Youth European Match Racing Championships

I traveled to Lake Constance in Germany for the Eurosaf Youth European Match Racing Championships at the end of September. I was sailing with Mark Lees and his team from the UK. The event was sailed in Blu 26's. 16 teams from 14 different nations gathered in Konstanz for the event and the teams were split into two groups for the round robin series.

The practice day began with a heavy fog on the lake and absolutely no wind. By the time we got out in the afternoon the sun had burned off some of the fog and patches of breeze were scattered around the lake. We managed to get a few hours of practice in very light wind. Everyone settled into their roles pretty quickly and our boat handling was looking pretty good by the end of the session. Roll on day 1 of racing.

Race day 1 started much the same. Foggy and windless. The sun broke thorough the clouds much earlier than the previous day and racing got underway shortly after midday. We won our first two races convincingly. In the third and final race of the day we came from behind to take the lead on the first downwind leg and held on to the finish. We ended the day 3-0.

Day 2 saw slightly more breeze on the Lake and we got off to a great start with 3 more wins in the round robin. We did however loose one race to end the day 3-1. We closed out the round robin in the top spot of our group with 6 wins and 1 loss.

The quarter finals were sailed in very light conditions on day 3. We won our quarter final 2-0 against the Hungarian team. The wind was beginning to die but the race committee manage to fit in two semi final flights. We took the win in the first match against the team from France. We lost the second race of the semi final but the French team were penalized for a collision the pre start which saw them debuted 0.75 of a point. The wind shut off for the day shortly after and racing was abandoned for the day. We led our semi final 1-0.25 after the penalty.

The lake was blanketed by a thick layer of fog on the morning of the final day or racing. It was taking a long time for the fog to clear and there was still no sign of any wind by mid day. After a number of hours on the water waiting for the wind. It was decided that racing would proceed straight to the finals if the wind did fill in.

We were to contest the final against the Irish team if the wind would allow. The teams were brought back ashore in the afternoon and prospects of racing looked dismal as the weak thermal breeze continued to fight with the gradient and in turn cancel each other out.

To our surprise we were rushed back to the boats at around 16.30. The Lake still appeared windless but the boats were towed offshore and around a headland where there was 8 knots of steady breeze coming down the lake.

Racing got under way quickly for fear that the breeze would die. The Irish team managed to gain control in the pre start in the with a minute to go and they lead off the line. We crossed close behind them on the upwind leg but were unable to catch them as they defended their lead well around the course. We had to win the second match to keep our chances alive. We entered from the pin end and were immediately put under pressure as they approached on starboard. They managed to defend the boat end of the line and got off the line with more pace than us. The race was almost a repeat of race 1. We crossed closely behind on the upwind and began to gain back some distance on the run into the finish but we were unable to catch them before the line.

It was hugely disappointing not to win the final after such a strong performance all week. Although I learned so much during the week and even though we didn't win it was a great experience. I always enjoy racing on new boats and with new teams because you learn so much from others in the way they do things. I also learned a lot about match racing tactics from Mark and the lads.

Photo credit: Jugend Regatta Förderverein

Royal Southern Match Cup

After a great summer of racing on the West Coast I flew straight from the seeing America's Cup in San Francisco to Hamble, for Royal Southern Yacht Club grade 3 match racing event.
Myself, Ryan, Luke and Sam joined back together after a few months doing our own sailing around the world. We chose the event to get some racing practice in J80's before the Student Yachting World Cup. Which was 3 weeks later as well as to gain some more match racing experience.

Day 2 - Windless Solent

It had been a while since we sailed together and that was certainly reflected in our results. Racing started in around 10 knots on Saturday and we were straight back in to it. Our teamwork and boat handling was a bit rusty during the first few races of the day.  We lost our first four matches of the day and we were beginning to think it would be a very long day. However we turned things around for the second half of the day.  We improved massively as the day went on and managed to find more and more boat speed in every race while our boat handling became a lot slicker too. We went on to win our remaining 5 races of the day.

Unfortunately that was all the racing completed at the Royal Southern Match Cup as day 2 saw the Solent completely windless for the whole day. We sat out on the race course until the early afternoon before the decision was made to abandon racing for the day.

The overall results were decided from Saturdays round robin results and we came away with 4th place. Although we only got to complete one day of racing we were still happy with our progress.

Our aim for the event was to get comfortable sailing asymmetric J80's and to get our boat handling down before we went to France. Match racing is ideal for improving boat handling due to the amount of maneuvers completed in a short space of time and by the end of Saturday we were pretty happy with out boat handling.

It was also really useful for me to get back into match racing before I headed to Germany for the Youth Europeans the following day.

The Team at the Royal Southern YC with HYC Burgee

Irish Match Racing National Championships

The format for the Irish Match Racing National Championships was changed in 2012. The title would now be decided through a challenge event. This meant that any team could challenge the current national champion for the title. Which is exactly what we did. The event was sailed in J80's in our home club of Howth. We took on the 2011 champions, Team Top Gun, in what was effectively a first to 3 points championship.

The weight limit just about allowed us to sail with a crew of 5.  We had the same team as from Nantes a few weeks earlier, with the addition of Graham, who helped out on the bow and in the cockpit. We had been sailing the boats quite a lot in the run up to the event, doing Wednesday night races and training at the weekends, so were were really happy with our boat handling and speed. 

 The racing took place in relatively flat water outside Howth Harbor, with about 15-18 knots of breeze. We started the series well, getting a penalty on Team Top Gun in the pre-start of race 1. They lead off the line, but they couldn't find enough room to shed their penalty before the finish. In race two we came from behind and gained the lead after a big luffing battle on the first downwind leg. We extend our lead around the course and took a comfortable win.

We just needed one more win to completes the series. But the third race started badly for us. We got a penalty in the pre-start for a port-starboard infringement. The two boats split off the start line. We headed out to the left hand side of the course and managed to gain enough of a lead to fit in a penalty turn on the port lay line. We crossed ahead and lead around the top mark. From there we managed to hang on to the lead and took the win in race 3, making us the new Irish Match Racing National Champions!

We all had high expectations coming in the event so there was a great sense of relief when we crossed the finish line in race 3. We were also delighted to have won the title.

We look forward to defending the title in the future.

Nantes University Cup 2013

The University of Nantes hold their annual match racing regatta every April. Having finished 5th at the event in 2012 myself and Ryan Scott were determined to go back and try to better our result the second time. Ryan was driving and I was trimming main and kite. We welcomed two new members to the team, Luke on Bow and Sam trimming the jib and pulling strings in the middle. I have done a lot of sailing with these guys on various boats in the past so it was exciting for us to join together as a team. 

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 4^th 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 3^rd 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 5^th 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.