Rolex Maxi Worlds – Day 2

Race day 2 got underway at 1300 after a 1.5 hour delay with seven knot Easterly wind.

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Rolex Maxi Worlds – Day 1

A beautiful day in Sardinia is very hard to beat. 15 knots of wind from the West made the first race day of this historic event picture perfect. I am sailing as tactician on Jim Swartz’s new STP 65 Moneypenny.

The day’s single race was a 40 mile “Coastal Race” starting from Porto Cervo, sailing up the straights of Madelena and out to the Lavezzi rock. Then we sailed back down the east side the Islands of Caprera, Madelena and Monacci and back into to Porto Cervo. A very scenic tour and challenging at the same time.

About 40 yachts from 60 feet to 145 feet are divided into 4 classes in the Rolex Maxi Worlds. There are the latest high tech machines like the Esence a 140 foot Wally and Rosebud the carbon fiber STP 65-winner of the 2007 Sydney Hobart,, and classics like Ranger and Velsheda which are J boats.

Then there are the stars; Ben Ainsle the three time gold medalist sailing on Alpha Romeo, Ernesto Bertarelli and Brad Butterworth on Numbers, and 5 time Olympic medalist and skipper of Ericsson’s Vovlo 70, Torben Grael, skippering Alpha Junior.

We had a good day today getting second in our class to Numbers, with Rosebud in third place. We struggled a bit upwind arriving at the top of the course behind Rosebud, who rates even with us, but we were very fast jib reaching and then running under spinnaker passing Roebud and a few others.

Tomorrow’s forecast is for a bit less wind and I expect we may get two windward-leward courses.

I am not sure how things went in the other classes so go to www.yccs.it or www.regattanews.com for complete results and some other articles.

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US Olympic Trials – San Diego

Obviously, a great deal has been written about the battles at the top of each class during the US Olympic Trials last week.

I had the pleasure of driving the coach boat for my son Danny and his crew Pike Harris at the 49er trials one day last week. The boys are 18 and 17 years old and were not in the running for the slot to China. But they achieved success by exposing themselves to the best, learning a lot and enjoying sailing such an exhilarating boat for ten days.

Theirs was the four hour Olympic program, not four years! Danny’s regular crew could not make the trials for school reasons. So I thought that was the end of it. No. Danny was determined to race and he called Pike Harris. Pike is a senior in High School in San Diego and was keen. The boys know each other from sailing 29ers against each other over the past couple of years.

So Danny and Pike set out on a learning experience; a “quick start” to launch their future participation in the class, but with expectations well in check. Through the week they learned heaps from friends like Morgan Larson and Pete Spaulding, and Zach Maxam, all of whom have coached Danny over the years at various clinics like CISA. The US 49er Olympic Team coach, Luther Carpenter, was also very generous to give Danny and Pike some pointers throughout the week.

After measuring in on Thursday, the boys headed out for their first sail together on Friday. Saturday, October 6th was the first race of the Olympic trials, it was also Danny’s first race in a 49er. I would say that he has sailed a 49er less than ten times before and I believe Pike never had!

On that first Saturday, with the wind peaking at 20 knots (a hurricane for San Diego) they finished 9th in all three races, out of 13 competitors. Not bad for the first day! The top three teams are world class; Tim Wadlow/Chris Rast; Dalton Bergan/Zach Maxam and Morgan Larson/Pete Spaulding. John Heineken (20 years old) and his crew Matt Noble are nipping at the heels of the big boys and have been in the class for about a year, including the Worlds in Cascais last summer. Johnny and Matt also graduated from the 29er class.

Through the week they went through all the frustrations and exhilarations one experiences while learning. They pouched some starts. They didn’t shift gears when the wind dropped at the end of the day. They tried different rig settings, starting techniques, vang tensions…always watching the top teams and learning. There were ups and downs, but the boys finished the 24 race series with a 2,5,4, finishing 9th overall. In the race in which they finished second, they rounded the last windward mark first! What a thrill that must have been!

The amount they absorbed from this 24 race “clinic” was easy to see in their performance.

I spoke to Danny last night, as he was driving back to Cal Poly San Luis and I was boarding a flight to Valencia. He is a very understated guy (unlike his father), but it was clear to me that those ten days in San Diego did more for his self confidence, self esteem and general enthusiasm and passion for life, than any ten days in his life so far.

What is great about Danny is that he truly loves sailing. For sure he is competitive and wants to win, and someday he will, but he is enjoying the ride in getting there. To say that I am a proud father is an understatement.

