Go Team Korea!

Last week I got the dream opportunity to fly down to San Diego to represent GU Energy in a VIP experience with Team Korea at the Americas Cup World Series. This was a great opportunity for me to share the GU gospel with the top professionals in my industry. As well this was a chance to see the boats that I have been obsessing about for the past year and the chance to meet the guys that have my dream job that I have been obsessing about since I was a kid. Ok Ok you get it! I was stoked!The team was amazing from the skipper Chris Draper to Troy, Matt, Mark, Chris B.on the boat, and the guys on the shore crew Tom, Sean, Dan, Cameron, and Sebastian. No primadonna personalities on this team, everyone was very much hands on, dedicated to the cause and friendly as could be. I took full advantage of my situation and asked everyone a million questions. By the end of the day my brain was swollen with information and I had a permanent smile.Oh yeah did I mention I got to go for a ride on the Americas Cup 45 (AC45)! No big deal got to go for twenty minute of so ride. The cat did 15 knots in 7-8 knots of wind! When the guys set the code 0 sail, the acceleration was on par with a jet liner taking off! I have felt the jolt before on my 505, laser and Aussie 18, but man this boat keeps accelerating and accelerating! We did a few laps around the course and dialed up with another boat before I had to hand my helmet off to Brian Vaughn the owner of GU. He got the best ride of the day, a practice race with five other boats in some extremely close and fast paced racing. My view was not all that bad sitting on the bow of the Team Korea's support rib ripping along struggling to keep up with the fleet. Good Times! It has been four days and I still have not slept very well just thinking about the experience. Needless to say the guys on the boat work their butts off on the water and it very apparent that the GU products will give them a huge advantage over the competition.

I can't wait until the teams come to the bay! I wish Team Korea the best of luck and I look forward to working with and or hanging out with the guys in the future. I want to thank Brian at GU Energy for Supporting me over the years and involving me in such an amazing opportunity. I also want to thank Chris Draper and the rest of the guys on Team Korea for their great hospitality and for my smile, that wont go away!

Great Pumpkin!

Pumpkins?

So there we were in the top three out of two hundred and thirty boats sailing in the 2011 Richmond Yacht Clubs Great Pumpkin Regatta Pursuit race! This was the fourth time I made an attempt at this race and in the past I took it a bit to serious and it sucked the fun out of it. It is a long pursuit race from Richmond around Alcatraz Island, around Angel Island and then back to Richmond with the chance of picking up floating pumpkins that subtract time from your score. All four years that I have done it has been light and fluky wind with a ton of current and i have never seen a pumpkin This year was not much different, though my attitude was different. This year I did the event on Luther's J24 "Little Wing," with Marnie, myself and of course Luther. Short handed and plenty of liquid refreshments. Somehow with in the first hour of the race we found ourselves in the lead of the race looking like we were going to be the hero's of the day! We had our kite up the beer was rations were still plentiful and the rest of the fleet was stuck in a hole at the start! With in minutes we found our selves caught off guard. the wind shut down and the current was ripping, oh yeah and the entire fleet caught and passed us...
We still had a good attitude and made a sacrifice to the wind gods and pushed on. Over the next hour we tacked a few hundred time as well we did a dozen sets and drops only to move a half mile. Our hard work and sacrifices payed off by the time we rounded the front of angle island the breeze was on!15+! One more sacrifice to the wind gods and we rounded Alcatraz in a hurry with the finish line in sight, oh yeah and I finally saw a pumpkin! Unfortunately all of the sacrifices and wind dances could not make up for the fact that we chose the wrong way to go around the islands. We finished third in the J-24 fleet and 151st out of 230. It's all about next year!

What a summer!

Grow Your Own Crew?

Laser Slalom?
This year I applied and got accepted to the St. Francis Yacht Club Heavy Weather Laser Slalom 2011. It took place August 3 and 4, 2011, The course is short, two parallel rows, four buoys each, starting in front of the yacht club and heading west for only about 200 yards. In other words, all the action is easily seen from the race deck or along the shore in front of the club. Thirty two of the World’s best Laser sailors competed in this double elimination series for the honor of joining the small pantheon of luminaries who can say they have won this event (Paul Cayard, Morgan Larson, John Kostecki and Tom Blackhaller to name a few).
The first day it blew 15-25+ knots, I had the unfortunate first round random pick against Scott Ferguson, two time defending Laser Master world champion and Oracle Racing's wing designer. The race was close, though he got the best of me in the last couple gybes to take the lead. My second round was against a local Junior sailing prodigy Joe Carter. By this round the wind was in the 25+ knot range and it turned into a carnage fest. I flipped two or three times and Joe went over two or three times that, the result was my victory! Whew! I made through the first day and made to the second day, my goal besides overall victory.

