanway trimming. Yes, some really good people....I have switched into the tactician spot and now have to carry the blame if we go the wrong way. :-)
Unfortunately Doug and Dalton couldn't make this event and we've had to scramble to fill Delta's driver's seat. As a very worthy helmswoman we today had Linda Lindquist and for Saturday /Sunday we'll have Bob Hughes (Heartbreaker) filling in. We also have a new bowguy, Roy McPhail who has his hands full with the massive Melges32 kites. That said, we have 50% new crew on our Delta team, not our regular driver and are also currently working on a new Kite retrieval system (Take down à la 49er style). We did have two days of practice but our confidence in executing tight maneuvers under pressure is obviously not where it should be, yet!
We sailed three races today in glamorous wind conditions and Linda did a great job. We put her in some pretty tight spots and she stayed cool through out the whole day. We even pulled off a pin end start perfectly! With an 11th, 9th and a 12th we are now currently in 11th place overall. Volpe, with Ed Baird doing tactics and Ryan Devos on the helm, had a really good day and are currently in 2nd overall. Full results can be found here.
So for tomorrow Bob Hughes will be on the helm and we're looking forward to some more tight racing in sunny Florida.
Chris out

New Mach2 Moth West Coast Distributor

2010-10-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

As most of you know by now, I have been bitten by the Moth bug. Even though Pro-Sailing is a lot of fun, I was looking for something I could really sink my teeth in and I found it in the Moth. At the Europeans in Silvaplana I finished a respectable 9th place and turned a couple of heads. While talking to the designer of the Mach2, Andrew McDougall, we came to the conclusion that Mach 2 Boats needed an East and West Coast distributor to further help grow the success of the Mach2 Moth in the USA. And here we are now, Anthony Kotoun is in charge of the East Coast and I'm helping the fleet grow on the West Coast.
If you belong to the kind of sailor that is ready to take the next step and add another dimension to your sailing, then you should consider jumping on a moth. It is truly exhilarating! I'm looking forward to helping many more sailors enjoy the feeling of effortless foiling.
More info about the Moth and how to order one can be found here: Mach2Boats

Team Bacio wins the Melges 20 Nationals

2010-08-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Mitchell, Michael and myself with our trophys

Well it's official, our team won the Melges 20 Nationals with a huge lead. We sailed the first race today and finished second, then sailed straight back to the club to take our boat out of the water. We didn't need to race the last race as that was going to be our throw out. We counted 5 first places and two second places. We weren't exactly planning on giving everyone that kind of a spanking, nevertheless it feels pretty good.

We actually had to fight for our second place finish today, after rounding in 10th at the first windward mark. We picked up places around the course, found 5th gear on the second upwind and rounded in 2nd at the second upwind mark. John Arendhorst had a nice lead and we couldn't quite reel him in.....Congrats to him and his team on securing second place!
This marks the end of almost 9 weeks of sailing for me and being away from San Diego. Too long! Anyways, tomorrow it's off to the West Coast, to check in with my room mate Steve Hunt and put in some serious surfing. Can't wait for some good surf and dawn patrols, followed by breakfast at the New Break Coffee Shop in OB.

Final results can be found here and
the official Melges 20 Blog here.

Chris out!

2nd day of racing at the Melges 20 US Nationals, Bacio takes two bullets and a second

2010-08-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful day awaited us today as we got ready to race at 11 AM on lake Michigan. Breeze was again out of the south around 12 knots.

Our team went through our usual pre race routines and discussed our strategy for the first race and the whole day. With three bullets on the score board we were going to take it easy and focus on getting single digits on the score board.
With our secret weapon, Mitchell, on board this was going to be easy! But today we had to fight for our finishes. Often it came down to the last downwind on which we showed superior speed and we're able to pick up the last remaining boats ahead us. The breeze slowly rotated right and eased off to about 6 knots for the last race. We ended the day with another two bullets and a second. Which now puts us in a comfortable spot at the top of the leader board. It's kinda weird to be in this position because you never count on being in it. Tomorrow we just need to get one race in the top 15 and we can call it a day and go enjoy drinks at the Yacht Club. The forecast is calling for light winds so that means that anything is possible.....
I'm grateful to be part of Michael Kiss' program. He has put the necessary levers in place in order for us to be in this great position to challenge for the top spot. Immaculate equipment, new sails, practice time etc, has all led to where we are now. Thank you Michael!

Time to get some zzzzzzs and just have a good night's sleep.

Chris out

More info can be found here
and also on the official Melges 20 here

and results are here!
and pics are here!

1st day of racing at the Melges 20 US National Championship. Three bullets for Team Bacio

2010-08-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

Once again I'm sailing on board the Melges 20 "Bacio"with Michael Kiss and his son Mitchell. It's the highlight of the season for our team, the US National Championships hosted at Michael's home Club, Macatawa Bay Yacht Club in western Michigan.
Our team had some good practice Monday through Wednesday and a well deserved day off on Thursday. We worked on maneuvers, tuned our boat and sorted out all the important details.
The entry list is looking good with plenty of well skilled owners and professionals helping to get the boat around the course. The weather has been very cooperative and today even the wind was on its best behavior. We were greeted with 15-17 knots of South-Westerly breeze, a nasty chop and an impressive 1 knot southerly current on the race course. After a couple of failed starts the pin boat was finally in the right spot and the fleet was behaving better (maybe because of the Z-Flag?) and the race was on.

We're USA 13, stomping through the chop

We played two shifts and rounded in first, put the kite up and were....... gone. We won the first race in great fashion and did the same in the second and third race. Three bullets, nice way to kick off the championship!

We have 5 more races scheduled over the next two days, we just need to take race by race and not get over confident.
Preliminary results can be found here and the pics are from the local Photographer Mark Niskanen.

