Issue date
I’ve spent the past three weeks in what has become a very familiar town and sailing venue to me over the past five years of my Olympic Laser sailing campaign. Located on the beautiful South coast of France, Hyeres has become like a second home to me while in Europe having staged an ISAF Sailing World Cup event there ever since I began racing the Laser competitively on the international stage. Upon arriving, memories always start flashing through my mind as I drive past all of the towering palm trees lining the road, before passing through the final roundabout, seeing my ‘regular’, the best patisserie in town and then into the local port where the majority of my time is spent for the duration of my stay. Having some great memories from previous World Cup events in Hyeres, including my first ever ISAF Sailing World Cup event medal in 2012, it is always a welcoming venue that I look forward to returning to.
Everything is always almost exactly the same in Hyeres year after year. The town hasn’t changed much at all, we train and race out of the same part of the port, and each year I’ve stayed in various apartments all within a kilometer of one another. Everything is very centralized and familiar making it an easy venue to settle into quickly and get on with what I’m there to do, sail! This year though, there was one difference, a bit of an unknown for the entire fleet of Olympic sailing competitors, and that was a new ISAF Sailing World Cup event format beginning for the first time at Hyeres 2015. This year, and from now on at ISAF Sailing World Cup events only the top 40 boats of each Olympic sailing discipline qualify to compete. We still sail the same course, with the same rules, but now from day one it is one fleet (no qualifying races over the first two days) meaning you are racing among all the best from the start of race one. There is no warm up that is for sure, and every good decision or mistake made is clearly highlighted in the amazingly tight, intense racing that ensued from that first start gun. An exciting change in my eyes! Straight into what used to be known as “Gold Fleet” racing which is the most intense part of any regatta where the crème rises to the top. That’s what we were in for this week, and you could tell that there was a different intensity in the boat park along with a sense of national pride among the competitors that qualified just to be competing in Hyeres against the world’s best.
My pre-event build up went well with everything being ticked off prior to the first day or racing. Speed work, basics, and then practice racing with top foreigners was all included in the week of training. My boat was prepped and I was fit and healthy, raring to go come that first day of racing!
The first day of racing was a light breeze from the S/SW. It’s very easy to get caught out in these conditions where Laser racing is super close with no real speed edges to be had, especially among the top 40. I had a solid day to open up the series, with a 12th and a 9th and be 6th overall after day one. The mixed results from everyone on that first day portrayed what we all expected; it was going to be an intense week with consistency hard to come by.
Over the next couple days I managed to stay relatively consistent and remain in the mix near the front of the fleet going into the penultimate day of racing. I was focused as ever on that final day of fleet racing, ahead of the medal races on the final day. Unfortunately it didn’t go to plan that day though, as I struggled to predict which side of the racecourse was going to pay off and missed a few key opportunities to catch up throughout the races. I had my highest scoring day and dropped to 8th overall ahead of the final day top 10-boat medal race.
As a result of falling too far behind to contend for a medal, I was taking the medal race as a learning opportunity. We were greeted with the best conditions of the week on Sunday morning ahead of the medal races. A nice 15-17 knot onshore breeze held in throughout most of the day for all of the classes to get some awesome sailing conditions for the final race of the event. I was looking out at the conditions from my apartment balcony pre-race, and couldn’t help but smile because I knew it would be a fun race no matter what. Even better was that the medal races were being streamed live on Youtube and ESPN for the first time, and the 15 knot onshore conditions were going to show our sport in a much more ‘exciting’ light than if it had been a mellow 5-10 knot offshore breeze!
I chose to start mid-line in the medal race, and everyone was pretty much nailed the start, not giving away an inch from the gun. The exception was a Dutch sailor who was over early, without knowing and actually rolled over the top of me after about a minute or so. This dictated the lower half of my first upwind and a couple unnecessary decisions early in the race had to be made. I rounded the top mark towards the tail end of the fleet but it was still so close and all to play for. The first downwind was were my opportunity to get back towards the front passed me by, with the pressure filling down the outside of the run and my decision to dive low around the top mark was far from ideal to make the most of that. Even then I was still in the mix for a mid fleet finish but couldn’t quite get it done and sailed through the line at the back of the fleet after a very physical, tight 25 minutes of racing. Lessons will be learned from that race though and it’s always good to get another one under the belt. Here’s the link to six hours of live medal race coverage and the Laser’s start at roughly 3:34 into it.
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Finishing up the event in 9th overall after sailing a solid first three days was a little disappointing, but there are many good things I am taking out of the event. Such a high quality event always highlights your areas you need to improve on as well, and making sure my coach and I can capture those to work on over the next four weeks is really important in the debrief process. Being back in NZ will be the perfect way to refresh, do some solid training both in the gym and on the water working on certain areas before heading back to Europe in four weeks time for the next ISAF Sailing World Cup event in Weymouth!
On a side note; the latest ISAF World Rankings were released the day after Hyeres wrapped up, and I moved up to World #3 after another solid result. Besides being safely inside that top 30 who get automatic qualification to the World Cup events now, the World Ranking doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. It doesn’t mean much come race day, but it does reflect my consistency at big events over the past 12 months, which is cool.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support! Keep your eyes out for another update after the Weymouth World Cup wraps up mid-June.
Cheers!
Andy
