2016 Heavy weather regatta

This year just like last year, I sailed in the Heavy Weather Regatta in San Francisco, except this year at some moment the wind was too low to race in the morning. For me this regatta was amazing, because I won one of the races and I finished 5th overall. During this three days event I met some sailors from all over US West Coast and from Canada, who were really nice, one of them at the last race let me beat him, thanks to that I got 5th overall. This is sportsmanship!

The first day went pretty well thanks to my "bullet": when you win a race, you get a bullet from the Race Committee gun. The second day I managed to get myself in 7th overall, with the 6th place competitor ahead by two points only. On the last day I knew I had to beat Grant Janov, the guy in 5th. I was ahead of Grant only at one race, the first one, but he got disqualified for being over the start line too early, which I didn't know until I was back to shore. On the other races I was one or two places behind him. At the end, I ended up beating him by 1 point.

I was 5th overall (after being 38th last year) and 3rd in my age category. My teammates from SFYC did very well and we mastered the event.

I was so happy to get such a good score overall, this is definitely one of my favorite regattas.

Here is a short video.

Nice colors for the 3rd place award in my age category:

Strapping my boat on the SFYC Trailer:

The results:

A picture with my boat in the background:

Extreme 40 sailing

On the 30th of April, my Dad and I got a chance to sail one of the best and fastest catamarans in the world. We sailed a Extreme 40, or a X40, it is a 40 foot catamaran that when pushed hard enough can reach speeds of 30 knots. My Dad sailed in the Great Vallejo race, a race that goes from Berkeley circle to Vallejo close to the so-called "Delta". Since the boat is so much faster than the rest of the fleet, she has to start last... and of course they still won. I got to sail the boat on the way back to Richmond. We were reaching at a speed of 25 knots hitting 26 knots once towards the end of the day. The X40 used to be the boat sailed in the Extreme sailing series, now it is replaced by the GC32, a foiling catamaran. Overall I had a great time sailing at the fastest speed that I have ever gone.

This amazing day was possible thanks to Jerome T., the CEO of Smart Recruiters and owner of the boat. His crew was amazing: thank you Gilles, Cyril and Chris!

Here is a short video.