Bermuda Jr. Gold Cup 1

From Auckland to LA on NZ2 12 hours then 7 hours waiting in the US Airways lounge for their 5hr flight to Philadelphia, arriving 6am local time then 4 hours waiting for the 2 hr connection to Bermuda sooo that's 30hrs travelling! It was good to get here in the end. Bit reminiscent for me as I have been here 3 times before in 88, 92 and 93 for the Bermuda Gold Cup when I was with Nippon Challenge.

All this years competitors are new for me except my old friends Yaji san and Peter Gilmour. I have known Yaji san since he was 19 with no sailing experience joining The Nippon Challenge. He now tells me he is 45!!! How time flies!

The last 10 years odd, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club have been running the Jr. Gold Cup in Conjunction with the main event. They invite the top sailor from countries around the world to come and race against the top Bermuda skippers. info here:

Jr Gold Cup

By today most of the jr skippers had arrived and were getting their boats sorted. Some got out for some practice in the morning when there was a light breeze while the big boys started the elimination round robins for the main event. Unfortunately the breeze died and only one set of races could be held. 

Some pictures from today:

 Cruise ships regularly come and go through the narrow Hamilton harbour stopping the racing.

 Local Insurance company Argo is the title sponsor of this major World Match Race Tour event.

 The sailing is done from the marina pontoons. No trolleys here.

 The big boys boats are 8 IOD (International One Design) yachts made of fiberglass. For information on these boats go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_One_Design  They are great boats for match racing and have been used for ages! They are the same as what I sailed back in 88!

 The Opti racks in front of the RBYC

 The opti launching pad with some boys burning off excess energy with a swim off the marina. Can't keep them out even though coach Tom (who is from Wales and knows our Pwllheli coaches by the way!) told them that there are barracuda in the harbour!

A group of International skippers chill while waiting for some wind.

Watch this space....

Last night we had dinner with Keiju Okada who goes to high school here in Karatsu. Last years Worlds team members will remember him as the 60kg "beast" (Len's description) that was 3rd in Langkawi and this years 4.7 Worlds team will also know him because he came 4th there. An interesting, well mannered and dedicated sailor to say the least.

Keiju sails here almost every day of the week and so was kind enough to give the boys a few pointers on the wind patterns around the bay. He actually comes from a different area of Kyushu but because there is a high school here that has a very strong sailing team, he has moved here by himself to go to that school. The students involved in the sailing program don't have much time for study by the sounds of it though!

Today we managed to hook up with a group of 3 from Enoshima including Yuka Kishi the girl in the Worlds team for Napier. We set up a windward leward course and did a few short races. The breeze has been offshore yesterday and today so it is very puffy and shifty ranging from sitting in the boat to full power/hike.

We had a huge rain squall come through the first race and the wind shifted right about 40deg. After the squall it settled back into the left right puff and 30 deg shifts coming off the land. A bit like the North Shore beaches in a south westerly only worse.

Len heads for the shower in the Opti supervan. Actually that's about the only thing this van doesn't have!

Had some good practice on the race course with these 3 sailors from Enoshima (tokyo olympics sailing venue) up near Tokyo.The lad in blue is their coach Wataru Komiya and did the Opti worlds in Dan W's era. The girl in black is Yuka Kishi and she is in the Worlds team for Napier

Len gets some direction from the locals during his efforts to take out the Castle

Things start to spin up tomorrow. It is measurement day and they are really serious about it here. Each club has an allotted time during the day and the Hikari team are late afternoon. The big problem now is how soon we will have to come in from practice to allow enough time for the hiking straps to dry out! If your straps aren't dry they won't measure you (weigh the boat). I am now checking the rules.....

Second to last leg

Google map of Karatsu

In Karatsu City now after a 4 hour drive down from Hikari City in the Koizumi family opti wagon. This is the best opti car I have seen yet. It is a special long wheel base hi roof Toyota something or other. It has a shelf for sleeping or carrying 2 optis in the back and racks inside the roof for spars and sails and yet it is still long enough to have the backseat set up as normal and of course it has a tow bar to tow one of the club VSR's

Now being on Kyushu Island,  it meant we had to drive over the spectacular Kanmon suspension bridge which spans the narrow ish gap between Honshu and Kyushu.

Google map of Kanmon kyo bridge

The big attraction in Karatsu is the Castle which dominates the skyline here standing high and proud on a hill . Look for it in the background in future photos!

After arriving at the Karatsu Yacht Harbour we launched the VSR, pulled the optis out of the van and got the boys out on the race course area for a bit of a sail.

