Heavy Weather Regatta June 2015

After weeks of training I finally raced in the Harken Opti Heavy Weather Regatta, which happens at the St Francis Yacht Club, just by the Golden Gate Bridge. This regatta was really special because of the fact that their were about 50 Optis!! They came from the SF Bay, Vancouver Canada, Seattle, and Long beach California. I didn't do really well ranking-wise, but I had a good time. I was happy to race in the practice day, because otherwise I would not have been prepared. To give you an idea of what happened on the practice day, basically I capzised 6 times!! In one race!! After that I didn't capzise until after the last race, and indeed I pitchpoled. Which means that the front of my boat went under water, until the top of my mast touched the water where then I flipped. Here is the video of a Weta trimaran pitchpole.

At the Heavy Weather Regatta, the wind was 15 to 20 knots 4 days in a row!! The current was also strong (3 to 4 knots), the whole time it was flooding, which means that the tide was coming into the Bay. So on the upwinds you would go at 3 knots against the current, but on the downwinds you would go around 6 to 9 knots. The worst of all were the waves: on each wave you would take 5 liters into the boat upwind. The great parts were the downwinds, and my top speed was up to 11knots. Here is a short video.

Overall I finished 12 in Blue fleet (my age group) on 25 boats.

Overall I had a great time! Next year I will be back.

Getting ready for Harken #3 a.k.a. "Heavy Weather Regatta"

On Saturday June 6th I went sailing on my Opti at home, in Sausalito. I am practicing very hard for the Heavy Weather Regatta because it is the toughest and hardest regatta in the whole season. It will happen on the 17th to the 21st of June. I'm sacrificing the last day of school for this regatta. :-)

The wind was over 15knts quite often 20knts, and the sea was not choppy. I was mainly practicing but I also toke my little brother for a ride. Overall it was really fun.

Here is a short video. If the link doesnt work go to http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k7B1cX4KU7DmQXbtLgy.

Here are some pictures:

Here are pictures of me and my little brother:

Bays #1 of the Summer series

This regatta was at PYSF, and this time the wind was strong, with more than 20 knots steady. I capsized, but sadly my Gopro stopped recording before that. I was happy because the first day I was 13th, and during the second day I gained 4 places. and ended up 9th.

Here is a video.

Here is a picture from the first day:

1st,1st,1st, and party !

At Richmond Yacht Club the coaches count the points after each race. At the end of the season, there is a banquet to present awards for the 29er, Laser, Opti, and El toro classes.

For the Opti class, during the year we competed for three trophies, which are the Midwinters, Brooks Island race, and the Overall results over the whole season. I was the winner of these 3 trophies this year :-).

When you win the Overall season results you have your name on a board that has all the names of the winners since they started. Here is a picture of the boards and my name on it. The Opti board is on the right, and if you look at the one on the left (Junior Laser) you can see the name of the ex-tactician of Oracle Team USA, John Kosteki, who sailed at the RYC when he was young.

Here are some other pictures from the banquet:

Bays 7&8 March

I went to my second Bays regatta in Redwood city, PYSF. I was happy to meet again some of the Bays top sailors, from EYC and SFYC. The wind was really light but we had a great time.
There were two important facts.
First, there was a guy from the Opti US national team. Second, I filed a protest against the race committee because they scored me 4th instead of 3rd at one race. My Mum told me that it was not worth but I didn't listen. I spoke to Molly, PYSF Director and I filed my protest. I was lucky enough to have to witnesses from EYC: those guys are awesome! It was really important to me because it was my best score so far. I won my protest and my score moved one spot up. Overall I got 10th. Here is a short video.

Bays Regatta at Encinal Yacht Club

The Bays are a serie of regattas in different yacht clubs of the Bay area. This particular one that I went to was at Encinal Yacht Club close to Alameda and Oakland on Feb 14&15th. The races were pretty challenging, because the channel where we were racing was quite small. Overall I got 8th on 23 and in my "Blue" fleet I got 5th.  Knowing that last year I was in "Green" fleet and I got 4th. Here is a short video.

Here are some pictures:

Winning the Midwinters regatta

Remember how I published a post on the Midwinters? If you don't, here is the link.
Well yesterday was the last day. And I won the Champion Fleet!!! The funny part was that everybody had the same results at each race. I got 2nd at every of the 3 races. I was so happy to win because last year I got 2nd in Green Fleet. Last year I got a trophy for the 2nd place but this year I got a really cool knife.

Here is a picture of my knife:

PS: did you notice the picture of me sailing ? If you feel scared, you have to know that this picture is an art piece by my friend Frank Roesner. Here is the address of his website.

Here is a bunch of pictures of the last regatta: