The Cat is Dead. Long Live the Cat!

The cat is dead.

There will be no multihull class in the 2012 Olympics.

The IOC President Jacques Rogge wrote today to ISAF: “Whilst the IOC Executive Board fully recognises the value that Sailing brings to the Olympic Games, it decided to maintain its decision of 2005 regarding the overall quota of sailors and medals. As a consequence, Tornado Multihull shall not be on the programme of the Games of the XXXth Olympiad in London.

Oh well. Multihull fans will just have to be satisfied with watching the America's Cup next February in Ras al-Khaimah.



Long live the cat!

Paradox

I believe you should live every day as if it were your last.

That's why I'm not writing a blog post today
because who wants to waste their last day
on earth writing a blog post?

Tomorrow is another day.

Hmmm.

Best Regatta Blog Post of the Year

I read a lot of blogs about sailing. I read about folk racing all sorts of top class regattas in all sorts of swanky sailing venues all over the world. This summer, for example, I have been following with great interest blog posts about the Star Worlds in Sweden, the Radial Worlds in Japan, and the Laser US Nationals in New Jersey, to mention just a few.

But I hereby award the 2009 Proper Course Award for Best Regatta Blog Post of the Year to the account of the Hickling Broad Regatta 2009 by "Mondale", a story about how Mondale and three of his mates spent the weekend "sailing, drifting and drinking and eating bad food."

This is not exactly the Star Worlds, but it was clearly a wonderful experience for all concerned...

All regatta posts should have photos of how the boat is set up for racing...

Your host, Will with Woodcut's extensive bar

And, of course, we all like to read exciting accounts of the sailing action...

"I normally object to such things as mobile phones when sailing but it was nice to be able to text the race committee and let them know of our progress. It was also nice to receive their sarcastic responses."

Personally, I also like to read about what top sailors eat at major events...

We chose the black pudding option.

And then the climax of every good regatta post is the awards ceremony...

Ross (regatta organiser) presents Will with his
'longest distance travelled to visit regatta
but not actually enter a race' medal

Much more in the same vein at Hickling Broad Regatta 2009.

Regatta Coaching - The Next Dimension

Sailing coaches, take your game to the next level.

Have you ever felt confined by your Mommy Boat at a regatta? Have you ever wished you could get a better view of the sailing area? Have you ever imagined how much more effective you would be as a coach if you could hover 30 feet in the air, and see what the wind is really doing?

Now you can, thanks to the JetLev Flyer.



With the JetLev Flyer you can ascend to 30 feet in the air any time you want. Spot all the shifts and gusts that the other coaches can't see and tell your sailors what you have seen. Hover over the race committee boat at the starts and get the perfect view. Follow your sailors around the course and take superb video footage from your aerial vantage point.

Stop Dreaming! Start Flying!

400 Days until 2010 Laser Masters Worlds

It's been a quiet year in Lake Wobegon...

After competing in two Laser Masters Worlds in the fall and winter of 2007/2008 followed by my (failed) attempt to sail my Laser 100 days in 2008, I haven't sailed much at all since my final outing of last year, a brilliant sunny winter day on Bristol Harbor which I wrote about in If I Had a Boat.

Oh sure, there's been some Lasering. A blast or two with my son, a SailFit seminar in March, informal racing once or twice with the Laser dudes at Lake Massapoag, sailing with Mark and his Force 5, and a dozen or so solo practice days. But no regattas. It's probably been my least active stretch for a very long time.

Don't worry. I'm not going to write a long whiny post about why I haven't been sailing much lately. Suffice to say that sailing is not my whole life and I have preferred to spend time on other rewarding aspects of my life in the last 6-8 months.

But it's only 400 days from today until the first race day of the 2010 Laser Masters Worlds in Hayling Island in the UK. The last few days I've been thinking about those 400 days a lot and have formulated the outline of a plan of how I'm going to to use that time to prepare for the Worlds.

It seems to me that 100 days - approximately 3 months - is a nice convenient chunk of time. Long enough to achieve something worthwhile; short enough that the end date is close enough to give a sense of urgency to the endeavor. So I've been thinking of my training program as 4 separate periods of 100 days. What should I do in each 100 days? How should I change activities in each 100 day chunk in order to keep things fresh and stay motivated? What targets should I have for each 100 days? More on that in some upcoming posts.

I've also discovered a terrific resource about what to do when practicing alone... which I do a lot. My mind is buzzing with ideas for a whole series of posts on that topic.

Stay tuned...

Clay Johnson

A coach who used to race against Robert Scheidt the one-time superstar of the Laser class once told me why Scheidt was so special...

It wasn't that he won every start, though he certainly won his share.

It wasn't that he always chose the right strategy for the first beat, though he often did.

No. The reason that Scheidt was so dominant in the Laser class in his day was that even when he had a bad start or went the wrong way on the first beat (or both) and as a result was way down in the middle of the pack after the first leg... he had the determination and the smarts and the skills to work his way through the fleet and still end up among the leaders by the end of the race.

Now read Clay Johnson's account of his racing this weekend at the Laser US Nationals at Brant Beach in Tricky Westerly on Day One of US Nats and Great Second Day. In four of the eight races sailed so far Clay didn't get things right at the start or on the first beat and rounded the first windward mark in around 35th, 30th, 15th and 20th places. Yet, every time, he recovered from his mediocre showing and, as a result, his scores for the eight races are 7,1,5,4,1,5,2,4.

Now I'm not saying that Johnson is the next Scheidt. I am saying that he is a damn fine Laser sailor and that his ability to recover from a bad start and sail up through the fleet is one of the keys to his success.

No other sailor at the Nationals has all single digit scores.

Indeed, every other sailor in the 103 boat fleet has at least three scores of double (or triple) digits.

Clay has a 21 point lead on his nearest rival, a lead which means that he doesn't even have to sail the final day of the regatta.

Congratulations to Clay on his first national championship. Watch this guy. We will be hearing a lot more about him in the coming years.

Caption Contest

Several people had fun at the expense of a couple of Star sailors in our last caption contest. Now's your chance to have a dig at those super-fit hyper-active go-getter Laser dudes. This photo was received via Twitter this morning from the site of the US Laser Nationals at Brant Beach NJ.

The Time Flies When You're Having Rum

Photo of Laser 4.7 at Parkstone Youth Week 2009

© David Harding www.sailingscenes.co.uk
shamelessly stolen from www.yachtsandyachting.com

Wrong Way Chay

On this day August 6 in 1971 Chay Blyth became the first person to sail around the world non-stop the "wrong way" east-to-west.

Among his many other achievements he was the founder of the British Steel Challenge (later BT Global Challenge) a "no experience needed, pay for your berth and I’ll train you to race round the world" race for amateurs. When the posh chappies in flannels and blazers from the Royal Ocean Racing Club met Chay to discuss his plans and asked what experience he thought amateurs needed to face the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn, his reply was classic...

"It's only wind and water."

Indeed.

Congratulations and best wishes to Sir Chay Blyth on this special day.

Caption Contest

I don't know why, but this picture (of Andrew Campbell and Magnus Liljedahl racing in the Star Worlds this week) just cries out for a caption.

I'll kick it off...

"So how much do you pay for a pedicure?"