I also want to congratulate all the trials winners, but especially John Dane and Austin Sperry who won the thriller Star series in Marina Del Rey.

All the best to Team USA in China!

Paul Cayard

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Athens Training

Boot Camp closed today. 21 days of sailing in 23 days. We are a bit tired. Four days off now…no sailing that is. I have to go for a short trip to Europe and Phil and Austin and Andy are packing up the boats so we can move into the venue on Sunday. Saturday is US Olympic Committee “processing”.

Today was another good day for the Red, white and blue racing team. Two bullets and a third. We are pretty happy with where we are at in our preparation so a perfect time to take a break.

I feel that we have made a lot of progress in the 23 days. No that we are much better than the trials but we somehow acquired a lot of rust in the month off before we came here. So we got rid of the rust, checked all our sails, got very fit by sailing everyday and going to the gym four days a week before sailing.

Today after sailing we had a team Go Cart session. Pretty fun. The Carts were pretty fast. Tomorrow morning we are have a team golf session.

All is good for now. I may be a bit sporadic on the reports over the next few days as things wont be very regular. Maybe you need a break too.

Paul Cayard

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Athens Training

A great day today. Leg and shoulders today in the gym, breakfast and down to the boats by 12:00. Off the dock at 12:45 as we had no work to do before sailing! That is a first. The work list is getting smaller.

We tested downwind for about 45 minutes, then upwind for the same amount of time. Then we joined the others for racing. We were on fire in the first two wining both. Then we got a third and a fourth. I felt pretty good about how we sailed. Our boat handling is coming a long too. The wind is so shifty here that it is hard to tell about boat speed. But you have to have good intuition about what the wind is going to do next and then be very quick and agile to tack or gybe quickly before the rest of the fleet. This is what we did real well in the first two races.

Freddy and the others headed is around 1600. We decided to test downwind again fro about 30 minutes, change to another main and then sail back to the barn which took about 1 hour. We sail side by side and every ten minutes or so we swap sides…windward for leward..so that if one side is better than the other, we wash that out of the results. Just like those America’s Cup sailors do it.

We got the boats out and put away by 1830 but then had a one hour drive back to the apartment. They decided to do road work on the lane leading out of town (as opposed to the inbound lane) on a Friday afternoon at 1800. Phil and Austin went to the store to get some more food, I started the Bar-B-Q, made the salad and am doing some email. I got this mobile internet card and it is great. I can get online anywhere there is GPRS at 57KBPS.

It is still blowing Meltemi here. About 8 days straight now. It was 8-15 today so it is getting weaker. Maybe a seabreeze tomorrow. Haven’t seen one of those in 10 days. Lovell and Reynolds have never seen the seebreeze and they got here on the 15th and 16th.

It is the weekend tomorrow so no gym. We need to rest in order to build. We keep talking about taking a day off but we ask ourselves what would we do. We tried to get a T-time for tomorrow but they have a tournament. Maybe Sunday. There is also a go-cart track right near the Olympic venue so we are determined to get there one afternoon. For now, we are happy with the progress we are making and not too tired. For sure we will take off next Friday-Saturday and Sunday. Mark and Andy go home next week and Phil and I have to be “processed” by the IOC.

It has been great having Andy and Austin here sailing the other boat every day, and Mark coaching and taking the pictures. It makes it so much easier to know that you have a boat ready to sail with you, to do what they need to do so you can test what you want to test. This would be a lot harder to coordinate with one of our competitors.

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Athens Training

Got up today and went and bought a new stove/oven. The second knob in as many nights broke off our stove last night and I had it with that thing. They have the equivalent of Home Depot here so I got a new stove for $250. Charged the owner of the apartment. Phil went for run while I did that with Austin, then Phil and Austin went to get Andy Lovell and the airport. Andy is here for two weeks as a tuning partner. Andy finished second in the USA trials this March after breaking his mast on the first day. He is good and he will push us hard.

After they got Andy, we went down to the sailing club and Phil and I went out while Austin and Andy rigged up the the boat we have chartered for them.

We had another good day on the water. First we tuned with Freddy Loof and Anders Ekstrom from (SWE) for about 2 miles up wind. Not much difference in speed between us in about 7-8 knots of wind. Then we had about 5 races with Loof (SWE), Percy (GBR), Beashal (AUS), MacDonnald (CAN). We did ok..not as well as yesterday. But another good day of training with intense short races.

