battling infection

It hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for us. The flu/cold/whatever virus that’s been going around among teammates, classmates, and others, has hit. Siobhan is now fighting off mild bronchitis, while I have a yet-to-be-diagnosed sore throat.

Particularly bad timing considering we have a fitness test on Saturday (I guess we can forget about that!) and the containers for the Asian Sailing Championship in Shanwei need to be packed and shipped off next week (meaning all boat work must be done before the Chinese New Year holidays on Sunday!)

Let’s hope the next couple of days will be good to us and we’ll be able to throw off the germs!

racing again!

We still haven’t got into the 470 this year. It should happen this week, though – our centreboard and rudder are ready to go at last!

This weekend we dropped into the 420 for a go at their local regatta (14 boats; that’s about the most crowded start line we can get for double-handeds in Singapore!) Very shifty conditions. It was northeasterly offshore which meant bullet gusts coming randomly from either side of the mark. Tricky!

Anyway, we won our first 420 regatta after … 5 years? Not without plenty of laughs, mishaps, and awkwardness around the boat, though!

The results are here, and photos by Shu Fen of everyone here.

Fun on the 29er

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything. Think of it as a Christmas break.

We are back in Singapore and school has started up again. Back to the schedule-based style of training … except there’s been a bit of a hiccup with our equipment, so we haven’t been able to get our 470 out.

Instead, we’ve been having a bit of fun (and cross-training) on the 29er!

Capsized once per session – both times near Peiming on his coach boat. Conclusion: he’s been jinxing us.

the medal race write-up

It’s good to be in a place with stable (and free) Internet! I’m currently holidaying with my parents in Adelaide, while Siobhan is still in Melbourne with her sister.

Anyway, now that I can upload pictures, we have a pictorial story of our medal race, courtesy of Siobhan’s sister Shanna, to tell.

The medal race is worth double points and it’s non-discardable. We went into it third, with number 4 trailing us by 5 points. So doing the math, we only needed to keep within 2 boats of number 4 to keep our place.

Well, we got off to a good start and were heading out with four boats to the left. We rounded all right, in 3rd or 4th position (I don’t remember exactly, as all the boats were quite close at that stage) but the next loop didn’t go quite so well, and by the last bit down, we were sixth.

And the other boat was third. There was one boat too many between us and it wasn’t looking good as the two boats were 100m or so ahead of us.

This sequence below is what happened during the last quarter of the final downwind before the final reach to finish. (We are the red and white spinnaker.)

And so, all I can say is – never, ever, ever give up. The race isn’t over until it’s over.

Medal race day

Quick update before our medal race. First time racing in one! Pretty overcast today and it’s cold.

The past few days we had all sorts of conditions from strong to very light. From cold to very hot. There was one day, it was 15 knots and 40 deg, and I only wore a lycra and it was still warm. Yesterday it was 5 knots and I was freezing in a lycra and spray top. Melbourne.. .. ..

We’re packing up our boats and loading up the trailers after racing today. The most.. unenjoyable part of sailing. Haha. We’re all getting better at it. One time in Kiel, 2004 I think, (and Mark won’t ever let us forget it), the 420s took 6 hours to pack up.

Anyway, for those who don’t know what the medal race is about, here’s a quick intro. The top 10 in each fleet gets to take part in the medal race, the final race of the series. The interesting thing is, the scores are doubled. For example, 1st place gets 2 points, 2nd place gets 4 points and so on. So, even if the leader has like a 6-7 point lead, they’re not exactly that safe (unless you’re Matt Belcher and you’re probably going to win the medal race anyway). So, it’s gonna be pretty exciting. Wish us luck!

hello world, we’re 500km down south

Well, we’ve arrived in cold, windy Melbourne (all right, I suppose it’s due to heat up soon, but it was certainly cold, wet and windy on the day we rigged up!

There is limited Internet connection here – not because of the signal or anything but because we have to pay per MB of info transferred, so it’s wisest to keep it just for checking the forecast.

(And, of course, a tiny update here.

So, Sail Melbourne starts tomorrow. Wish us luck!

One day more

A big THANK YOU to Phil, who woke up early in the morning to weld the crack in our aluminum rudder box. I hope he likes beer. Couldn’t think of anything else to get him.

So, our rudder was fixed this morning and we were ready to race again. Sometimes I feel so lucky to know/meet people who are so helpful. The rudder definitely feels in place and steady today, which is one less worry.

First thing Colin said when he saw this photo was: “Wah, she has huge muscular thighs..”

1) (I believe) If I wasn’t sailing, they won’t be that huge!!!!
2) I was wearing a spray top and wetsuit so I look huger than I really am. (Yeah right)
3) My thighs are the only place where I seem to be able to put weight on. And considering I need like 7-8kgs more, I’m glad they’re huge.

Tmr is the last day of Sail Sydney. Hope we can put together some good races and end our regatta well. For now, we’ll drink lots and rest. Long day tomorrow because we have to pack our boats onto the trailers as well.

hard day out there

Two posts ago I wondered how it must have felt like to be sailing along and have the rudder suddenly break. Sara says I should now wonder what it feels like to win. Because today, our rudder box started to come apart in the middle of the race!

I do actually know what it’s like to have the whole rudder gudgeon break off – it happened once before in Singapore – so when I felt the rudder shaking this time, I knew something was definitely up. We had to take the spin down and fix it all the way downwind race and then work to catch up as much as we could in the following laps.

So, our coach pretty much summed it up: tough day, but we have to put ourselves and the boat back together for tomorrow.

a very crowded race course

We started racing today. Let me tell you, racing in Sail Sydney (I still keep calling it SIRS first off) is an experience like no other.

Not for the reason you’d imagine, though.

You know how in Singapore, let’s say if the Optimist are having a race and we 470s poke our nose anywhere remotely near the course, a powerboat will come to chase us away?

Well, all bets are off here – we’re racing off Rushcutters Bay where many keelboats moor and they all come out sailing on Saturday – right through our race course. And we have to avoid them as we race. So it’s like an obstacle course going up and down.

This is probably the first time where I’ve had to call a tack based on positioning ourselves better with respect to a boat that isn’t racing.

Tomorrow will be a nor’easterly, which means we’re likely to have our course run straight through the shipping channel. Which means time to play Siam The Ferry again … while racing this time. Fun times, eh?

Results for the first day of racing can be found here. Singapore is fielding 4 470s, 4 420s, 3 Laser Radials, a Laser Full Rig, and an RSX.

capsize central

The last two days have been Strong Wind Days. (Yes, with the capitals.) We capsized four times – two for each days. Yesterday was our longest day yet. And probably the coldest day so far with a high of 20 degrees. Brrrr!

The team has quite a number of repairs to carry out today. Yesterday Jov and Sara’s rudder broke into two pieces! I’ve never seen that before. I can only imagine how it must have been – sailing along in 20 knots, and suddenly the rudder starts to fall off. Freaky!

So now our house has become a bakery + repair shop at night – with the nightly bake going on in the kitchen and the gel-coat work happening just outside in the yard.

At least the food’s good! So far we’ve baked a quiche, chocolate chip cookies, pound cake, scones, and banana bread. We’re certainly becoming very domestic, even (or should I say especially) the boys. Yesterday Sara, Siobhan, and I went to deliver cake to Roy and we left the boys in charge of cooking. Dinner turned out well and no one has suffered diarrhea yet.