And you thought Texas was hot!

Been here in Japan a week now and I don't think it has been under 35C once. All of us have spent a lot of time trying to find a cool place to catch up on the time zones with an mid day siesta.

Love the VSR's. wonder if they would notice if one was missing.....

Leonard's first day sailing in Japan since a year ago here in Hikari City, Yamaguchi Prefecture after a 10 hr 790km drive from near Tokyo. This is where the Japan Nats were last year and we are being looked after again by the Koizumi family here. We met their middle son, Ibuki, last year at the UK Nats. Ibuki was in the Japan National team at Langkawi.  He just missed out on a trip to Napier and will age out of optis but his 11 yo brother Gaiyo is the up and come sailor here now. The plan is 2 days practice here then move another 4 hours drive west with the Hikari Club team to this years venue at Karatsu, Saga Pref.  on Kyushu Island. The Hikari Club has been kind and lent us an oldish Winner but we found today that the mast collar area had some hidden damage and the collar was floating around in an enlarged hole. So a little bit of repair work is on the programme for tomorrow before we move to Karatsu the next day.
I took the attached 2 pics with the iPhone. One from the top of the mast collar and one from underneath. Now I know the meaning of FaceTime on the Iphone!

Final Day UK Nats

Hi All.
Sitting in an internet cafe in Tokyo as I write this, the final blog. We have just said goodbye to Rob, Kazyuo and Leonard as they continue on with their journey catching up with friends and family in Japan and then onto the Japanese Nationals while we head for home, we have a 10 hour stopover here before flying out to Auckland. I am pretty sure I speak for all us when I say we are looking forward to getting home.

Everything was quite rushed at the end of Racing on Day 4, unlike most regattas that finish earlier on the last day the last warning signal was not until 3.45pm which they went right up to, with the prizegiving at 7pm. Our drama was we had to leave by 8.30pm that night to drive to Heathrow (6 hours) to catch our plane to Frankfurt then Tokyo. As soons as racing was finished we had to return the charter boats, race back to the apartment pack the cars, throw sailing gear in the dryer and get back to prizegiving, we didn't end up leaving until 8.45pm so quite a quick trip with Mark leading the charge and Rob right up his tail. So unfortunately there has been no time to blog until now, fortunately the facebook updates have been real time and taken some of the pressure off.

Well our boys have made us all so proud, all finishing in the top 5. We have been inundated with messages of congratulations from you all so from everyone here thank you so much.

Final results were Leonard 1st, Markus 3rd, and Isaac 5th.

For the previous days sailing we had seen a typical sea breeze come in and blow from the South West, Race Day 4 was somewhat different we had a shifty flukey offshore breeze, varying from 3 knots to 10 knots during the day. During the guys speed tests before racing they were noticing massive changes in wind direction and this remained constant for the day making it difficult to return consistent results.

Three races were sailed for the day, which gave a total of 12 sailed all together.

Clink on the link to see overall results. www.kbsuk.com/data/optimistiocaevents/data/results/2011natsengoldnh.html

I think the trip has been a great success, the boys have experienced some great highs and some lows along the way to go with them, they have dealt with both situations really well. They have experienced sailing under pressure with the need to perform to maintain and hopefully improve their position and had lots of starting practice. They have learnt heaps and hopefully they will be able to take this learning with them through to the Worlds at the end of the year.
Well time to sign off, thank you all for taking the time to follow the boys and we wish Leonard well in Japan.

A few snapshots from the last day.

The boys about to leave the beach for the last time.

The boys off doing some fine tuning between races, Markus on helm, Max on mainsheet and Leonard the tactician, oh and I nearly forgot the big boy (Rob) hot on their heels.

The boys with their well earned hardware, also Bleddyn (coach) and Max (Honarary Kiwi from Dominican Republic)

UK Nats - Day 4

Another night of rain but we have woken up to a slighty overcast day but the forecast is for the day to clear and provide a bit of breeze.

On the water today at 10.30am with some better pressure around 12-15knots, a lot of cloud cover which would hang around most of the day and provide 3 good races in some reasonable breeze.

All the boys are now in the gold fleet so it made it much easier to follow them in the same flight. Mark is doing a great job of putting up to the minute positions at mark roundings on facebook for those of you staying up late to keep updated. The facebook page is optiworldsnz 2011 nzl team for those of you wanting to have a look, some extra photos to llok at as well

The results from today

Race 1
Leonard 1st Isaac 5th Markus 32nd

Race 2
Leonard 3rd Isaac 6th Markus 8th

Race 3

Leonard 1st Markus 4th Isaac 9th

Overall

Leonard 1st Markus 2nd Isaac 5th

All good, now all the boys in the top 5 with 2 races scheduled for tomorrow.