Day two started out nuking! 25+! My third round pick was a local Finn sailor and Opti coach Andy Casey. The race was close, and I managed to hold a slight lead going into the last downwind leg when a film crew boat threw me a huge wake which managed to flip me... I followed it up with a quick recovery only to find myself losing the round.
Overall it was an amazing experience, getting to hang out with 2 time gold medalist Anna Tunnicliffe, Scott Ferguson and a bunch of the local legends. The overall victory went to East Coast Master Peter Shope.
Good Times! Check out the amazing video! http://www.sailingworld.com/brightcove_playlists/video/1117447013001

Wednesday Night Beer Cans with the 505!
This season I took the opportunity to race my 505 at the Wednesday Night Beer Cans at the Richmond Yacht Club. The competition consists of a couple other 505's various skiffs and about fifty or so keel boats ranging from Moore 24's to Farr 36's. Surprisingly we managed to finish in the top five in all but 2 of the 15 nights that we raced. This was a great opportunity to get my new crew Luther Strayer trained up in the insanity that is crewing on a 505, as well it was perfect for getting the boat dialed.

In my spare time.
Back in April my buddy Chris Larsen and I designed and launched a 1/15 scale (3 foot long) radio controlled model of the Americas Cup AC 45 Catamaran. It is fully functional with rudder control, sail controls, and wing camber controls. The construction of the hulls and wing are hot knife c and c foam with vacumn bagged carbon over the top. She weighs in at just over two pounds and is crazy fast. I am constantly tweaking it to make it perform better. I will post a video as soon as possible! Here is a recent pick to tide you over.

Delta Dinghy Ditch
This is a race for dinghy's that starts in the California Delta and goes thirty five miles up river to Sacramento's Lake Washington Sailing Club. this is the fourth time that I have participated in the race. I have done it twice in a laser and once before in my 505 where my wife and i set the Barn Door record. This year I chose to do it again in the 505. The fleet consisted of of a handful of 505's, some Lasers, FD's, Lightnings and a bunch of Thistles. This time around I picked up my one of my laser buddies Will Lowe to fill in as crew.

So there we were, it was blowing 5-7 knots and with the reverse handicap we started at the back of the pack, about an hour and a half after the first boat. Once we shook the other 505's and the FD we spent the rest of the day reeling in boats and passing them like they were anchored. After four plus hours we managed to just reel in all but two boats! We finished the race third overall, missing first by less than four minutes! We did win the 505 division! Overall a great event that I look forward to next years and hopefully it will nuke!






















Thursday Night Laser Series
After thirty two nights, over a hundred races and twenty eight sailors I managed to defend my championship and win the overall title for two years in a row. My training partner and the US Women's Single Handed National Champion Christine Neville finished just behind me in second, followed closely by local heavy air legend Mike Bishop. Everyone stepped up their game this season, the fleet got stronger and stronger, as well most of the group purchased new boats and they were putting the time training for the worlds.All of this made it a tough season trying to defend my title. Good times! I can't wait for next season!
It's a boy!
My wife gave birth to my son Thomas Ruben Nelson on September 16th 2011 at 9:13 am weighing in at 7lbs 3oz and 19" tall. I am totally stoked! I don't want to put pressure on him, I have already been shopping around for an El Toro or an Opti for him... My plan is to get him out on the water with in the first six months. I am working on my theory, you know the whole grow your own crew thing... Whatever he wants to do in life I will support him, especially if it is sailing! :) Look foward to more post with Thomas!

So much sailing so little time to blog...

I will have updates soon...

J fest:
Elvestrom Zellerbach
Thursday Night Racing
Wednesday Night beer Cans with the 505
Bullship El Toro Regatta

Spring Dinghy!

Just when you thought sailing on the city front could not get any more challenging, they throw a tsunami in the mix.
The Spring Dinghy at the St Francis yacht club was one of the most tactically challenging regatta this season to date. All weekend long the tides were crazy unpredictable due to the aftermath of the previous days tsunami from Japan's 9.0 earthquake.
The water was acting screwy, the tide was flooding when it was supposed to be ebbing. Usually you can set your watch to the currents and plan your tactics accordingly. This past weekend the currents changed each leg of the race and to throw in another element there was a huge storm front rolling through that caused a lot of huge wind shifts and a bit of moisture. Good times!