Mitchell, Michael and me

Final day of racing at Moth Europeans, Silvaplana Switzerland

2010-08-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

We woke up to another beautiful day in the Engadin, packed up our bags and made our way to the club.
Bora and Nathan were tied for first place so the stage for an epic battle was perfectly set. Unfortunately Bora and Anthony had managed to catch some kind of stomach bug, so we were happy to see an initial postponement as the Maloya wind took a while longer to establish itself.
Racing got underway around 2PM and things were looking mighty fine for the US Airforce Team. Even though Bora didn't start well, he worked his way through the pack and won the race. But not without feeding the fish at least once every lap. He came in to shore and was totally exhausted. He was winning the regatta, but his body was failing him....
Anthony was also struggling with dehydration and was taking advantage of the fact that the Silvaplana lake water is fine to drink. I started strong in that race, but had to many boat handling errors to bring home a really good finish.
For the last race Bora made it down to the starting line, but couldn't keep up with the intensity as his stomach was cramping up more and more and so eventually pulled out of the race. This left the door wide open for Nathan to go on and win the race and therefore also the overall ranking. Hat off to Nathan for showing some excellent performance.
I had another o.k. race and in the end was able to squeeze into 9th place, with which I'm very happy with. I feel super lucky to have been part of the US Airforce Team. I learned a ton about sailing the Moth and what this class is really about. The camaraderie is probably second to none.

Anthony and I are off to the airport now to catch our flights back to USA.

US Airforce Team over and out (until the next time)

P.S. check out the videos and pics on the official website. Really nice stuff.

4th day of racing, the eagle has landed

2010-08-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

Launching my Moth "gimme more"

Sorry to tell you folks this again, but we had another spectacular day of racing here in Switzerland. The sun was out, the Maloya Wind was pumping and the Moths were flying. The US Airforce Team was looking solid. Bora has finally taken the overall lead with another two bullets and a second. His main competition, Nathan Outerridge, had a tough day with another impressive break down (layers of Carbon coming off his main horizontal), but still scored ok results. Tomorrow it will come down to who beats who in the remaining races.
Anthony was also struck by bad luck when his lashing of the shrouds broke and his rig came down. He got towed back to the beach and the shore team had him up and running for the last race.

It seems that as the racing is drawn out we are seeing more and more breakdowns happening. These boats need constant maintenance in order to be in racing shape. Luckily (touch wood or my head) I haven't had anything that held me back so far. It's nice to be racing with a brand new boat....
Those who have been following the racing on-line with the Trak Trak GPS System know by now that I had a pretty nice day. Each race I felt better and better and kept pushing the boat harder. In the first two races I scored a 6th and a 5th, capitalizing on my upwind speed and just staying out of trouble around gates and low pressure zones. For the last race I gave it all I had and came off the starting line with all guns blazing. After some mediocre tacks I still managed to round the top mark in 4th position. The breeze was up and I had told myself I would push it hard downwind. With some well placed gybes I rounded the leeward gate in 3rd! Nothing wrong there. But then my luck ran out and during a mini second laps of concentration I stuffed the bow and the boat went stern up. For the first time this regatta I lost my cool and yelled out some swiss/french/italian/american profanities as I got on the centerboard to right my boat. Bora sailed past me during the whole process and cheered me on to get my act back together again quickly. After getting back in the saddle I managed to get back in 8th place. Tough way to end the day, but still a very good overall performance with the improvement arrow still showing up.

Don't believe the results are up yet so checkout the website later.
Tomorrow morning we have to get out of our apartment and then it's off to the club for the last few races.

Send us your best vibes so we can bring home the bacon!

US Airforce Team out

3rd day of racing, Happy Gilmore has learned how to put!

2010-08-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Start of race 9, I'm in the first row, third boat from the right

Today was classic Maloya Wind conditions with full sunshine on Lake Silvaplana and the Race Committee cranked out another three races.
Bora had another solid day with a 2; 2; and a bullet, but his main competition, Nathan Outerridge had two bullets and a first. They are obviously still very close in the ranking, with only two points separating them.
Anthony looked very strong in the first race, but unfortunately his vang strop broke on the last lap forcing him to sail with a very full sail, dropping him a couple of spots. A quick pitstop on the beach, some help from Dave and he was good to go again for the next race.

Using the analogy from Happy Gilmore: Chris has learned how to put ;-) (non-americans won't understand this joke). I was able to pull off three top ten finishes and I'm obviously super happy to have moved up in the rankings. I started the day with my raptor sail and a softer rig, anticipating stronger winds. But that never happened so I ended up switching sail and mast for the last race. I just couldn't keep any height with that setup (sail blading out too quickly). A quick pit stop and help from everyone on the beach and my other sail was up and running. It was the right call and I was able to bring a 7th place home in the last race,
I'm now in 11th overall and it would be great to be able to crack in to the top ten. I have the upwind speed, but I'm still holding back downwind (adjusting my ride height gizmo, so I don't ride too high). Bora on the other hand doesn't touch his adjuster and just sails super smooth (and a bit out of control at times!)
Biggest difference for me was the improvement in my tacks. They weren't great, but none of them were super bad (as in capsizing). I rounded twice in the top four, which shows that I have the starting skills and the upwind speed. My game is slowly coming together and it's fun to be able to play with the big dogs. There is still ways to go, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Our commute on our bikes takes us past a beautiful waterfall and we decided to hike up to the fall on the way home.
Instead of boring you with more sailing pictures here are some more scenic ones.


Our Swedish Hotties that hang around our boat park corner...

Bora, Dave, myself and Anthony on our way to the waterfall

We see this waterfall from the race course

More pictures and results can be found here.

US Airforce Team out!

2nd day of racing at the Moth Europeans

2010-08-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

The American Eagle rules the alps!

