...sTSAR NA's..

txt courtesy of sailinganarchy

Tough Crowd

Andy Horton and Brad Nichol take us into day one from the Star NA's in Miami.

It was a tough day on the water due to the tremendous competition in nearly perfect conditions. We sailed two races in 10-12 knots out of the southeast, sunny skies and warm water. As the city of Miami has pointed out on a banner at the US Sailing Center, "the best venue for dinghy sailing in the world!"

In the first race we were pretty convinced that the left side would have more pressure and a bit of left shift at the top. We were the second boat from the pin with plenty of room to work but some wankers were not set up well and reached down on top of us taking our wind and finally forcing us to tack. Once we were forced into the pack, life got difficult with many boats tacking on us and taking our wind. We rounded the first mark in the middle of the fleet and jibed early, making good gains on the lead pack.

Up the second weather leg we played the middle of the course working hard to hit every shift. We gained a lot of distance on the lead pack but not enough to get in contact with them. Down the run we did our best to make gains but were only able to fight our way to 25th place. World Champion Hamish Pepper won the race after leading at every mark.

In between races we reassessed our tactics and our boat set up and made some good changes. On the first attempt at a start of the second race we felt much faster. We decided to start more in the middle and work the shifts. We had a great start and executed our plan, rounding the first mark in first. The wind built as we sailed downwind and the lead pack made it to the leeward gate at once.

Upwind, Mark Reynolds went hard left, Hamish Pepper went hard right and we went up the middle. At the top of the course, Pepper had made huge gains and was able to cross us and round the mark in first. Down the run we decided to hold with the pack of boats closest to us. Pepper, jibed out early, sailing downwind all alone in the lead. We continued to work the left and were the first in the pack to jibe out. We made great gains on Pepper but in the end Hamish Pepper was able to hold us off.

With a 25th, 2nd, we are in 10th place with a lot of racing remaining. Tomorrow will be interesting with a cold front coming through Miami that will bring more wind for the end of the week.

Cheers!

Andy& Brad

Tip of the Day: Learn from your success, learn from your mistakes. We have a great team at this regatta with Andy Horton, James Spithill, and Andy MacDonald working together with three great coaches; Kevin Burnham, Scott Ikle, and Bill Mauk. Today we watched an hour of video with great discussions and took pages of notes – tomorrow we will be faster because if it.

txt courtesy of sailinganarchy