Check out the full results at: www.kbsuk.com/data/optimistiocaevents/data/results/2011natsengoldnh.html


At the end of tomorrow we are bags packed and gone by 8pm for our 7 hour driver to Heathrow to jump on the plane and head home, Rob Kazyuo and Len jumping ship at Japan so Len can smoke them all at the Japanese Nationals.

The laughs from today.

Today we were doing the old throw the bottle in the water and measure the tide trick. All good, Rob was up the front so his job was to retrieve the bottle. Anyway we come up to the bottle Rob reaches in to grab the bottle and showing commitment reached in a litlle further to get the bottle, oops to far and there he is hanging over the side head buried in the water bum pointing upwards, we had to jump forward and pull him back into the boat, and we all thought Leonard was the only one who could fall out of the boat on the reach, we were wrong, it must run in the family..

Then there was Isaac ready to start race 2, off goes the gun and off he goes got nailed and a pretty deep start, one of the English girls was in front of him wearing Markus's orange beanie, off it flies into the water, so what does Isaac do, he tacks grabs the beanie and continues to sail out left, must be a lucky hat Isaac finished 4th in this race. Definetly not standard practice and I am sure Mum will be horrified reading this!!!

UK Nats - Day 3

Hi All, once again I have to start with an apology this post should have been up yesterday but the internet at the apartment is diabolical, the only good thing about this is that I am now sitting at our local 'The Crown' I made the mistake of wearing my Chiefs Rugby top so it has taken a while to get past all the local welsh boys.

The weather has been amazing even the locals can't believe the amount of sunshine we have had, a little bit more wind would be nice though. Today we had around 8 knots of breeze which died off early afternoon. This was enough breeze to allow us to get 2 races in and complete the qualifying series.

The results from today were:

Race 1

Leonard 1st Markus 2nd Isaac 4th

Race 2

Markus 2nd Isaac 6th Leonard 8th

Overall
Markus 1st Leonard 2nd Isaac 7th

Hows that 1st and 2nd overall go the Kiwis and all three in the top 10. The S.H.I.T.S on tour are doing the damage, lets hope they can keep it up. With the early finish the kids were keen to go to the movies so an early dinner and off to see the final of the Harry Potter series, big kids included. By the way Markus has changed his name to 'Rock' short for rockstar, at the end of the second race today he was approached by a rib full of people with cameras and microphones wanting to interview him, the interview will be on BBC Wales 6.30pm today, I am sure there will be an online way of watching this somehow.

A few photos from the day.

The boys standing outside someones front door, either we breed em big at home or this town was colonised by very short people.

Who said only the little kids could wear beanies!!

Rob chilling out between races.

UK Nats Day 2

Day 2 started with the sound of rain falling on the roof, in fact it had been raining most of the night, the forecast predicted around 2 knots for the day so it wasn't looking too pleasant all round.
We met at the club in the morning and met Bleddyn (Defrigs brother) the boys coach for the rest of the regatta a local kid who has just returned from the Youth World 49ers in which he came 7th so will be helpful with local conditions etc. By about 9am you could see the sky clearing and things looking a little more promising, the latest forecast was now for a bit of breeze in the morning dying off early afternoon. The race committee was onto this and sent the kids out a little earlier, so by 10am we were on the water with about 5knots of breeze which we were very surprised and pleased about. The sun was even trying to break through. Mark and I were hassling Rob for putting on sunscreen, something we would later regret as we now both look like beetroots. By the time of the first race the breeze had picked up to around 8 knots and all was looking good. The fleet is separated into Junior and Senior fleet with the Junior staring first, the PRO started today's racing for all fleets under a black flag, this didn't stop several general recalls fortunately none of our guys were affected, whew!! The breeze remained reasonably consisted all day but was full of pressure spots so you definitely had to sail with your head out of the boat.Three races were sailed for the day which now gives a total of four overall, hopefully tomorrow we can get in two more which will constitute the qualifying series, from this they will be split into gold and silver fleet for the rest of the regatta, hopefully all our guys will be in gold making it easier to watch them all in the same flight. Some great results from the day with a few bullets and one not so good race for some with a potential drop. The wally of the day has to go to Leonard today, the kids were sailing an orange bowl course, which is top mark, wing mark, gate, reach mark, finish. Last year at the UK Nationals Leonard was pinged by the measuring boat after finishing a race for his sail ties being to loose and didn't want the same again this year, so as he rounded the reach mark with a small lead he thought he would stand up on his gunwale and check his sail to make sure it was not out side of the power band marks, great idea but oops I don't think falling out of the boat into the water was part of the game plan, so a quick scurry back into the boat and across the line in first saved the day, and yes his line was in the bands, luckily for Robs heart rate we missed the event but couldn't understand why Leonard was wet through when he came to the coach boat, we couldn't believe the story when Leonard told us, well done Leonard I think it will be hard for anyone to better that one..

