Sydney Harbour is like no other place I've ever been to sail. There is a continuous flow of boat traffic in the harbor, be it ferries, dinghies, jet boats or nice $$ Yachts! Sydney International Regatta was a good wake up call for me and I ended up 13th overall. It was good training in a good quality fleet in a tricky venue. I couldn’t have asked for much more than that! Besides, it was much better this year since I managed not to write off the laser I was using like I did last year! (RIP Bunghole)
After SIRS, I spent some time in Sydney with my good friends Mike Leigh and Kat Wade. I had Christmas with them for the second year running, which was really nice! Just after Christmas I headed over to Melbourne for the Australian Nationals that were held in Blairgowrie.
Blairgowrie is just south of Melbourne and is officially the furthest south in the world I’ve ever been! The sailing there was also very good. It was quite a windy venue and we were racing in a mixed fleet there. It made for some really great competition. I ended up 24th overall there, which is not a great result, but I was happy to have been able to work on some things that were weak from SIRS. It was strange to me to be racing over New Years, but thankfully New Years day was a rest day!
I had been contemplating sticking around down under for Sail Melbourne, but I decided that it would be a good idea to go home for a bit and do Miami OCR instead. SO… I went home to Vancouver and went skiing for a couple days at Whistler Mountain with my boyfriend! It was a dramatic change of scenery and temperature, but it was certainly worth it!! What a beautiful place to ski and with the best company I could ask for!
Miami OCR was bizarre this year. There were only a handful of boat classes due to clashing schedules with world championships being down under. The Laser Radial fleet however, was strong as ever with the event counting towards Olympic Selection for several nations. After having raced in Australia for a month in windy conditions and training in stormy weather in Miami, the regatta itself was quite different! We never saw a race in more than 8 knots (maybe 10 knots in some gusts). This was one of my first events as of late where I did well in light winds. It was very satisfying and a great confidence boost for me to know that my training has been working. Over the winter I was trying to lose some weight so that I would be able to do well in a variety of conditions as opposed to just in the strong winds. Not only that, but after the racing in Australia I was in a much better head space for racing again. I took the event solely as a training event and tried new things in races, put myself in difficult positions and managed to pull through. I ended up 12th overall. This was to be my last event before my Olympic Trials!
I am now in Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand preparing for “the main event” here. The Laser Radial World Championships and Canadian Olympic Trials. So far I’ve done only 4 days of sailing, but it’s been in quite a variety of conditions! Strong winds, light winds, choppy water, flat water, shifty, different current. This venue is proving to be quite interesting and it should make for some good racing once the event gets underway two weeks from now! I’m starting to train with my coach, Tine Moberg-Parker as of tomorrow. Up until now I’ve been training with Debbie Hanna from Ireland as well as with the British Team a little bit. With my coach turning up now, my training should become a bit more structured and I’m certainly looking forward to that! This place is really beautiful with stunning views of the city and Rangitoto Island, which is actually an inactive volcano! (see the photo below… the view from the beach where we launch looking out over the bay... taken during the Tornado Worlds) I’m so excited! I think this will be a really great event… though as much as I’m looking forward to it starting, I’ll also be very happy to have it over with :o)
So this is it!! The first of two events I’ve been working towards for all these years! I do hope that all of you will follow the regatta. The website is www.takapunaworlds2008.com
My plan is to do one more quick update just before the event and then I will try to write a few things during the regatta! No, they won’t be as long as this one!!
Thank you all for tuning in!