US Airforce team, chilling out in between races

Bora turned in a stellar day with two bullets and a 2nd. THAT is why the US Airforce rules the sky baby!
Breeze was up in 20 knot zone when we launched and and on the way down to race course I swear I hit at least 28 knots of boatspeed! Needlessly to say the conditions were a bit too challenging for guys like me (not enough time in the boat). But on the other hand Bora just couldn't stop smiling every time another gust came through. He knew it was his time to shine, and man, he did shine!
Anthony I looked pretty good at times, we both actually led the 2nd race until the windward mark, when I decided to check out the water temperature (also known as capsizing). Anthony kept charging until his downhaul broke, which made the boat really difficult to sail. At least we were both able to play with the big boys for a change...

In the third race i unfortunately missed the start by a couple of minutes after again checking the water temperature, so I just had to keep working myself through the pack. On the bright side it's worth mentioning that I had blistering upwind speed, which was really nice! Now i just have to stop being such a chicken downwind and freaking send it!

Anthony in second place at the windward mark

Since we only completed 6 instead of 8 races so far, we will be racing again tomorrow (which was supposed to be our day off).
Results can be found here!
Our team is off to the official dinner which is held on top of a mountain somewhere.

US Airforce Team out!

First day of racing at the Moth Europeans, No rain today!!!

2010-08-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Please no 4th race, please no 4th race, please no 4th race... Was going through my mind up the second beat of the third race. My legs were getting seriously tired and my arms were cramping up after the first two races. Temperatures were a bit more moderate today and we didn't have ANY rain!!! Soooo nice!!!

Lets backtrack a bit to get everyone up to speed...
We have three USA Moths here at the European Championships in Silvaplana, with Bora Gulari leading the charge. In addition we have Anthony Kotoun (US Virgin Islands) who has been training hard in Newport for this event. Myself I haven't exactly had a decent build up for this event. After the Coronado Event in the beginning of February I haven't gotten any serious practice in. Fortunately I got some good sailing in Harbor Springs before coming here. On the bright side I have stepped up my equipment program, chartering a Mach2 Moth for this event. Its amazing how much easier it is to get up to speed compared to the Blade Rider. I had a huge smile on my face the first time I took it for a spin :-))))
The last couple of days have been cold and rainy and the mountains around have been getting whiter and whiter with new shades of snow.
There were a couple of highlights from today's racing (did I mention it didn't rain already?)
First imagine 85 moths taking off on the same starting line with the odd port tack starters swerving through the pack. The amount of adrenaline pumping is ridiculous!

I hooked into a monster lefty and made it to the windward mark in about 6th place. Hmmmm, lots of good company around me. Needlessly to say, after a couple more gybes and tacks I found myself around 18th place. Wow! things happen fast in the moth class...
Bora sailed through the fleet and finished 4th and Anthony had his first top ten! Yoohoo!!! Not a bad way to start the day.
At the start of the second race it was Anthony and Bora who blasted through on port. Anthony made it through, but Bora provided some spectator action, having to avoid one too many starboard tackers and almost capsizing! Again the left was strong and finding a good left shift was key. On the other the top right of the course was getting known quickly as the the "Coffin Corner". So over-standing on port was much better than getting stuck in the coffin corner...
Again Bora kept plugging away, showing good speed and great boat handling around the course, ending up with a 6th. This time I kept the pressure on and was able to squeeze into the top ten. I was pretty sighted with my performance. I headed into the shore to put on another layer as the temperatures were dropping and the chill factor increasing. Lucky enough the finishing line is basically 50 meters next to the beach, so it was a quick in and out.

I met up with the rest of the US Airforce team in the starting area and I felt that my arms and legs only had one more race in them. After a mediocre start I kept working the left side of the beat and kept away from the coffin corner. Everybody on the race course was looking pretty tired and hiking form wasn't exactly spectacular. Bora was duking it out with Nathan Outerridge at the front but couldn't quite bring the bacon home. Nevertheless, with a 2nd in the last race his probably in third overall now.
Anthony and I put in another o.k. race but nothing spectacular.
Results aren't up yet, so you'll have to check later.
All of us are pretty pumped up that racing has finally begun and we're looking forward to kicking some more Euro butt tomorrow.
US Airforce team out.

Bacio finishes 6th place out of 37 boats at the Melges 20 Gold Cup in Malcesine, Lake Garda

2010-07-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Together with the owner, Michael Kiss from Holland Michigan, Alain Stettler and I represented the USA at the unofficial World Championships of the Melges 20 class.

A brand new Melges 20 (Hull #190) was waiting on us in Malcesine on Monday morning and my good friend Alain Stettler and I spent most of the day putting our sweet little new toy together. (Kudos go out to Federico and his team at Melges Europe for excellent service and always lending a hand if something wasn’t quite as it should.) After some more boat work and two days of practice we started racing on Thursday.
At Charleston Race Week this year we won the Melges 20 event, so the expectations from owner Michael Kiss were understandably high! But looking at the line-up at this event I knew it was going to be WAY harder. First of all we had all of the top Italian teams and they have been sailing these boats hard, REALLY hard and are way ahead of everyone else in terms of boat handling and tuning. Secondly, the tacticians and crews were more or less the crema de la crema in Italy and internationally. Names like Gabrio Zandono, Roberto Benematti, Matteo Ivaldi, Flavio Favini, Nathan Wilmot, Juan de la Fuente, Branko Brzkin, Chicco Fonda were starring down at me… Hmmm, this was going to be interesting and challenging to say the least.
A 6th place in the first race put us on the right track but our hopes for a top finish evaporated when our bow sprit unexpectedly broke in the second race and we limped into the finish in 23rd. To make things worse the fleet sailed another race and we’d have to score a DNC. Arrghhh....

Again Federico and his Melges Europe team pulled through and the next morning we magically had another bowsprit installed when we arrived at the boat. Which other class provides that kind of service, hellloooo!!!
For the rest of the regatta we now had to play it safe as we were already counting a 23rd and were using the DNC as our discard. We sailed a good series of single digit finishes which put us in 6th place overall in the end. Full results can be found here.
Oh and did I mention that almost all races were sailed in 15 - 20 knots and sunshine?

For our team this was mainly a good event to learn more about the tuning and for Michael to get more comfortable in boat-on-boat situations and managing tight lanes. We did a lot of spy work on the top Italian teams and were on par with them at the end of the regatta. So overall this has been an excellent opportunity for us to improve our skills and hopefully get a little jump on the US Fleet at the up coming Nationals in Holland, MI in about a months time.

What were the highlights of this regatta?

Excellent service
Spectacular regatta venue and race management
Great food
Outstanding crew (Alain)
Very focused and trusting driver (Michael)
A few good tactical calls
Improvements in upwind speed
Solid downwind speed
Morning and evening bike rides along Lake Garda

What were the down sides of this regatta?

Broken bow sprit
It actually rained once
Traffic through Torbole

Here some more pics by Carlo Borlenghi, Renato Tebaldi, Meredith Block and Fabrizio Prandini

Bacio at leeward gate, Alain fighting with the kite

Bacio blasting downwind

All Ladies team "Troublemakers" showing how it is done!

Alain and Michael taming the beast, where's Chris?

Michael getting us around the leeward mark safely

For more pics and video by Mr Clean visit the Melges Europe Facebook page.

So far sailing in this class has been a blast and I can't wait to get back on the Melges 20!

Chris out

Melges 24 Volvo Cup in Torbole, Lake Garda

2010-07-12T03:08:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the great opportunity to sail Melges 24 with my "old" Match Racing Team and the addition of Felix Kaiser on one of the most beautiful sailing venues in the World, Lake Garda. We were going to sail the Swiss EFG Bank Melges 24, Hull nr 336. Lake Garda didn't disappoint and we had 12 races sailed in 12-20 knots of "Ora" and sunshine, every day.
My team included Alain Stettler (an old high school buddy of mine) our trimmer, Patrick Zaugg our tactician, Pascal Alder our bow man and Felix Kaiser doing Middle.
Before the race even started we had a bit of drama. The racing was going to start on Thursday and somehow we thought it started on Friday! As Pascal and Felix were only arriving on Thursday evening we needed to find some replacement crew. Lucky enough for us, Dave Hudson (a good friend of our family) from Capetown was in town practicing for the Laser SB3 Worlds and we "borrowed" Marlon and Roscoe from his team for the first day.
Sailing in Torbole in the Melges 24 is really intense as usually you have to work the left side of the course, up the cliffs and then find the right moment to exit on port.

Having a fleet of 60 boats tacking up the shore provides for some interesting crossing situations and often some boats end up having to be taken out of the water at the end of the day. Not having practiced together at all we started a bit shaky and after two days were laying in eight place, knowing why the Italians are dominating this class. It's impressive how professional this guys run their campaigns! But in the mean time we had also managed to snitch a bullet from them and were drawing first blood....

The third day saw us sailing a consistent series with all top 8 finishes which solidified our position in the top eight, laying only ten points out of third. With three races to go, a podium finish was definitely still in reach. In the first race on the last day another mid-line start with a good transit line gave us a great lane to the cliffs and we were able to squeeze around the windward mark in 2nd. A couple of well placed gybes saw us take the lead and eventually the bullet. Nice way to start the last day of racing!

Things were looking good with 2 minutes to go before the start of the next race, but I was a bit trigger happy and jumped the gun. "OCS Bow number 99" came over the radio and we had to turn back to restart. After having some serious issues with connecting the dots on the first upwind, we eventually rallied back to 16th. Unfortunately the race was started under the Z-flag rule which meant that 20% of the fleet was added to our score (becoming our throw-out). The race committee signaled the warning signal to the last race 2 minutes before 14h00, the last possible time to do so and we were off to another race. We actually played the middle this time and rounded the mark in 4th. Ricardo Simoneschi on "Audi" and our team went back and forth for third place. We eventually got him on the last gybe to the finish, when "simo-gybed" with him and then rolled him. Needlessly to say the whole team was pleased with this last maneuver! Our finishes were: 7, 23, 4, 11, 1, 18, 6, 8, 5, 1, (16) and 3, putting us in 6th overall.
It was really nice to be sailing with some friends, bombing around lake Garda during the day, eating great food in the evening and closing the "Wind's Bar" at night. I guess this qualifies as a true active holiday in my book!
My thanks go out to all my team mates and to EFG Bank for providing us with a fine Melges 24 for this regatta.
More pictures to the regatta can be found here and the results can be found here.
Photo credits by Pierrick Contin

The Attitude of Winning: Embracing the Challenge

2010-06-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

"You gotta be out of your freaking mind!" was the response I got from one of my best sailing buddies when I explained to him in early 2006 that Tim and I were considering campaigning in the 49er for the 2008 Olympic Games. "Morgan and Pete (one of the other US 49er teams) are currently almost dominating the class and you guys want to go up against them? You haven't even ever crewed in the 49er!"
I understood his reasoning but at the same time also realized that with that kind of an attitude you were never going to win a Gold Medal.

In today's short article I would like to dig into the most important factor when it comes to winning or losing: The Attitude of Winning. There are many parts that make up this attitude and one of them is the way we embrace challenges. It's something we are faced with every day, sometimes just on a small scale and sometimes it can be life changing challenges that must be conquered.

Some people think of challenges as mountains that have to be climbed. They see only the small crevices and steep walls, the difficulty of making it on to the next ledge.

I prefer thinking about the view we will enjoy when we make it to the top. The only way to truly master a challenge starts off by embracing it. You must be grateful to have been put into a position of facing the challenge.
That brings me back to the beginning of the article. Yes, campaigning for the Olympic Games is one of the biggest challenges you can commit to. Doing it whilst having to beat other great teams in order to actually go there makes your life even more difficult! And that is the point. The view from the top of that mountain is only as good as the challenges you must overcome in order to get there.

So the next time you're faced with steep competition at your next major regatta, embrace the challenge. Be grateful of having so many great competitors to sail against. As you're coming into that leeward gate with ten other boats at the same time, enjoy having the opportunity to show what you're made of.
Instead of being afraid of getting you're ass kicked, be grateful for the opening that lets you improve your skills.

