Friday, March 4, 2016

Harken #1 2016 at CYC


On the week-end of the 27 & 28th February, I attended the Harken #1 in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles, South California. This was the last big fleet regatta before the last 2016 USODA Team Trials qualifying regatta (Gulf Coast Championship at PCYC in Pass Christian, MS, where I'm going with my Dad on March 19&20th).

This was the first time ever I:
- sailed in SoCal,
- raced with my 9 of my team mates from SFYC and our coach outside San Francisco Bay,
- attended a regatta without my parents.

I left on Friday the 29th of February with my friend, Henry Boeger and his parents. We drove from Alameda to Marina Del Rey, a six hours drive. I had a blast with the Boeger family who are very nice people. The hotel they picked was really cool I loved the hot tub.

The venue was nice, but not windy. We spent at least 1 hour on the coach boat every day, waiting for the wind to pick up.

Overall I am a little bit disappointed, although we had a great time. I finished 18th out of 52, with a 3rd place finish at one of the five races. My friend Henry actually got 4th overall which is great.

After analyzing my last few regattas, I decided to work at improving the following:
- pumping on the waves downwind to go faster and following a S shape trajectory while surfing,
- not looking back when I'm ahead of the fleet
- balancing my body when going up and down the waves upwind.
-applying Henry's advice when reading puffs on the water

This coming week-end (5&6th March 2016) I'm going to Bays #4 at PYSF. A storm is coming and the wind is supposed to have gust up to 43 knots.



EYC Bays#3 2016


            For the beginning of my Winter Break I raced at the 2016 EYC Bays#3, a local San Francisco Bay regatta. Like most regattas at EYC the conditions were pretty easy, light wind, no waves, and a lot of good weather. My results were not consistent (2,5,8,5,13,5,3,2,5) pretty much up and down. Luckily the people behind me were not consistent either. Thanks too two second place finish I got 3rd. My friend Henry (far right) won the regatta by 11 points with three bullets, and a worse of 5th place.


Here is a picture of me and my team mates at awards.