CORK 2001

CORK is the Canadian Olympic training Regatta at Kingston. I had been reading about it for years in sailing magazines and books and had always imagined it as a high-powered event that all the Olympic hopefuls and other sailing superstars attend. Well, it is that. But it is also an exciting 2 week event in one of the best venues for sailing in North America held in August of every year for over 20 classes of boats. Including Lasers. And open to any entrants. So in 2001 I decided to do CORK.

Having not done much Laser sailing for a few years, I decided to use the regatta as a tune-up prior to getting back into the Laser scene. And to help me make the most of the time in Kingston I took along three top-notch coaches:– Trevor Millar, Steve Cockerill and Ben Tan.

To be honest, I didn'’t really hire these gentlemen to follow me around the course in coach boats. I took them along in “virtual” form. I bought the then recent book The Complete Introduction to Laser Racing edited by Ben Tan. And along with my trusty laptop I packed two CD-ROMs : LaserCoach 2000 from SailCoach Associates Ltd (managing director Trevor Millar) and Rooster Single-Handed Sailing Techniques by Steve Cockerill. The idea I had was to identify each day any problems I experienced on the water, and to use the CDs and book in the evening to see if they could help me solve those problems.

A real live coach out on the water to point out my weaknesses and give me advice would have been the ideal. But I wondered if virtual coaches could be almost as effective. So I'm going to write a few posts this week about my experiences at CORK in 2001 and whether or not my virtual coaches helped me. Watch this space.