Chris out

Gears and Transmissions

2010-05-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

Dear readers
I'm feeling pretty lucky today so I have decided on writing this "delicate" and slightly weird article. Since I'm expecting to lose approximately half of the readers half way into the article I will start off by telling you what value it will bring if you persevere all the way until the end:

If you are a skipper or someone who is frequently in the position of putting new teams together, this article will give you new overall perspective on this issue.
If you are a Pro or Amateur Sailor it will help you realize what it takes to integrate into a team and hopefully you will question some of your current practices. (Never a bad thing to take a hard look at yourself, right?)

Here it goes. Business School has taught me that its very powerful to utilize analogies when explaining difficult concepts and that's what I will do here.
I will begin by explaining you the basic concepts of gears and a gearbox. (Again, please bear with me!)

Two or more gears working in tandem are called a gearbox and can produce a mechanical advantage through a gear ratio

Picture from wikipedia, a five-speed gear box

Note the different sizes and tooth shapes of the gears mounted on the shafts

The purpose of a gearbox is to transmit power from a power source into something else, often allowing for a change of direction and different gear ratios
The efficiency of a transmission is defined by the quotient of the power at the output and the power at the input. (The more losses you have, the worse the efficiency will be). In an ideal world you would want to have 100% efficiency....
Gears come in many different sizes and tooth shapes. These shapes include straight cut, helical, double helical, bevel, hypoid crown, worm etc. Check out the wikipedia page on gears if you really want to dig into details...

So what makes it a good gearbox? A good gearbox:

Performs under the most adverse conditions (e.g. even if one gear somehow stops working), snow, sun, low and hot temps etc.
Has the appropriate gear ratios (amount of forward / reverse gears and ratios etc.)
Has low maintenance requirements (may be even self lubricating)
Has maximum possible efficiency
Is user friendly. Meaning that it is relatively non partisan to different kind of operators (the mechanism that shifts between the various gears
Does all the above at the lowest possible cost

In order for a gearbox to function properly:

It has to be designed to the correct specifications
All the gears need to have the appropriate size and tooth shape (straight cut won't work with helical, duh...)
Needs to be lubricated properly (oil levels!!!)
The shafts on which the gears are mounted need to be strong enough and properly aligned, otherwise you will have wear and tear on your gears and thus low efficiency.

So this is the point where I believe that anyone that doesn't subscribe to Popular Mechanics, will have closed this window and is updating their Facebook page with a note telling all their friends that I have completely lost it.

So how does this relate to sailing? Well, most of you have probably figured this out by now (and otherwise you're probably not the sharpest gear in the gearbox!)

I like to compare team members on a sailing team to gears in a gearbox (gearbox being the team).
Designing a new gearbox takes more than experience. Actually often it is closer to performing a long lost craftsmanship than anything else. Some owners/team managers believe that all you have to do is go out and get the best sailors on your boat and they will have the best possible gearbox available and win the regatta. Too many regattas have proved that this is the wrong approach...

I would like to suggest the following approach:

First of all determine the specifications of your gearbox. What is it supposed to do? How many gears? Which are the most important gears? How long does it have to last? The list goes on.
What are the resources at your disposal and compare that to the available gears on the market.
Analyze each gear on their compatibility with the other gears and evaluate what else they can contribute to the gearbox. (Some gears are known to also give back rubs and bake chocolate chip cookies for all the other gears. Such attributes help with keeping the gearbox nicely lubricated, hi Sarah C. !)
According to your budget and time constraints, build your gearbox and allow it to adjust to each gear (practice time). You can for example also bring in a coach to help you align the shafts (less wear and tear), help modify the tooth shapes and make your gearbox more efficient!
Once things are moving smoothly make sure to check the oil level periodically. (I have heard that nice team dinners or inviting your gearbox to a ski weekend in Park City works wonders in that area.)

And what does this mean to you as a gear within the gearbox?

Figure out what kind of a gear you are, so you know where you can add the most value. You don't want to end up somewhere on the shaft, having to work on a task that you're not good at. You won't be happy, and the rest of the gearbox won't be happy. Everybody on the shaft gets shafted, pun intended.
Whenever necessary and within your capacity you must adapt to the position you have been designed to do. This can also mean that you will have to change the shape of your gear teeth in order let things work smoothly. Can you do that?

Pro-Sailors like to gloat about themselves how they can just fit into any team and perform at the highest level. Unfortunately I have often experienced the opposite. Quite a few are prima donnas, need a lot of lube and usually have everyone else adapt to their tooth shape. In the process losing valuable other gear ratios and minimizing efficiency.
Amateur sailors on the other hand sometimes think they have the necessary gear ratios and strength and just can't deliver when the pressure is on.

What kind of a gear truly are you?

Hopefully this article has achieved its goal of allowing you to approach the way you put teams together in a new way and has you second-guessing how you as a gear could help the gearbox work more efficiently.

Chris out

P.S. Comments?

You hide, you lose... Getting the most out of sparring partnerships

2010-05-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

In our preparation for the forecasted light air conditions in China, Tim and I decided to hold two training camps in San Diego and Long Beach. We invited the Canadian and the Ukrainian Olympic representatives to join us.

Rodion and George with some seals, picture taken in San Diego. They were super excited about these seals and made me take hundreds of pics of them...
Well, one of the great attributes about San Diego (apart from pretty consistent light air conditions) is the high concentration of truly remarkable sailors. I was looking for some advice for our upcoming partnerships and I found myself talking to Vince Brun and David Hughes at North Sails in Point Loma. In regards to how we should handle information sharing with our sparring partners (which would eventually be our competition at the Olympic Games), Vince's advice was simple. In his usual Brazilian accent he said: "You hide, you lose."

