Good News Bad News...

Mid-Winters and Spring Dinghy 2012!

San Francisco Bay sailors are spoiled, gorgeous scenery, great wind, challenging weather and oh yeah we can sail year round! It is a common happening in the winter time that sailing conditions are the warmest. We had several days this winter out on the 505 where I was wearing a rash guard and board shorts. Where as in the Summer on the 505 in the Bay I would wear a full wet suit, board shorts and two-three upper layers.

Enough rubbing it in on the rest of the sailing world, let's get back to the Richmond Mid-Winters. This time around I decided to compete in my 505 in preparation to the North Americans that are coming up in September. The first couple events we did not have enough boats to get our own start so we were forced to duke it out in the "Open Fleet," which consisted of Lightnings, I-14's International Canoes, and a handful of random dinghy's. The clubs rating system did not align with real life boats, i.e. we owed I 14's and Weta's time??? None the less this was great a great opportunity for my new crew Luther to learn the boat and get the rigging dialed. For all four events we were plagued with light winds under ten knots, followed up by a long paddle back to the club. But hey we were racing in the middle of winter and we were not wearing dry suits. For the last couple events we had a fleet of 11 505's which made for some great racing to finish off the series. We finished in second place overall and enjoyed every minute of it!

St. Francis Spring Dinghy!

I have competed in this regatta with my 505 a half dozen or so times. In all of those appearances I have never been able to complete all of the races in the event, whether it is boat break down, crew problems, or scary sailing conditions. I call it the "Curse of St. Francis Yacht Club." So my goal for the weekend was to finish all of the races. Easy enough...

Start of Race One

Day one: 12-20 knots of shifty breeze, 4 knot flood, and flat water. We played the day conservative wanting to preserve the boat and ourselves. This was the first time I raced the boat on the City front with Luther, and our heavy weather techniques together are still in the their infancy. So we mixed it up with the fleet a little bit, for the most part we went conservative and banged the corners instead of thirty plus tacks up the city front.

So much for being conservative. After the second race we "hove to" with intent of catching our breath and cleaning up the rigging. While carrying out these duties an F-18 Catamaran who was drifting on starboard and to leeward of us was not paying attention until I hailed them. There response was to power up and tack away, they miss judged their acceleration and t-boned us, causing substantial damage to the deck of my boat... While trying to pry ourselves off of them, the skipper still had not eased the main, the result was their bow repeatably smashing into our boom and transom. Good Times! This should have been a "Day Ender," I gave the boat thorough inspection and we decided that the boat was structurally able to carry on racing. We finished all three races on Saturday and were sitting in ninth out of thirteen, this was no easy feat. This was the good news!

Day two: 5-15 knots of extremely shifty breeze, 4+ knot flood, and flat water. A little bit of epoxy and some duck tape and we were ready to go racing. I had the worse start of the weekend, misjudged the extreme current and we crossed the line thirty plus seconds late. Arg! So we decided to go for a flyer... Huge shot in the dark, and even bigger mistake. after the first lap we decided to play follow the leader with everyone else short tacking up the city front. The damage was already done and we finished the race in last place. Double Arg!

Bad News! I forgot to mention that Luther, in a post race celebration on Saturday decided to eat an egg salad sandwich... The result was a night of him getting down to a good fighting weight... After very frustrating first race, even more frustrating shifty wind, and a persistent bad sandwich we decided to call it a day. We finished the regatta in 12th place, the boat survived with out any breakdowns, both of us are still alive and we had a ton of fun racing on the city front in good breeze on Saturday. In the end it was a good start to the season, and I look forward to shaking the "Curse of St. Francis Yacht Club" next year!

Refitting my 505

For those of you who know me, and those who don't, I am very gung ho about anything I do. So when I'm not spending time with my family, sailing or at work, I love getting my hands dirty tweaking my boats. yes I said boats..

Currently I have two Lasers, a 505, Hobie 18 and the family boat a 1961 36'

Trojan Sea breeze Classic Woody, power boat/stink pot. I have spent countless hours keeping all them in tip top condition. Did I mention that I work on boats for a living and what do I do on my day off...