The results:

Race 1
Leonard 12 Markus 1st Isaac 8th

Race 2

Leonard 1st Markus 4th Isaac 5th

Race 3

Leonard 8th Markus 2nd Isaac 8th

Race 4

Leonard 1st Markus 19th Isaac 47th.

I will put up a link to the results but www.optimistsailing.org.uk will see you in the right direction.

Got to get out on the water so more detail and photos hopefully next time.

UK Nats 1st day

The weather forecast was for light winds and light they were, from a max of about 5knots at the start of the racing gradually dropping to nothing at the end of the second senior flight with the fleet drifting over the shortened course line at the gate.

There was quite a committee boat bias on the line for the early starts and recall after recall to the extent that both senior fleets had 2 black flag starts. Markus and Isaac went for what I call the "late committee boat" start by going in late and popping out from the committee boat  and going right. The right was favoured and Markus pulled out a good lead by working it. Isaac didn't push quite as far right and went around the top mark in 9th. Markus held his lead in the dying breeze and won by a good margin. Isaac picked up a place to finish 8th.

Leonard made his start about 1/3 up from the pin in a good gap with clear air and was soon able to cross most of the fleet over to the right hand side. He didn't go as far right as the race winner Freddie and was 6th at the wing mark when we saw him next. The run got lighter and lighter and he was over run by a bunch before getting to the gate and ended up 12th.

The PRO announced that he would wait until 3:30 and re-evaluate. No wind was in sight and they pulled the pin. So, only one race down.

Mark has put some pics on the Facebook page.

Lost in CyberSpace

While waiting with Scott on the beach for the boys to return, (and before we "lost" him) we spotted this very small boy pulling his boat up the beach with his Mum and another even smaller boy in the boat getting a ride. Mum stopped a little bit in front of us and told the little sailor to wait there while she went back and got "Johnny". Off she goes again way down the beach and little "Sammy" is left there looking after his "Opie" (as they call them here) and even littler "Joey". So we say wow he's a small sailor and ask him how old he is. "Six" comes the reply. WOW we thought and proceeded to have the age old debate about how young is too young to start them. I started when I was 5 or 6 because my older brother was sailing a P class. I had my ups and downs but went on to sailing as part of a career. I personally think we should encourage those that want to start their kids early to do so if they think that is good for them.

Anyway, Mum returns with the next sibling and "Opie" in tow and then starts getting them all up the beach. Scotty asks the 6 yo if he had had a good sail and if he is going out again tomorrow and gets a really positive "yes" in return!

The UK Nationals this year have some 440 participants. In addition to the Senior and Junior racing fleets (which are also split into Gold and Silver fleets after 6 races) there are 3 levels of what they call "regatta" fleet. The racing fleet, equivalent to our Green fleet, then a coached  race fleet and a sort of "learn to sail" fleet. I guess the octopus is a group of the the LTS. ie lots of progressive levels for encouragement through chances of success. Must be a few future Olympians here.

As reported by Scott, (how he knew that from his position on the beach I'm not quite sure) Leonard got called over the loud speaker system to report to the race office. We headed over there wondering what he had done wrong but it turned out they wanted him to make the "Sportsmans Oath" (or whatever you call it) on behalf of the International competitors at the opening ceremony. He accepted and here are a couple of iphone zoom pictures (quality not good when you zoom)