The most precious resource you have while campaigning is time. It's not money or energy, it's time and thus we must use it as efficiently as possible. It doesn't matter if you're in it for an Olympic Medal or preparing for a National Championship, if you need to fast track your learning curve then one of the best ways doing this is by working together with other teams. The benefits of working with sparring partners are manifold. Apart from having a speed benchmark, you get to share laughs and hard times, channel your competitive spirit on them (instead of yourself or your team mates) and sometimes it's just about sharing a beer with someone else than your skipper.

So how do you get the most out of a sparring partnership? Who do you partner with?

In an ideal world you find partners, which are faster/better than you in the conditions you're trying to improve in, but won't beat you in the regatta. You're looking for teams, which are practice kings, but can't deliver when the pressure is on.
Next on the list is reliability. A team, which always shows up on time and is organized is way more valuable than hotshots which grace you with their appearance when it fits their schedule.
All of this goes down the drain if you can't generate trust. Going the extra mile to accommodate your partners will most likely result in reciprocal actions and you will build a relationship that will provide much more than just a benchmark.
And obviously its an added plus if you like hanging out with them as well

Apart from working with the Ukrainians and the Canadians, one of our most memorable and fulfilling partnerships was with the German 49er team, Jan and Hannes Peckolt. They were highly dedicated, reliable and very German (and I don't mean that in any negative way). Together we spent countless hours on the water making each other faster, pushing each other when one team was ready to throw the towel in, sharing mast bend measurements and tuning philosophies. Jan and Hannes sailed a great Olympic Regatta and their efforts were rewarded with a bronze medal. I'm proud to have been part of the process in getting them there.

Chris enjoying a cappucino in the German team container during our training in Qingdao. Their container was amazing....

And that's what campaigning for the Olympic Games ultimately is. It's about working on experiences, goals, challenges and partnerships that you can be proud of for a life time, most likely more proud of than winning a Gold Medal...
So my advice to all of you who are seeking to work with sparring partners is to build a partnership that you can be proud of, no matter what the scoreboard ends up being. As Vince would say: "You share, you win!"

Elvstroem Zellerbach, 2nd day of racing

2010-05-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful day in San Francisco... We're about to board our Southwest flight so this one is going to be quick.

We sailed another three races today in a pretty well established westerly. The racing was tight in the front and we had some really good tacking duels up the shore line. We sailed very consistent but not quite good enough. In the end we lost the tie breaker with Max and David to finish third. The regatta was won by Screve/Moody, which seemed very comfortable once the breeze came up.
The first race of the day was won by Kristen and Charlie and that was awesome!

For the last race the breeze was pumping and only Screve/Moody, Max/David, the Nielsens and our team were duking it out at the front of the pack. It was close racing and overall a very enjoyable weekend.

Our thanks go out to St Francis Yacht Club for putting up a great regatta.
Full results can be found here.
Chris out!

Elvstroem Zellerbach, 1st day of racing

2010-05-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

JP and I are back together in the 29er, racing in the Elvstroem Zellerbach in San Francisco. The turn-out is a bit disappointing with only 10 boats on the starting line, but we do have some really good teams present.
We have Charlie McKee crewing for Kristen Lane from team Brickhouse (her 29er is called the "Brick Skiff"), Antoine Screve/ James Moody (the US team that will be representing at the ISAF junior worlds this year in Istanbul Turkey), Max Fraser/David (finished 5th at the worlds in the Bahamas) and few other talented juniors.
This is how it looked like this morning:

It was pretty low tide and we were going to race in the flood the whole day. Everyone who has sailed at St Francis Yacht Club knows that the current place a huge role. Especially in the lighter breeze. In a westerly breeze everybody heads immediately for the shore in order to get out of the adverse current. And that's what we did in the first race. We led for almost the whole first upwind, just to get caught by Max and David that kept working the shore even more than we did! Luckily we had pretty good downwind speed and were able to recapture the lead and win the first race.

Then finally the wind started to pick up a bit and continuously did so until the 4th and last race of the day when we started seeing some good puffs in the 18 knots range. But with the incoming tide it wasn't really a problem to handle it as the waves stayed fairly small.
Team Screve/Moody really lit it up with decent boat speed, but even better upwind tactics. Twice they pulled away from us by staying longer on the outside and picking a good right shift to come back to the shore. Well done boys! Our team did o.k. as well, ending the day on a 1st, two 2nds and a 3rd. Full Results can be found here.

And this is how it looked like when we came back in, just ridiculously amazing, isn't it?

JP and I are looking forward to a couple of more races tomorrow. Oh, and did I mention that JP pulled off four absolutely amazing starts? Wolf style baby....
For people who would like to watch the racing live you should try the St Francis Webcam that allows you to zoom in and turn the camera. Racing will start late because we have to wait for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon to get under way.
The Triathletes swim from Alcatraz to Crissy Field (right next to St Francis Yacht Club) and then get on their bikes.
Chris out

When things go wrong.... Routine saves the day!