Over the past ten years I have raced and abused the heck out of my 505.

One of the most recent ongoing substantial projects that I have done was refitting/rebuilding my 505. It is a 1981 Rondar 505 Fiberglass construction with a combo of balsa and foam

core. At least that is what it was... I have spent countless hours upgrading and reinforcing it so that It can be competitive with the modern all carbon boats. Here are a selection of pictures from the process:

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

The year in review!

It has been a busy and fun year of sailing. Here is a quick run down of my results from the 2009-2010 season.

Richmond Yacht Club Midwinters 3rd place laser Fleet
Long Beach OCR 11th place
St Francis Spring Dinghy OCR 6th place
Laser Mid-Winters West 38th place
Laser Nor-Cal Championships 8th place
Big Dinghy 3rd place Laser Fleet
Elvstrom Regatta 8th place
Laser Pacific Coast Championships 13th place
Richmond YC Totally Dinghy 6th place
St Francis Fall Dinghy 13th place
Lake Washington Turkey Shoot 1st Place Laser fleet
Laser District 24 Grand Prix Ranking of 6th
North American Laser Grand Prix Season high ranking of 13th
Treasure Island Thursday Night Laser Series 1st Place

115 Individual races
38 Race days

*This Is Just Laser Regattas!

Whoa! Overall it was a successful year, and I have plenty to build on and to improve for next season. I appreciate the support from my sponsors, GU Energy Gel, West Marine Rigging, Zhik Sailing Gear, and the most important of all my wife Keely! I look forward to an even more action packed and successful season!

Thanks

Ryan Nelson
Sailing Addict!

Laser and Etchells and Ultimate 20's Oh My!

Ok Ok I know it has been a while since I have updated the blog! Here is the quick and dirty version on what I have been up to!

Richmond Yacht Club Totally Dinghy September 25-26th!
A solid 22 boat Laser fleet, with shifty light to moderate wind. I was consistently in the top ten with a few top five finishes. I finished the regatta in 6th place.

Etchells Fleet Race October 2nd
My second time racing on Etchells and I loved it! The San Francisco bay fleet is not that big but the racing is very competitive. We had ten boats out on the line and those ten boats seemed to be with in a few boat lengths of each other all day long. This produced some hairy mark roundings and really good drag racing up wind. Our driver Wayne Clough did an excellent job of keeping the pointy end in the right direction, John did a great job of trimming the main and calling tactics. I got placed in my usual keel boat position, the guy on the pointy end! Something about having a low center of gravity and weighing less then any body else on the boat. Maybe one of these days I will sport a beer belly and find myself at the back of a boat. Just kidding! We finished out the day with a couple of thirds and a fourth.

Fall Dinghy at St. Francis Yacht Club October 23-24th
Another solid 22 boat Laser fleet, with very shifty gusty and wet wind! I had a great start in the first race, won the pin and led the fleet most of the way to the weather mark. The wind shifted drastically and the lead pack was becalmed and the back of the pack sailed by. This was how the rest of the day went, I had great starts and great speed and tactics only to succumb to the extreme wind shifts, which resulted in bad finishes. Oh yeah did I mention it was pouring! There was no racing on Sunday due to extreme weather, 40knot gusts with dumping rain. I finished out the weekend in 13th place. Arrrrrrg!

Richmond Yacht Clubs Great Pumpkin October 30-31st
Ultimate 20 sailing! Buoy racing on Saturday, pursuit race on Sunday. We had a great day of sailing on Sunday, wind rain and tons of close racing. Finished 3rd out of 11 and claimed some hardware!
The famous Great Pumpkin Pursuit race the involves sailing from Richmond then around Angle Island and back. You can go either direction, most of the fleet along with us went clockwise. The boat owner Tom Hughs was nice enough to let me drive for the day which was awesome! I worried him a little when wind died at the start and we drifted over the line early having to set the kite to get to the proper side and then started last in our group... Once I got the boat dialed in we spent the rest of the day picking off boats. Unfortunately the wind never came up so we could not correct out on time as planned. We ended up beating all of the rest of the U-20's and finished 54th place out of 176! It's all about next year!