I got dropped off to start the bar-b-q and the potato’s while Phil, Austin and Andy went to the store to get food and the Vodafone store to get Andy sorted out with his phone. We ate a nice dinner of Pork Tenderloin, potatoes and salad and watermelon for desert. Andy did not make dinner..he crashed hard at 2000.

Phil and Austin went to the internet caffe, I am writing up the reports on today’s weather and our rig and sails set up, and this report. The electrician showed up at 2130 and hooked up the new stove while I wrote this. Looks pretty good for $250. I’ll have to ask my wife why the one we got at home cost a bit more than that.

I am enclosing today’s forecast just to give you an idea of how tricky it is. Our meteorologist, Chris Bedford, has his hands full with this place.

Sailing Weather Forecast

Sailing Venue: Athens, GREECE

Forecast for Thursday, 15 July 2004

YESTERDAY: Yesterday seemed to pan out about as forecast, although the buoys indicated a late day change to the E which was not forecast.

The following are buoy observations from course areas yesterday:

LT North Central South

0900 – 305/10G14 305/10G14 305/09G13

1200 – 220/03G06 270/07G09 280/05G07

1500 – 180/11G14 —/—– 165/10G13

1800 – 110/02G04 075/03G10 100/11G15

It appears the late change was the sea breeze arriving from the Aegean Sea side of the Attiki Peninsula, although the strength of this chance on the South Course suggest some other (additional) mechanism – possibly gradient – was involved. This was not picked up by ANY forecast model.

Synopsis: A more unsettled weather picture today than we have seen in quite some time across SE’ern Greece. Residual humidity, a passing upper level disturbance, and converging air between opposing Meltemi and sea breeze gradients are forecast to lead to more cloud and scattered showers and thunderstorms today. While most of the shower/thunderstorm action is forecast to be over the land areas surrounding the courses, there is a risk of something moving offshore and into the course area – especially this afternoon.

This morning’s weather map is showing a mild Meltemi set up across the region. The thermal low is getting re-established to the east over SW Turkey and while high pressure is ridging in across Croatia and north of Greece. At first glance this is a Meltemi pattern, however the ridging high is rather weak and so the Meltemi is not expected to be strong enough to overcome the thermal entirely. Instead, a battle between offshore and onshore breezes will set up over the courses.

This morning’s early balloon flight out of the airport shows the weak Meltemi flow at 500m and above:

100m – 270 deg at 04 knots

500m – 340 deg at 10 knots

1000m – 005 deg at 12 knots.

Forecast Summary: NW off and N/NE onshore from mid- through late-morning. Wind speeds generally between 5 and 10 knots, although a puff to 15 is possible. Winds decreasing through late morning to become light and variable with possible weak sea breeze around mid-day. Light SW/S tending SE winds early afternoon, increasing to near 10 for a time.

Winds will likely continue backing to SE through the afternoon, however possible showers/thunderstorms approaching course could lead to variable winds. A late day return of the N-E Meltemi gradient is possible.

Weather: A few scattered clouds at first light, then increasing clouds later this morning through afternoon. Good chance of cumulus building to support showers and thunderstorms from mid-day through about mid-afternoon. Some clearing by late afternoon or evening.

Temperature Range: Low-70sF this morning warming to upper 80s-lower 90sF this afternoon.

Seas: Rough up to 3ft early this morning, easing quickly to 1ft or less for a time through mid-day. Chance of seas building to 1 ft again in the afternoon.

Detailed Wind Forecast for Today (07/15/2004):

Wind Speed Wind Direction (True) Time(LT) Mean Range Mean Range

09 09 06-14 360 330-025 .NW offshore, N/NE onshore

10 06 04-11 360 330-020

11 03 00-05 Variable 290-360 .offshore dies/sea breeze tries

12 03 00-05 Variable .sea breeze fills

13 05 03-07 180 160-210 .watch for possible showers/tstorms

14 08 06-10 175 165-185 .variable winds around showers/tstorms

15 10 07-12 170 150-180

16 10 08-12 165 140-180 .possibly more left Southern course area

17 10 07-12 160 120-180

18 08 06-11 170 150-185 .possible late return of Meltemi gradient

SMS ATH SHORTCAST

THU-Unsettled/pos tstorms: 9 09 360/10 06 360/11 03 VAR/12 03 VAR/13 05 180/14 08 175/15 10 170/16 10 165/17 10 160/18 08 170 FRI-Melt 2 sea brz

Hedge: 1) Forecast confidence is BELOW AVERAGE. Unfortunately, the model indicators are all over the place today reflecting the complex nature of the competing flows around Athens. I opted to got with the typical transition to sea breeze since the Meltemi winds are not particularly impressive on the morning observations and I expect some enhanced rising air onshore from late morning through early afternoon with cloud and possible shower/thunderstorm development.