2010-04-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

After the first two days of racing at the Olympic Games Tim and I were sitting in 13th place. Not exactly where we were planning on being. We had had some minor issues in the last couple of months of preparation, but in the last two training camps we had shown excellent boat speed and felt comfortable in our racing strategies. We had raced surprisingly well in all practice regattas on the Olympic waters and were considered serious medal contenders.
What went wrong? And more importantly how were we going to turn it around?
Well, apart from the normal Olympic jitters, on day one we also had encountered REALLY light airs, combined with strong current and way nasty chop on race course 1. This threw us a bit of a curve ball, which resulted in some early mistakes and bad finishes. This then resulted in us taking higher risks in order to try to undo some of these first mishaps. It seemed like we were caught in a vicious cycle...
So how did we get out of it again? Well, as boring as it might sound, it was pretty simple.
Routine.
Tim and I had established pretty stubborn routines, which allowed us to focus on what really matters and not get too distracted. The Olympic Games Regatta must be the most intense competition that any sailor will ever race in. Believe me, I know, I sailed in three Olympic Games. What keeps you on track are your routines.
It starts with how and when you get up, what you eat for breakfast, how you rig your boat, the girls you flirt with in the boat park, how you do your pre-start routines, debriefs between the races etc. all the way until climb back in to bed and turn the light off.
I like to make the analogy with your routines being your life line through the day (or even through out the whole event). The stronger your routines, the more sturdier and grippy that life line will be. Now in smaller, less important events, you rely less on that line, because there are less things that can get you off course. There's less crazy stuff happening around you, there's less pressure etc. So you allow yourself also to sway further away from it. At the Games however things are pretty nuts. There are so many opportunities that distract you, so many people that want to hear from you, so many all-you-can-eat free buffets (and yes, there are parties too!), so you better make sure that life line is solid and within reach when things start going south.
On the third day of racing Tim, our coach Skip and myself met up outside the breakfast hall and discussed our approach of the day. We went through the weather forecast, what the tide was expected to do, what we would look out for. We discussed what kind of information we needed from Skip.
Basically we just went through our routines. Yes, it's boring I know...
That day we raced three races on race course 2. We won every race. We didn't do anything crazy or different. We just stuck to our routines. Except that I almost jumped out of the boat after the finish of the last race! Listen here to an Interview with Stuart Streuli from Sailing World (about 2 minutes in to the pod-cast).
The next day we had another stellar day with a 3rd, 8th and a 4th and this put us back in medal contention for the last day. (And the last day is a whole story on its own...)

photo credit by ??

So how you can you apply this to your sailing? Well the same way as we did. Figure out what works for you and your team. Routines give people confidence and puts them in the right spot from where they can perform at their best, over and over again. Remember, in sailing you're looking for continuity, not just a bulls eye every few regattas.

If you'd like to read more about what happened at the Games feel free to check out our old Blog that Tim wrote. You can find it here

A typical Qingdao practice day with fog and a lot of bent knees..... Note the curved tiller extensions that Tim designed. The upward curve allows for the boat to heel more without them touching the water and creating drag. And yes, such things did keep us up at night...

Time to Man-Up bro!

2010-04-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was sailing the 29er Mid-Winters (great debrief by Willie Mcbride) here in San Diego, crewing for JP Barnes, who is a Junior at San Diego Yacht Club and also a member at South Western Yacht Club. JP and I have sailed together in the past, so both of us feel pretty comfortable with each other. We were doing quite well in the regatta, showing good upwind and downwind speed, some decent tactical decisions, but we just couldn’t get off the starting line. It seemed like we’d find a good spot and things were looking just fine until about T minus 20 secs and then things would go pear shaped.

Starting is one of the most intense moments of a race and mostly in the hands of the skipper. Usually you can determine immediately if the boat next to you is either a wolf or a lamb (with various degrees of skill). I was determined to help JP turn from a lamb into a wolf and do it wolf style from now on. Ouhhhh, ouhhh, ouhhhhhhh!!!! (one of my most favorite Super Bowl ads, by the way)

On the starting line I like to have a lamb to leeward and a more or less sophisticated wolf to windward. The lamb will not push the line too hard and you can (usually) count on the skilled wolf not to jump the gun too early and keep his windward boat in check…. If everything works out right, you roll the lamb after 30 secs (opening a great gap to leeward) and pinch off the wolf after another minute or so (yes, I know, I’m being overly optimistic here…).

So how do you man-up? I haven’t really seen any good advice on this subject, but interestingly enough, it’s what usually makes the difference between average sailors and really good racers, especially for teenagers that are going through adolescence.

Here are my two cents on this subject.

Some of us are born to be wolfs and some others need to work to be one. A wolf has a palpable aura of confidence surrounding him (or her) and you must learn to impose this aura on others (like on the starting line) and marking your territory with it.
Practice obviously goes a long way. The more you practice, the more confidence you have to pull it off.
Don’t let yourself get pushed around. Wolfs like to probe others to see how much resistance they will encounter. If you meet another wolf, don’t let him mark you as a submissive wolf - do not be his bitch. Push back, instead, and he'll think twice the next time.
Make a distinct decision that you are going to be a wolf. Do you want to be eaten or do you want to eat? Tell yourself this as you’re getting ready to race.

Also, on a side note, being a wolf doesn’t mean being an arrogant SOB who doesn’t respect the rules. Don’t be that boat…

JP and I kept working on being a wolf on the starting line and he absolutely nailed it in the last start! I have to admit that I was a bit overwhelmed with our great start as suddenly we launched into the lead and I didn’t know what to do with it (tough problem to have, I know).

So the next time you’re on the starting line ask yourself if you want to be a wolf or a lamb. Believe me, being a wolf is much more fun AND you get the girl at the end of the day.

Oh, by the way, this should be obvious, but I’m not making any gender related distinction here. And if you do have a problem with the way this article is written, well then, you may as well just keep being a lamb.

Confirmation Bias... How it affects our tactical decisions on the race course

2010-04-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

Due to school work and other sailing engagements I won't be able to attend the moth regatta this weekend in Long Beach. I'm quite bummed about it, but you can't have it all...
Nevertheless I would like to share some thoughts in regards to how we tend to warp our tactical decisions on the race course.
In Business School we have all sorts of communication and leadership classes and I have actually been able to apply quite a few learnings to my own personal sailing. Today I would like to look a bit closer at what the experts call Confirmation Bias.
Experience has shown that it's human nature that once we have taken a certain decision we selectively look for reasons, signs etc, to further justify whatever bogus conclusion we have come up with. The same applies to sailing. I'm sure that all of you "tacticians" out there have come up with great tactical plans before the start and spent the rest of the race looking for signs that would fall in line with it. Instead you should have probably looked for signs that would negate it.

At this year's Key West Race Week I once again had the pleasure to do tactics on board the Melges 24 "Blu Moon", a program which is run by Franco Rossini from Switzerland and has Flavio Favini on the helm. From a tactical standpoint I actually felt this was one of my best regattas so far. Having just studied the effects of Confirmation Bias in Business School I told my team that during this regatta I would come up with a plan before the start (as pretty much we always do), but would then focus mainly on signs that would contradict whatever I had just come up with. I felt this really helped me to counter effect the confirmation bias and left me more open minded on what was happening during the race.