It's Official!

2010 Treasure Island Sailing Center Thursday Night Laser Series Champion!

It came down to the final night! After 23 weeks of sailing I was leading the series by 5 points. After doing the math several times I realized that I was not untouchable going into the last night. The top 4 four boats were close enough in points to shake things up for the overall victory. Fortunately for me I saved my best night of the season for the last, I won 4 out of 5 races! I claimed the overall victory for the season! A hard fought second place was earned by Jon "Geezer" Andron, followed closely in third place was Mike Bishop.

Special thanks to the Treasure Island Sailing Center for providing the facilities for us. The volunteers that help organize the whole series week after week. Super Jr. and Super Duper for running the races. Finally the Laser fleet for continually pushing each other to sail faster!

Geezer North Americans!

Okay Okay, it's not the Geezer North Americans...
It was the Laser Masters North American Championships in Long Beach, California. In the Laser class there is a whole separate series of regattas for sailors over the age of 35. One of my laser buddies, Jon Andron, has coined the phrase "Geezers" instead of Masters, hence Geezer North Americans. What does this have to do with me? Since I am not of age, i.e. lacking life experience... I was propositioned to coach/babysit a group of Masters from the bay area with whom I regularly race against. Jon set the whole thing up and put together an offer I could not refuse.

So there I was, 10 o'clock on a Thursday morning and I should have been at work hours ago. Instead, I was busy picking out my seat on a private jet with my wife Keely and several other Laser sailors bound for Long Beach. Yes, a private jet... piloted by none other than the main geezer himself, Jon. The bar has been raised when it comes to "Regatta Mobiles."
Details Details Details
Thursday we landed in Long Beach and drove to our home-base: the house of World Champion Sailor Howard Hamlin, just a few blocks from the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club. Once the boat transport arrived (Mike Bishop and three Lasers) we rigged up for a late afternoon of tuning and boat prep. The highlight of the day happened early on during practice as I was following Lasers out of the harbor in the chase boat. Kurt Wessel's boat had a bad reaction to the cold water in combination with the warm air temperature... his boat attempted to implode! The hull sucked in about four to six inches in several places. Thankfully, after the the drain plug was removed, the boat took a deep breath of air and it popped back to normal. So what did we learn? Make sure your hull's breather hole is never plugged!
The 7 Amigos?
Not quite! During the event I was responsible for seven different sailors: Mike Bishop, Jon Andron, Nick Burke, Tracy Usher, Christy Usher, Kurt Wessel, and Peter Vesella. Luckily, Howard let me borrow his awesome chase boat for the weekend. This enabled me to tow the group to and from the race course, chase them around on the water, do wind checks across the course, keep them hydrated, store their spare clothing, and be there for anything else that they needed throughout the weekend.

SFB Fleet!
Over the course of the weekend the San Francisco Bay (SFB) Fleet established their presence. Tracy, as usual, showed his dominance in breeze. David "Mr Consistent" was always in the hunt in the top group. Kurt experienced the full spectrum of the fleet and finished the weekend with several strong results. Nick had a few finishes in the teens and occasionally mixed it up with the big dogs. Jon was finding his groove mid-fleet, occasionally venturing into the lead group to point out how much older he was than them. Mike was consistently hanging with the lead group of the fleet and had a couple strong finishes which landed him third for the weekend in the Apprentice fleet. Christy continually kept improving throughout the weekend to finish her last race in 5th place and securing the overall win in the Women's division. To round out the gang was Peter, whose consistency and sportsmanship earned him the victory in the Grand Masters Division.

Way to go Team!