2) And sea breeze will hold until showers/thunderstorms effect courses. Should be normal left trending sea breeze if develops as expected. Could be shiftier than normal as it supports individual cloud systems developing inland.

3) Be on the lookout for major forecast failures. The possible development of showers and thunderstorms adds a significant wildcard to the forecast. Watch for wind shifting to flow out of any shower/thunderstorms cloud. If any showers/storms influence the course area, they are likely to be followed by a period of calm before winds return 60-120 minutes later.

4) Outside risk of a late day Meltemi surge. Left it out of the forecast table, but there is a chance that N/NE (or even E) winds could surge back onto the courses late afternoon or especially evening.

Outlook for Friday (07/16/2003): A morning hit of Meltemi gradient followed by a SW trending S sea breeze. Sea breeze wind will be modest, but could build to moderate speeds in the afternoon. More sun, drier, warmer.

Wind Speed Wind Direction Time(LT) Mean Range Mean Range

09 12 10-16 340 320-010 .perhaps stronger at times

12 04 00-06 VAR 210-300

15 11 08-13 200 180-215

18 10 08-12 180 165-195

Chris Bedford, CCM

Sailing Weather Services

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Olympic Games ~ Final Report

I am not going to spend time here analyzing what I could have done better. I do that every night in bed. I would just like to make a few observations and thank a few people.

First, Phil and I are truly blessed to have had the opportunity to race in the Olympics and represent our country. With so many people around the world experiencing difficult times, this must not be overlooked.

For me, the biggest reward out of this will be if I succeeded in demonstrating to my children how much hard work goes into trying to achieve lofty goals. After all, as parents, our biggest job is to set an example, and I hope that my children, 14 and 15 years old, know a little bit more about what it means to work really hard for something.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who supported and followed our efforts over the past few years. I have seen it written in several articles that I spent over $100K of my own money on this effort. This is true but that money was spent just preparing and winning the Olympic Trials. I want to make it known that since I won the Olympic Trials, all my expenses have been covered. These amounted to another $125K. The bulk of this funding came from US Sailing and the St. Francis Yacht Club Foundation with an additional $10K raised around the Lorain OH area, Phil’s home town. Also, the New York Yacht Club fundraiser in May was a great success and needless to say, all these funds were very much appreciated!!!

What’s next?

After resting for a couple of days I am back to Farr 40 sailing this week with the Samba Pa Ti team. We have a warm up regatta this weekend at San Francisco Yacht Club then the World Championship starts September 8th-11th at St. Francis Yacht Club. Should be a great regatta with about 30 boats from all over the world participating. After that, I am going to Sardinia for the Swan Cup sailing with my friend Leonardo Ferragamo. As I write this, is realize that I need to take a step back, out the moment, and realize that I am blessed to have this life.

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Olympic Games Race Day

A long tough day for us. Serious character testing stuff. Not much good to report.

We got tangled up with the Spanish and the Irish as the start and got off the line behind. Then we worked the left, mostly because the right looked sickly light. The left looked good for about 5 minutes, then it was all right and in a big way. The Dutch team, who banged the right corner, had a 1 minute lead as they reached in to the first mark…the shift went that far.

We were second to last but had made some major comebacks in this regatta so we thought the volatility would be good and it was still a long race. The bottom line is that everywhere we went was bad and we got further and further behind. We finished last and it was a long sail around the course in last. Very frustrating and disappointing.

Ross MacDonnald of CAN finished second in the race and the French were 8th so CAN got silver and FRA Bronze. We lost fourth to the Swiss by one point and finished up 5th just three points ahead of GBR in 6th.

I really did not sail my best at this regatta. It’s the rarity of this regatta that makes it so important. The Olympics only happens once every four years and even then, you have to qualify to represent your country. It has taken me 20 plus years to get this opportunity and to not sail my best has been very frustrating.

I have thought of a few things that I may have done wrong, such as being here since the 4th of July but it is too early for me to draw a certain conclusion. One thing is that there were 5 races that were in a “typical” breeze and 6 races that were in “random” wind. You could argue that if you are going to sail in “random” wind, you don’t need to train on site much at all.

