The event was to be sailed in J22's which myself and Ryan were pretty familiar with. We got the use of a J24 for some training in the run up to the event. The training sessions were really productive, our boat handling was pretty slick from the start, with the team really gelling together from the beginning. Most of our focus was getting the guys used to match racing maneuvers. So getting Luke focused in on Starboard roundings, helicopter sets, windmill sets and different drops was important. We also spent a lot of time practicing prestart maneuvers like dial ups, circles, holding the boat head to wind and backing up. We didn't have any other boats to train against but by the time the event came around we were pretty really happy with our boat handling. We just had to hope we would have the boat speed to match. We had one day training in big breeze. We did speeds I didn't think were possible in a J24. Check out the Video at the end of the post.
The event began with a practice day on Thursday the 4th of April with the qualifying races starting on Friday. We started the day with two wins over local teams from the University of Nantes, followed by a loss to the Polish Team from Gdansk having lead for most of the race. Later in the day the team secured a win over the Swiss as well as a very close defeat to the Hungarian Team, with only a few inches separating the boats at the finish. We ended the day just outside the top 4. With the top 4 boats going on to the semi finals it meant the guys couldn’t afford to loose many of their 6 remaining qualifying races.
Day two saw steadier and stronger breeze coming down the river from the north. We had had six races back to back in the afternoon. We sailing really well, claiming strong wins over teams from Brest, La Rochelle, Milan and Vannes in the first four races. We then suffered a close defeat to one of the local teams from Nantes, before finishing the day with a great win over another team from La Rochelle (EIGSI La Rochelle) in a very tight race.
We ended the round robin with 8 wins and 3 losses and were hopeful this would be enough to secure a place in the semi finals. The Hungarian team won the qualifying series with 11 wins followed by a local team from Nantes. There was a three way tie for 3rd place between Gdansk, EIGSI La Rochelle and ourselves, with all there teams on 8 wins. There was no time for a sail off so the result had to be decided in another way. Each of the teams had a win and a loss against the other two, which meant the tie break was decided on results against the higher ranked teams. The loss to Nantes 1 earlier in the day proved to be very costly and meant the we finished the qualifying series in 5th place, as the teams from La Rochelle and Gdansk went through to the semi’s.
We were left to contest the 5th/6th playoff. There was a bit of a feeling of Deja Vu for Ryan and I as we ended up in the same position as last year. We won the playoff 2-0 against the same team we had raced last year for the same position.
Naturally we was disappointed not to better our result from last year but we could take many positives from the event. We sailed really well as a team, winning 10 out of 13 races sailed which for our first event together was very promising. We were undone by some small errors which cost us dearly in the end but it was great way to start off a busy season.
Naturally we was disappointed not to better our result from last year but we could take many positives from the event. We sailed really well as a team, winning 10 out of 13 races sailed which for our first event together was very promising. We were undone by some small errors which cost us dearly in the end but it was great way to start off a busy season.