Conclusion
Overall it was great weekend! I had a blast watching the group sail in some really challenging conditions, and learned a ton. We had a great time hanging out off the water, whether it was pounding Bud Lites, wandering Second Street, or inhaling some glorified cafeteria pasta. We all survived, slightly sun burned, bruised, and fatigued. Good times! Special thanks to my wife for allowing me to do this on our Anniversary Weekend. A special thanks to Howard for letting me borrow his boat, and giving my wife and I a place to stay. Oh yeah and another special thanks to Jon for organizing the whole production, and flying us all down there and back in the lap of luxury.

David Lapier pounding upwind!

Nick Burke doing his thing.

Christy crushing the Radials!

Tracy getting ready to pounce!

Mike doing some pre-race tuning.

Kurt cruising to the finish.

Number 18!

My Season High!
After competing in the Mid-Winters West, District 24 Championships and the Pacific Coast Championships I achieved a 2010 International Laser Class Association North American Grand Prix Standing of 18th place. Unfortunately I will not be attending anymore ranking regattas this season so my standing will drop.

The Future!
I do not have any big regattas for the next few months. My focus for now is on the Svendson's Thursday Night Series at Treasure Island which I currently sit 3rd place overall. I also plan on sailing as much as possible, after work, weekends, when ever, it's the summer and I live in the Bay Area and it is one of the best places to sail!

Laser Pacific Coast Championships

Wind, wind and more wind! Three days of fun in Santa Cruz at the 2010 Laser PCC's. Twenty of the best guys on the west coast. Friday was typical Santa Cruz, Fog in the A.M. followed by nuking winds and decent size waves. Saturday there was no fog in the A.M., but the breeze showed up in full force with a bit more swell. Sunday ended up being a no race day due to two different wind patterns fighting over the same area and they both lost, which meant no wind.

Hmmm my weekend in review...
I struggled to find a rhythm and found my self constantly over powered and lacking speed and height. I had great starts all weekend long but was unable to hang with the big dogs in the long run. My surfing background payed off and I was able to make huge gains on the runs with the big swells. By Sunday afternoon I was able to finally get into a groove upwind and makes some gains. Overall I had an OK regatta, I did not get the results that I was looking for, though I did gain a ton more experience that will help me excel in the future.

171314	stephen bourdow	Sequoia YC		[16]	2	1	2	3	1	1		10	1
196139	Tracy Usher	St Francis Yacht Club		3	1	2	[12]	1	2	2		11	2
192079	Ben Leibowitz	ABYC		4	3	4	1	2	[20/OCS]	4		18	3
176124	Peter Phelan	Santa Cruz Yacht Club		1	[8]	6	3	6	3	3		22	4
185557	Peter Vessella	saint francis		2	4	3	8	4	6	[14]		27	5
192051	Michael Bradley	Long Beach Yacht Club		9	5	5	6	5	[12]	9		39	6
173666	Mike Bishop	StFYC		6	6	8	5	8	8	[10]		41	7
171638	Nick Burke	RYC		5	7	7	4	7	13	[17]		43	8
184619	Max FRASER	SANTA CRUZ YACHT CLUB		8	11	[13]	9	12	4	5		49	9
179426	Stephen Orosz	SSC		7	9	9	7	9	9	[16]		50	10
164243	Kieron Kavanagh	SBYC		11	10	[12]	10	10	5	7		53	11
188709	jon andron	st.francis		14	[16]	10	11	11	14	6		66	12
195948	Ryan Nelson	West Marine		10	12	11	[15]	13	7	15		68	13
155477	Will Lowe	RYC		12	[15]	15	14	14	15	8		78	14
191555	Paul Foley	N/A		15	14	16	13	16	11	[20/RAF]		85	15
162032	Alexander 'Zan' Drejes	scyc		13	13	14	18	15	[20/DNF]	20/DNF		93	16
194053	Michael Kraft	MPYC		[20/DNF]	20/DNF	20/DNF	17	17	10	13		97	17
173200	Sean McGinn	Cottage Park YC		[20/DNF]	20/DNF	20/DNF	16	18	16	11		101	18
7	Joseph crum	scyc		[20/DNF]	20/DNF	20/DNF	19	19	20/DNF	12		110	19