The results seem to bear that out somewhat. The sailors who spent the most time training in Athens were Loof SWE and Percy GBR.

I will write some more thought in a few days after I digest this a bit more.

I changed my flight and I am getting out of here at 0555 tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to getting home to Kentfield and being with my family.

Thanks for all the great support that you have given Phil and I over this campaign!

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Olympic Games Race Day

Today, of course, would have been one of the best sailing days of the last two months. 18-25 knots of breeze from the southwest. Nice big waves. We checked over the boat and just relaxed today. Phil spent the afternoon with his family. I am watching the Olympic on TV between naps and eating everything around the house.

Here is a few of the emails I have received in the last 24 hours. I share them with you because I think they are all great pieces of writing and deserve to be seen. I hope my indulgence does not upset any of the authors.

Hey Paul, Anything can happen out there, so keep a positive attitude and go enjoy sailing in the Olympics – good things happen when you’re having fun.

Good luck, Bruce Nelson

Paul & Phil,

For what it’s worth, your predicament before the last race reminds me of mine in Naples in 1960. To gain the Bronze we had to win the race and Agostino Straulino and his crew Carlo Rolandi, from Ialy, had to finish fifth or worse. So Buck Halperin (my crew) and I realized our chances were slim and we were pretty depressed, but we sucked it up and blew everyone away in the last race and Straulino finished somewhere about 7th. So-o-o-o, my dear Paul and Phil, FIRE ONE!!!!!!

I think it would be nice to have more than one thing in common with Paul, that is when he and his crew hauled me out of the water at the dock after the second race in Sardinia in 1989. I had won the race but then promply fell in the water trying to tie up my boat at the dock.

All the best,

Bill Parks

Hi Paul/Phil

Peter Stoneberg was kind enough to pass on your emails from Athens which has inspired me to send you this.

I have been following your Olympic programme with great interest . You have both worked very hard too win the US berth and the support you are receiving from family and friends reflects that effort.

I have been taping away thinking of something inspirational to say but in your case its difficult to better the comments from your daughter.

My only thoughts are that in reading your emails you are being pretty tough on yourself and that perhaps now is the time to appreciate the occasion get your heads out of the boat and let it rip,you have already won a medal in the minds of many.

Kind Regards Geoff Stagg

Paul,

About 2 years ago I attended a talk in our yacht club given by the Womens 470 Sydney Gold Medallists [Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell]. They were accompanied by their coach [Ukranian, Victor Kovalenko] who didn’t say much except this-

On a race course there are 3 types of sailors-

1. Those who are sailing

2. Those who are racing

3. Those who are fighting

The fighters win!

Keep on fighting Paul

Regards,

John O’Driscoll

[One Design Sailor from the Royal St George Yacht Club, Dublin, Ireland]

You can do it Paul. Let er rip, mate!—Peter Harken

dear paul and phil,

a medal is within your grasp – you can totally do this, dont let go! we are following every race, cheering and praying. we couldnt be behind you more. YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!

– lynne, sydney and sophia florence rey

p.s. we have a colossal crush on your sailing coach…

Hi,Cayard

tieni duro che siete i pi

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Olympic Games ~ Letters

Tough day for the USA. We got a 6th and an 8th while the French got a 3,1 and Canada got a 8,2. So we are 5.8 points out of third and 9 points out of 2nd. Torben Greal of Brazil clinched the gold medal with his 4th in the last race.

Athens served up a pretty typical day today. Seabreeze with the left being heavily favored. We stayed away from the fighting for the left side of the line and ultimately we payed for that. In each start we could not hold our lane and were forced to tack out to the right. I was a bit shy on the line, always mindful of not getting an OCS, but that conservatism cost us. There were some opportunities to come back from the right, Peter Bromby (BER) did it, but we could not find the lanes or the wheels to make it work.

We battled around the course, never catching on fire but did manage to come out on the good side of two close finishes. Hopefully those two points will be key on Saturday.

So now it is down to one race and we have to make up 7 points on CAN and 9 on FRA. We will have to go out and have a very good race and see where the chips fall. It is a tall order but we are tall people…Phil is anyway. We will work on our plan tomorrow with our coach, Tony Rey, who has been a fantastic help this week.

Tomorrow is a lay day for us and the Tornado’s, the only two classes left. One nice thing for the US Team is that John Lovell and Charlie Olgletree have clinched at least a Silver in the Tornado Class. They are two points out of first. So they will just let it hang out on Saturday and try to get gold.

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