| WINTER 2005 < back > FEBBRUARY 7, 2006: Sail Auckland finished yesterday after a long day of waiting on shore for the wind to fill in. The wind never did come, so the regatta finished up with 9 races sailed over 3 days. There were 8 girls competing in the RS:X class. On the first day of racing we were postponed on shore until 3:30pm due to lack of wind. Luckily the wind did start to fill in and got up to about 15-18knots, my kind of conditions! I won all 3 races. Once on shore, I was greeted by a lady explaining to me that I was selected for a drug test. I had to do the urine test twice as I was too hydrated....which is normally a good thing but obviously not when they drug test you. I was finally able to go home and eat dinner at 9pm. Day 2 saw very light wind....very very light wind. And well, I know that isn't my forte yet especially in under 4 knots....I finished 5th and 6th. Day 3 was windy again, this time a lot more...ranging from 22-25 knots gusting to 30 at times. Sailing directly in the harbour with huge tidal changes made the waves challenging. 4 races were sailed today, I won all of them!!! We sailed trapezoid courses and on the first reach I was hit by a huge gust and just got catapulted/slammed so hard. Let's just say that reaching in puffs of 30 knots is pretty hairy. When it was all said and done, I won the regatta! I won 7 of the 9 races, giving me a 12 point lead over Hayley Thom from New Zealand and Moana Delle from Germany on equal points in second and third. Yippee! Click here for full race results. FEBRUARY 1, 2006: The Miami Olympic Classes Regatta is finally over, we had 10 races total. It was my second regatta sailed on the RSX windsurfer, the first one being the Raceboard Worlds in Spain early October. Since my switch to the new Olympic windsurfing discipline, I've learned heaps and made massive improvements. I finished 7th of 20 girls here at the regatta. You can view the official results here. The top 5 that were here are all super high calibre windsurfers, including the top 3 RSX's at the 2005 Raceboard Worlds...so needless to say, the top of the fleet was a bit stacked. Luckily, I was able to train with those girls before the regatta a bit and was even mixing it up with them on the race course. My best results were a couple of 4ths, but the highlight of the regatta was rounding 1st and holding my position for a bit. Six of the races were sailed in light to medium wind, which for me is the hardest, both because I am bigger than the other girls and because I am still learning the pumping technique which the other girls already know from the previous Olympic board. In the windy races I was right up there with the best. I just have to keep refining my technique and hopefully soon enough I'll be right in there even when it's light air. Many of my mistakes are just experience related and I am confident that once I get more comfortable on the board and race some more, my results will improve. Sail Auckland is my next regatta from February 2nd to 6th. Keep tuned! Squad training has finished for the holidays but will resume in January. This will give me some time on my own to try to iron out some of these techniques, just in time for the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta, our National Team qualifier at the end of January. Happy Holidays! |