At the end we finished a VERY close second behind UkaUka racing from Italy, when it came down to the last 100 meters before the finishing line. Nevertheless a great regatta and lots of good new ideas.

So, next time you go racing and make a plan before the start, maybe start focusing on signs (changes in wind strength, clouds, small wind shifts etc) that would negate your grand master plan. This way you might actually notice that your magical plan is about to go down the drain.... Good Luck!

3rd and final day of racing, Charleston Race Week 2010

2010-04-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

"Pressure is on gentlemen..."
After a 13th place in the first race of the day, things weren't looking as bright anymore. Especialy since our main competition (Joel Ronning, sailing with Bill Hardesty) had just scored a 1st! Conditions were the most challenging today out of the three days of racing we experienced. Our course was set up so it was influenced by the outflow of different bodies of water, which generated all sorts of local currents, most of which I identified wrongly in the first race.
We knew that we needed to finish no worse than 7th in any of the two races if Ronning won both of the races. So for the second race I opted for a more conservative approach. Again a great start by Michael put us in the front row in the first upwind leg and we rounded in 3rd, just ahead of Ronning. On the downwind we matched his gybes and pulled a way a bit. Then on the second upwind we positioned ourselves just ahead of them, just so they could live and would think twice about tacking. I really like this move, as usually that boat will end up loosing several boat lengths as they think they are doing o.k., but in reality they are slowly loosing ground. During this second upwind leg more favorable current was developing on the left side of the course and the fleet once again condensed at the windward mark. Again downwind we played it safe, but a knot in the kite halyard made things interesting in the douse! Once we had everything sorted out we got our heads back in the game and realized just in time how well the left was playing out, again.
A couple of boats passed us and we were suddenly in 8th place half way up the beat, but still ahead of Ronning. We continued to play the current well for the second half of the last beat and were able to reel some boats in to finish 4th. That gave us a total of 20 points and the overall win. Joel Ronning ended up second and Robert Wilber in 3rd.

So far I have had good luck in Charleston. Last year I did tactics for Scott Nixon and we won the Melges 24 event and this time it's the Melges 20. What will it be next year?
Charleston has done it again. Great, challenging racing, southern hospitality and awesome weather...

Now it's back to school for me for a couple of days and then off to Long Beach for my 2nd Moth Regatta (which will surely again be a humbling experience).
We'll have some awesome sailors, including Charlie and Jonathan McKee and a guy called Bora Gulari his blog (I heard he's pretty good) sailing.

Full results of Charleston Race Week can be found here

Chris out

2nd day of racing, Charleston Race Week 2010

2010-04-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

"Good mode Michael, we're a touch faster and higher than the boats around us. Bad set of waves coming, let's make sure we get through them with plenty of speed. Niiiiice... O.k. let's get back into our mode again, jib in and a touch higher..."
Dan and Michael had to hear a lot of that today on our boat. Luckily, they don't mind me speaking too much. Again we had pretty good boatspeed upwind and were great downwind. Our upwind boatspeed came mainly from everyone on board being focused on sailing the boat high without loosing too much speed and immediately getting the bow down with the appropriate ease on main and jib sheet in order to power up again. Settings are important but proper trim and steering are way more important in the kind of chop we had today in Charleston Harbor.
Our results were almost flawless and apart from the 2nd place in the third race we scored only bullets! Needlessly to say Michael was pretty pleased with our sailing. Our team has found a good mix of cohesion, respect for each others jobs and effective communication. Hopefully we can keep it up tomorrow (two more races left).

Our starts today were another key ingredient to being able to play with the heavy hitters. Feeling confident with our upwind speed we looked for low-density areas to start in. For every start we took transits, which allowed us to hit the line with speed and confidence. I like to take two transits. The first one I call "safe" and is about 2 - 3 boat lengths behind the actual line. The second is "on the line". This allows you to get a good idea on how fast you're approaching the line and if you need to make any adjustments in acceleration.

Time to go check out the pool...
Chris out
Results: here

1st day of racing, Charleston Race Week 2010

2010-04-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

Today marked my first day of racing on the Melges 20 and I had an absolute blast! I'm sailing together with Michael Kiss (who hails from Macatawa Yacht Club) and Dan Morris (scow sailor from Minnesota). Today's conditions let us capitalize on our lst two days of practice. The breeze was up most of the day and peaked at around 22 knots during the 3rd race. Our race scores were a 4th, 3rd, and two 2nds, so we're pretty happy with our performance so far.
We have 14 Melges 20 in our fleet and there are some impressive teams on the line. Jeff Ecklund (sailing with Harry Melges), Joel Ronning (sailing with Billy Hardesty), Mary Anne Ward (sailing with Sam Rogers), Scott Weakly (sailing with Mike Wolf), Robert Wilbur (sailing with Andy Burdick) to name a few. The boats are pretty challenging to sail upwind and require a super focused helmsman and a vigilant jib trimmer, that keeps track of the puffs and continously works the jib sheet. Both Michael and Dan did a great job on their part and allowed us to round the 1st windward mark in good shape (except when we were OCS and had to turn back or when I underestimated the current relief close to shore). But where our team truly showed their potential was downwind. Dan's 49er experience combined with good helming let us literally smoke other boats on every downwind leg. The boats are so twitchy and they really reward good instant kite trimming and appropriate helming.
There are a couple of lessons I take away from today's sailing:
1. Don't underestimate the current relief
2. Vang off, main in on downwinds
3. Trim the jib pretty hard upwind in flat water (until main is backwinding)
4. Trust your team mates to do their jobs, and focus on your own job

So far Charleston has lived up to the expectations with great competition, good breeze and a relaxing shore atmosphere.

Looking forward to some more exciting racing tomorrow
Chris out