Besides mother nature throwing a bunch of curve balls at us we had a good turnout of a solid twenty boats. I was filling fired up this weekend and eager to mix it up with the local big dogs.
All weekend I had great starts, great boat speed and even better boat handling. Minus a couple capsizes that were self induced by being to aggressive down wind, my short coming was my tactics, every single leg of each race was a roll of the dice. I constantly was finding myself in the top pack and then just when I thought I had the course dialed the fleet would split in different directions and in most cases I would choose the non-favored side of the course.

Man oh man was I loving short tacking up the city front! Zero too five boat lengths from the boulder riddled shore, ripping currents, gusting wind and nineteen other boats fighting for the same space. This was my bread and butter on Saturday and I found myself constantly passing multiple boats every time the fleet ventured to that side of the course. This part of the city front always makes me nervous but for some reason this weekend I was feeling in the groove, and loving every minute of it!

I had my moment of glory when I managed to lead most of the first race on Sunday. It always is nice looking back and having a few world champions and an Olympic medalist chomping at the bit to catch up to you. It was a long race so I was loving every minute of my glory, until the lead pack joined forces and chased me down and passed me on the last leg due to a slight tactical error. Arrrrg! So I have fired my tactician and am in search of a new one for my next regatta in a few weeks. Let me know if you have any leads...Despite my tactical short comings I managed to get few solid finishes in and finished the weekend in eight place overall. I am fired up and can't wait for next months Elvstrom regatta which is held on the same waters!

Spring Keel and the Midwinters!

Let the fun begin!
We had a great first race day for our J 24 team "Little Wing" at the St. Francis Yacht clubs Spring Keel. This was only the second day with the new crew sailing together and our first day of racing. Somehow the boat owner Luther put together a solid team of rookies and veterans and managed to pull off two third place finishes for the day. This was no easy feat, we were plagued with the usual rusty crew hijynx, tangled spin halyards at the leeward mark, crash tacks and a jib sheet override at the finish line. Despite our short comings we were by far the fastest boat in the fleet, and our tactics were dead on! Not a bad start to the season, I can't wait for our next regatta! Way to go Marnie, Will, Kara(care-uh), and Luther. It is good to be back on a proper keel boat team!
The last day of the Richmond Mid-winters turned out to be a bust! There was plenty of wind on the way to the course, right as the racing was about to begin the wind shut off and the tide started ripping. So no wind and a ton of current equals a long tow back to the club and no racing. This was unfortunate, I was sitting in forth place 5 points out of the lead. All I needed was one good race and I would have been in the money. A top five finish is all good, and my fourth place warranted a beer bottle cooler. It's all about next year!

So many boats so little time!

This season is shaping up to be a busy one!
The usual Laser campaign, a full season on a J-24 and few fun regattas for the 505! Not to mention a few practice days thrown in between dates...

Ryan's Racing Schedule 2011-2012
Location: Event: Date: Boat
StFYC Spring Keel March5 J-24
RYC Richmond Midwinters March 6 Laser
STFYC Spring Dinghy March 12-13 Laser
SCYC Laser Nor-Cal Champs April 2-3
STFYC J/Fest April 9-10 J-24
STFYC Elvstrom Zellerbach April 16-17 Laser
RYC Vallejo Race April 30-1 505
RYC Elite Keel May 14-15 J-24
RYC Dinghy Invite May ? Laser
SCYC Laser PCC's June ? Laser
STFYC SF NOOD Regatta June 25-26 J-24
PICYA Lipton Cup July 16-17 J-24
LWSC Dinghy Delta Ditch July 24th? 505
STFYC Laser Slalom Aug 5th Laser
BYC TMC District Champs Aug 6-7th J-24
TYC Kip Lar Rieu Sept ??? Laser
STFYC Fall Dinghy Oct 22-23 Laser
RYC Great Pumpkin Oct 29 J-24

I Survived The Miami OCR!

Sorry for the wait!

It was a long distance to travel to get my butt kicked, in the end it was well worth it! I figure the only way I am going to get better in this sport is by racing against the best in the world. Although my results did not show it, I was hanging with the big guys! This event is the biggest Olympic Classes regatta in the country, and the organizers did a great job of running a high end regatta for over 700 athletes.