Practice Race

Hi to all you dedicated followers, everyone starting to get back into regatta mode (parents included) with the practice race today. Spent the morning chilling a little and rechecking and setting up the boats, we caught up with our Honorary Kiwi friend Max and his family today also. The forecast was overcast with 12-15knots gusting 22knots which sounded promising, but never eventuated and maxed out at around 10knots . The kids were out on the water at 1pm with a 1.55pm warning signal, one of the interesting things about launching was that the kids were advised to wear something on their feet before they went into the water as there was weaver fish (I think that was what they called them) that lay on the sand and if you stood on them they would sting you. The race finally got underway at around 3 pm after several general recalls and postponements. The rain came in and changed the wind direction causing the race committee to change the course no sooner was this completed it stopped raining and the breeze swung back causing another postponement, hopefully this is not a sample of what we are going to see for the week. The Windguru forecast is showing it will be quite a light regatta with a couple of days at 2-4knots and picking up a little towards the end but nothing above 8knots, time will tell though. As I have found out practice races are something that is not taken to seriously, it is as much about the race committee making sure they are ready and the same for the competitors, most competitors seem to take the start seriously go to the top mark and from then on tend to pull out, some say it is not wanting to show everyone else to early who is good, others say it is bad luck to finish the race let alone winning it. Our guys did the top mark wing mark and pulled out at the bottom mark, Isaac and Markus were in one flight and Leonard in the other. All three of them were in the top 10 before pulling out which they were all happy about. There is about 150 boats entered in the senior fleet from 12 different countries so quite an international flavour. Leonard was asked to speak at the opening ceremony on behalf of the international sailors seeing as the NZ team had travelled the furthest. Racing starts tomorrow at 11am (10pm NZ), we have a rib so will be out on the water so keep an eye on facebook as I am sure Rob will be throwing live updates in there, for those of you who like your sleep I should have the blog up by around 9am NZ with a link to the results also. So back into it.

A few pics from today, Rob has a few more and will post them when we can get the internet to go for longer than 30 seconds.Getting ready to go out for practice race, you will notice the boys are wearing a few more layers than in previous regattas.

You will notice the small tent on the beach, no different from home in the summer! The difference is we use them to keep out of the sun, here they have them so they can jump in and stay warm!!

Ready for the opening ceremony.


I have put this down the bottom hoping no one will read it.

Every day that goes by seems to have a little drama in it and today was no exception, the only problem is I was involved in this one, so as I am writing about today I thought great no need to tell anyone, I have since been threatened with all sorts of punishment if I don't write something. Went something like this...

We were sitting in the yacht club today when we get a txt from the coach saying kids on way in. Great we start heading for the beach. Once we get there we see the junior fleet coming in and possibly one of the senior fleets behind them. Rob was in jandals and I was wearing shoes. As you would have seen by yesterdays photos the tide goes a long way out, so Rob volunteered to go down and see the kids coming in I would look after the jandals and help them up the hill once they got back. Rob set off and I headed up the beach a bit to the dry sand and sat down, I pulled out my phone and checked a few txts etc etc, maybe 5-10min went by while I was doing this. I then got up and walked back down to where I was previously. It got down to about 20 boats left to come in, about 3/4 hour has passed now, I thought to myself typical our guys are out there playing silly buggers and will be the last in. I then here a whistle, I thought that sounds a lot like Robs whistle so I turned around and sure enough there he was standing up the beach, I went up to him and asked how did you get up there thinking he must have got a ride around in a rib or something. But no as it happens on his way down the beach to see the kids he was met by them coming up one of the first off the water, they got back up to where I was couldn't see me or the jandals

Robs first pics In Pwllheli

After quite a drive from London the last part was really nice. Green countryside and lots of old stone houses.

We had a leg stretch at this little town 30 mins prior to Pwllheli:

Why is it that boys have to explore anything and everything?

One way of attacting attention to your restaurant! Yuk!

We arrived at the UK Nationals venue at last!

Boy it's a long way out to the water at low tide!

The dinghy park. You tow your boat from here, through the sand dunes and down the beach.
Actually the venue is quite large and you can see the yacht club buildings and marquees in the background.

Measurement and registration was a breeze in the big tent....

  so the boys went for a sail in the afternoon with our local coach Dyfrig Mon
Dyfrig having a debrief after sailing today

 You can see the marquees and yacht club from our Pwllheli home....

 We can get wifi but it is in the apartment next door so you have to be resourceful to pick up a signal......

 Everything is built to last here.....

Bit different to Hamilton eh Dad....and no Scott hasn't taken to rolling his own smokes....I wonder what they were actually talking about......

The supermarket is just down the road so we laid in some supplies. Mark here checking on what Scott has bought for breakfast.

 We headed down the road for some dinner....

and the pub had a kids menu so....Hey Dad are we actually allowed in here?

Markus, Mark and Scott went for the ribs....

 Tonight they had a welcoming party for the International competitors..(bit more friendly than when we went to the Oz Nats)

The boys were chatting to Will and some guys they had met at the US Nats.....

 when the Irish girls discovered Isaac......

While Team USA had a briefing.....

In front of the real clubhouse!