Pasquale-Il Grande

On May 31, 2005 the sailing world lost a great competitor and supporter…Pasquale Landolfi, leader of the famous Brava, passed away in his home in Rome at the age of 76. Pasquale raced internationally and worked passionately in the upper levels of ISAF and the ORC since his first Brava in 1981. The Italian sailing community owes a great deal to Pasquale as he provided great opportunity for may sailors to reach their highest potential. He will be missed by many but as with all great leaders of men, we must look to his example as we go forward.

We should not feel sorry for Pasquale. He lived life at 110% in everything he did. There was no wasted moment. If he took something on, he gave it all he had or he did not get involved at all. There was no half way with Pasquale. This was consistent throughout his life, not just in sailing as we knew him, and it showed in his results.

In sailing he won four World Championships the Admirals Cup, Fastnet, and the Sardinia Cup to name a few. He won the Fastnet Race in 1981 with his 44

/by

Innovation in the sport

When we think of innovation in sailing we think of the winged keel Australia II used to win the America

/by

Orange Bowl

For those of us who worry about the future of US Olympic sailing, I happened across a great find during the week between Christmas and New Years. There is an event in Miami called the Orange Bowl and it is not the football game. It is a regatta for youth sailors under 18 and there were 664 competitors this year! This has to be the biggest regatta in the USA. The 664 kids were split up into: 293 Optimists, 43 Laser full rigs, 112 Laser Radials, 19 4.7 Lasers, and 95 420

/by

The Best of 2004

It is the end of the season. I am sitting here in my house in California realizing how lucky I am that the sun is shinning and it is about 65 degrees. It has been a year in which I sailed a lot of days but did not get the results I was looking for in general. So I am a little down on sailing right now. The ISAF conference is going on this week but I am not there, not terribly interested in that either. Paul Henderson is retiring after 10 years of dedicated service. The sport owes Paul a great debt of gratitude and I am sure that will be expressed through the various activities this week in Copenhagen. I wonder who is more relieved, Paul, Mary or ISAF. My editors gave me some subjects to write about but I found no interest in the usual

/by

Post Olympic’s

The Olympics in Athens was a fantastic experience. A once in a life time experience

/by

Preview of the 2004 Olympic’s

The Olympics will be over by the time you read this article, and that will be the big news. I am in Athens right now training for the month of July. I am treating this as my only chance to go to the games and I am really hoping to get a medal out of this effort. This will not be easy and in the Star Class I would say that, given the conditions here, any of the 17 teams can medal.

In looking back over the 18 months of fairly intense preparation, I am reasonably happy with the effort and results. On the sailing side, last summer we competed in the pre-Olympics in Athens and the ISAF Worlds in Cadiz. We got Silver in Athens and 8th at the Worlds. Decent results and a lot of time in the boat. In the fall we won the North American Championship in October then trained in Miami 2 weeks/month through February. I have put more time in the gym than I could afford to if I had a job. I have averaged two hours/day. No one who has a family and a job has that luxury. I have been fortunate to make it happen. In March we sailed the first few races of the Bacardi Cup and took a break for a week. Then we sailed the best regatta of our lives to win the trials.

So the lesson I take from that is the preparation and build up to a

/by

Star Olympic Trial

Following our US Olympic Trials win, Phil and I have been planning our program leading up to Athens this August. There are many aspects to this, logistics, accommodation in Athens, physical training, on the water training, coaching, developing and testing new equipment, to name a few. Further, each of us has family that will be joining us for some part of the journey so this needs to be planned to allow for maximum enjoyment and successful racing. Needless to say, going to the Olympics is a full time job.

The first sailing step for us was the World Championship in Italy, April 25-May2. Fortunately, the US Olympic Sailing organization planned to ship the boat of the winner of the US Trials to Italy. So the container was already ordered and we were able to meet a very tight shipping schedule after winning the trials on March 28th.

The boat arrived in Gaeta, Italy on April 20 the same day that Phil and coach Ed Adams arrived. The clearance went smoothly and they were able to get the boat assembled the next day. I arrived on the 22nd and we went sailing for four hours, some of that spent with Freddy Loof.

The first race day, April 25, brought a blustery North Easterly breeze into the Golfo de Gaeta. We started in about 18 knots but the wind quickly built to 25 and topped out at 28 knots. After a conservative

/by

US Olympic Trials – Final

The US Olympic Trials finally went my way. My crew Phil Trinter and I had one of those weeks where everything seems to go your way. We like to think we earned it through our preparation. He is how we went about it.

A year ago we won the Pre-Trials in Miami and won the right to go to Athens for the Pre Olympic Regatta. That is when it really hit me that I had a real chance to win the Olympic berth. The first thing I figured out was that I need to get heavier and stronger. I know how strong I was when I won the Star Worlds in 1988 so that was a good benchmark in the gym. The star Class currently has a weight rule that entices the skippers to be heavy. So I hired a trainer, Sam Brovender of Vancouver to devise a training regime specifically for me. Sam had me putting in 3 hours a day 5 days a week on physical training. I realize that not many people can afford to dedicate this much time to working out and I appreciate that it is a luxury. But it is a requirement to reach the top of my sport. For the trials I weighed 215 lbs. and was stronger than I was at 28 years of age.

The next part of the plan was to attend all the big regattas in 2003. So we went to Athens and got the Silver and the worlds and got 8th

/by

Sailing in the Star with Rod Davis

Recently during a training regatta for my Star Olympic Trials, I got reacquainted with an old friend. A friend that I sailed with in my first America

/by

New Years Resolutions

The holidays are a great time of year to be with family and friends but when you have the Olympic qualifications on your agenda, it is kind of nice when the holidays are over and you can get back to it. While it was all very nice and enjoyable, I don

/by