2.4mR in Miami
Written by Helena Lucas | 02 February 2011
It’s always nice to be back in Miami for some warm winter training and the OCR. I had a couple of regattas before hand to use as a warm up and also to check out some new sails I was planning to use.
I got second in the Caviglia regatta, and was showing good speed in the light conditions, always a nice confidence builder in the lead up to OCR.
As a class we always fight for the OCR to be an open regatta, and not just restricted to the Paralympic sailors. This way we ensure a good turn out and a high level of competition, unlike the SKUD and SONAR which is restricted to disabled sailors only.
This year we had 30 boats of which probably half were able bodied. My main goal for the regatta was to test the new sails we had developed but I was also hoping for a good result, based on the speed I had in the light and Miami being a notorious light wind venue.
Unfortunately things did not quite go to plan.
Firstly it was probably the windiest Miami I have done, the usual 6-8 knot breeze replaced with a shifty 15 knots, and a bit of gear failure on day one meant my regatta did not get off to a great start.
Sailing out to the start for the first race I was admiring how nice my new sails looked when there was a loud bang and the whole rig went slack. I quickly realised the vectran strop which formed part of my rig tension system had snapped, leaving me with no shroud tension and the risk of breaking the mast. With a couple of spare bits of rope I managed to get some tension in the rig to save the mast and set about trying to tie the two loose ends back together.
Rob (my coach), came to my rescue and we finished the job just before the 5 min gun went. The only problem was I had way more tension on one side than the other, which meant on one tack I was high and slow and the other tack had no height at all!
However there was no way I was going to start the regatta with a couple of DNS!
I managed a 14th in the first and a 7th in the second. That evening we replaced the system and I did a thorough check of the boat. I had opted to ship my old boat to the States, wanting to use my new boat in Palma for training and the European regattas.
At 7 years old she was starting to show her age and making some unnerving creaks and bangs in the waves!
I had a rather average second day, not helped by doing turns in the second race.
The 3rd day we did not race as the race committee got overly concerned by some possible fronts that might pass through.
Finally day 4 and I had the conditions I had been waiting for and posted a 2nd and a 1st in the light winds, winning the second race by a considerable margin.
I was hoping for a third race, but we did not get it. I had moved up to 6th overall, unfortunately the medal places were realistically out of reach, but I had a chance to move up to 4th especially if we had light conditions again. However no such luck, the 15 knot shifty conditions were back.
I never really found my rhythm and was a little down on speed and ended up dropping to 7th overall. Although disappointed in the result and frustrated at the first day, the purpose of the regatta was to test the sails. I have great down wind speed in all conditions and have my competitors seriously worried in the light winds, we just need to do some tweaks in the 10 -15 knot range.
I now have a week to catch up with Steve in Turkey before going out to Palma for a training camp where we will be doing some more testing and speed work to find that little edge in the medium conditions.
Helena