The laser fleet was so big that they separated us into two fleets of 52 boats. Throughout the week the wind ranged from 0-25+ knots and out of a different direction everyday. I think the wind actually averaged around 15 knots for the week. The weather was a warm 70+ with the water temperature around 75. Most guys looked cold and were geared up with jackets and and other warm apparel, me I was toasty sporting my Zhik hiking pants and a rashgaurd. Good Times!Eating and sleeping Lasers!
A quick rundown my typical day at the Miami OCR:
-Wake up 7:00am shower eat some breakfast and a glass of GU recovery.
-Drive to the US Sailing Center to check the notice board to see what fleet I was in for the day.
-Stop off at the market and grab a sandwich and snacks for lunch.
-8:00am start rigging the boat and snacking.
-8:45am begin stretching/yoga exercises.
-9:00 Throw on sailing gear and get in line to launch boat (165 boats, one ramp!)
-9:30 get in the water and start sailing to race course, while eating a sandwich and hydrating with GU Brew.
-11:00 Hopefully make it to course by now! Usually takes an hour and a half to sail to the course depending the wind. Start tuning and figuring out the course and eat at least one packet of GU gel.
-11:15 Race start time! During/between races I drink two bottles of GU Brew, 3-5 packets of GU gel and 2-3 Snickers Bars.
-3:30 Finish racing and start sailing in...
-5:00 Arrive back at sailing center, wash and de-rig boat and pound a bottle of GU Recovery Brew.
-6:30 Find something healthy to eat for dinner... Everything is fried or covered in cheese here!
-8:00 Call friends and family for a debrief.
-9:00 Pass out!
*A few guys in the boat yard did the math and figured that we sailed 22 miles a day!

The week in review!
The first day I was plagued with bad starts. A little bit "Star Struck" and intimidated by the competition, i.e. Paul Goodison defending Gold medalist, current World Champion, and Clay Johnson top dog on the US Sailing Team just to name a few. Unfortunately in this big of a fleet it is all about the start, and it was hard to make up any distance with elite of a group. I finished 46th and 42nd out of 52 for the day.

By the second day I got my first day jitters out of the way. I had great starts and was able to hang in the middle of the pack. This fleet was so competitive that if you made one wrong move, shifted your body in the wrong position while going off a wave you would looses speed and get sucked up by the fleet and end up in the back of the pack. I finished out the day with a 45th and 43rd.

As the week progressed I found my groove, amazing starts and even better boat handling/speed. I kept finding myself up in the top half of the fleet and would be there throughout two thirds to three quarters of the race and somehow I would manage to make one little mistake and find my self getting sucked up by the fleet. Arrrrrrg!

I had two areas that I really struggled with through out the week that kept coming back to bite me. The first being the reaching leg, I kept loosing boats on this leg almost every time. This is do to the fact that most of the regattas that I compete in on the west coast don't use the Olympic trapezoid course that involves long reaches, so I lack that experience. The second area of improvement is sailing in 15+knots with close steep chop. I do have a lot of experience with this situation while sailing in the Berkeley circle, though I still have not perfected the technique to the degree that this fleet has. Nothing more time on the water and hopefully a coach can't help!

In the end this was a great regatta for me! My results were not the best, by the last days I was rounding the marks in top 20 and even the top ten. My best result for the week was 33rd. I have a lot to work on before my next major regatta, this event fueled my fire/passion for competitive laser sailing even more. I finished out the regatta in 95th place with plenty of room to improve on for next year. After completing the regatta I was ranked 22nd in the US and 95th in world rankings.

I appreciate this great opportunity to travel across the country to race Lasers and compete against the best of the best! I could not have done it with out the support from my sponsors and especially my wife for flying all the way across the country to support me!

Thanks a ton!

Ryan

Going to Miami!

That's right Miami! I will be taking off this Saturday to go compete in the 2011 US Sailing's Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta.

The regatta consists of over 50 Nations and 700 athletes that takes place on Miami's Biscayne Bay January 24th-29th.I will be competing in the Laser class against 102 other sailors consisting of several Laser world champions, Olympic medalists, and a bunch of other former and future Olympians from around the world. It is safe to say that I will have my work cut out for me.

My main goals for the event are to gain as much experience possible in a large competitive fleet and do my best to hang with big guys! I know I am not the best guy out there but the knowledge that I gain during this week will help me become a better sailor in the long run. I am just focusing on keeping a positive attitude and looking forward to kicking some butt! Anything is possible, I might walk away with the event win and a spot on the US Sailing Team!

I will do my best to keep my Blog updated during the event so as to keep you informed. As well you can follow on the even website. http://rmocr.ussailing.org/Rolex_Miami_OCR.htm