End of the sailing season for now...

Since the World Championships in Portugal, I've had some time off which was needed! Time off was a great way to unwind and get re-focused on the work ahead that I need to do in order to ensure that I am the one going to the Olympics for Canada. Since my last post I've done two more competitions, both of which were in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

The first regatta was CORK at the end of August, which was a very different kind of racing compared to the worlds. I was finding it very difficult with such a large fleet, with people of all different skill levels, to get off the line at the start. Apparently I wasn't the only one since there were several general recalls and false starts through the whole week. The sailing there was quite light and shifty, but it paid off on most of the days to just be patient with the shifts and wait for the right time to get into the new wind. I ended CORK in 8th place overall out of 166 boats. I felt like this result was fairly good, but I felt like I wasn't sailing very well most of the time. It was a bit frustrating, but I did work on my starts and I was able to get a few good ones in there, which is always nice!

Just last weekend I was in Kingston again for the Kingston Fall Regatta/Great Lake Championships, which was also our NQR (National Qualifying Regatta). This event was well attended this year and I found the sailing this time around much better than it was at CORK. The winds were a bit more steady, the weather was beautiful, the Race Committee did a good job and the fleet was very competitive. As usual it was still tricky racing and I thought I did a better job this time around of playing the shifts and getting in the pressure. Still I was struggling for some reason to get off the starting line, which is clearly something I need to work on this winter. I think it is just that I have been sheeting in a second too late on most of the starts. There were several races in this regatta that I was able to climb the fleet and finish in the top 5 or 10. Coming into the last day of racing, I was in 4th, Jen Spalding was in 3rd and Danielle Dube was in 2nd. We were all only a couple of points away from each other. Since I was furthest behind, I had nothing to lose so I just sailed fast and had a fun race and finished 1st. When I looked around me, I saw that the people who were in front of me were several boats behind me... that meant that second place was certainly up for grabs! I saw this as an opportunity to try and sail with a different strategy. In the past, sailing with points in my head just messed things up for me. I saw this as a time to try and place myself in a winning position based on points. Do I sail one of the girls to the back of the fleet? Do I cover as much as I can, or do I just sail fast and attempt to win the race. I figured out with the scores that I had already that I would win a tie breaker against both of the girls who I was close to in points. (this is decided by the number of firsts each sailor has in the regatta, then the number of seconds). I decided to start near both of them and just try and be in front at the end. It ended up being a funny race because all three of us were alwasy changing position amongst ourselves. In the end though, Jen sailed a very good downwind and put a few boats between us. I knew that I could let there be about 3 boats between us for a tie, and as long as I had Danielle behind me I was okay. I finished 5th in that race with Danielle two boats behind me. I ended up second overall, tied on points with Jen and only one point in front of Danielle! It sure was exciting!! I'm not sure I could sail like that every race, but it was good practice!

So now I'm back in Vancouver again. Just getting back to the grind stone here. I have five months until the Olympic Trials, so its just work work work until then. I won't be doing any major regattas until I head down to Australia in December for a month. In the meantime I will keep you posted on how things are going with my training! Its been getting really cold here in Vancouver lately and I don't think that I'm ready for winter! I'm going to try and get some photos of my training here in Vancouver to post here sometime before the end of this month.