SAILING

Pauls Most Recent Sailing Reports

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One really special moment I forget to mention last night was when we arrived at the dock and the Olympic Sailing Center. There were the top 60 Optimist Sailors(15 years old and under) in the USA standing there applauding Phil and I. It was touching and very much appreciated. I celebrated the best I could […]

Short day at work for us. We got 5th in the first race of the day and wrapped up the victory. Step one accomplished. The rest of the fleet stayed out there and completed the last two races. Our training partners Andy Lovell/Magnus Liljedahl finished second. This is a fantastic result in light of the […]

A good day for us; 2, 1. The day got off to a late start as the wind was blowing in excess of 25 knots this morning. At 1300 the postponement flag came down signaling that the first start would be a 1430. We headed out to the track and were pleasantly surprised to see […]

We were in boat preservation mode today and got a fourth. The wind was 25-30 knots from 080 max; gust 32 knots.. Quite a bit windier than any other day so far. Mains sails ragging upwind and mast snapping downwind. We rounded the first mark first show with good speed upwind. On the run we […]

Short one for now at least. I have to go make a speech to the USA Elite Optimist Team that are training here this weekend. The bottom line is that we beat our man 3 out of 3 times today. He is no longer our man. Someone else is. Tomorrow we have to get one […]

Today started off as normal. Wake up at 0700, gym for a 15 minute warm up, upstairs to stretch, shower, down to the center to weigh in at 0800. We got the forecast and saw that it was going to be breezy, so we changed to our spare rig and were back to our apartment […]

A tough day today, especially for the race committee. We had two weather systems fighting each other and the transition was right over Biscayne Bay. A cold front is expected here about now and should swing the wind into the NNW. As we towed in after todays one and only race, this was starting to […]

A good one for us today. The forecast was for 8-12 knots from 060-090 and that was spot on. Even the forecast called for a left shift in the first race then a right trend for the second race and that was pretty good. The wind oscillated around the averages all day so you had […]

The forecast for today was 17-22 knots from 70-90 degrees and it was right on. We changed to our spare mast for today thinking that it would be bad to damage our #1 rig on the first day of an 8-day regatta. After a hour and a half postponement, we headed out. We are sailing […]

We got out early today to check a few jibs before anyone had left the dock. Then we tuned for an hour with Andy Lovell and Magnus Liljedahl. Felt pretty good about things and headed in. We measured our sails, did a few little things and I left the boat park around 1500. John Craig […]

Just a short one tonight. I flew in last night. We go the safety equipment, boat and spars measured today and got out for a short sail around 1600. We were the only one to go out as most everyone has been sailing here all week. It was a very nice 12 knots from the […]

The forecast was for 17-22 from the NNW for today

The forecast for today was not good… A weak NW gradient giving way to a weak sea breeze. That happened and it was a tricky day. The wind finally filled in around 1300 from 130 at 7-8 knots. It looked promising. In this wind direction the left side is usually favored. We started near the […]

The Black Flag was back today and we got caught. We sailed up to the windward mark, not in particularly good shape and saw our bow number posted so we retired. The day was supposed to be w windy one from the NW. We put our heavy air main on for the trials to give […]

Today started off slowly. The forecast was for 5-10 knots from the SSW. Eventually the wind was supposed to go all the way to the WSW. There is a cold front expected tonight and WNW winds 10-15 for tomorrow. However, the gradient was weak today and it was very hot. For 2 hours, from 1200-1400, […]

Yesterday we had a day ashore, working on our masts, and getting items on our work list checked off. It was nice to be off the water for a day. I went to the gym late in the afternoon with our Sam and had a good high energy workout. Sam has changed our workout routine […]

Winds were 130 at 10-14 knots today. The water a bit smoother than yesterday. The day started out at 0645 with a run to the gym and then an hour and a half work out with our trainer Sammy. Shower and breakfast and down to the club by 0945. We went out with the

We had a better day today. Still blowing 14-18 form the ESE today. Today activities were; gym 0645, breakfast 0830, shower 0900, West Marine 0930, arrival at the club 0945, rig up and tuning, dock out 11:30. The water schedule was three races today. Freddy Loof of SWE dominated the first two races. Xavier Rohart […]

Back to the Star after a good week on the Samba Pa Ti Farr 40 where we finished second in the SORC. The SORC now is a 10 races event, all short course buoy races. Phil and I hit the gym this morning at 0700 for a few hours then ate breakfast at our favorite […]

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

No wind today… No races. So the final standings are those of yesterday: 1) Reynolds/Erickson (USA) 37, 2) Beashal/Giles (AUS) 44, 3) Loof/Eckstrom (SWE) 51, 4) Domingos/Santos (POR) 51, 5) Cayard/Trinter (USA) 52, 6) Holm/Olsen (DEN) 53, 7) Koch/Koy (GER) 55, 8) Neeleman/Van Niekerk (NED) 58. We are fairly satisfied with our result. A lot […]

We had our best and worst today. In fact 4 out of the top 5 had their worst race today. The wind was 8 knots in the first race from 125 and 6 knots in the second race from 120. In the first race, we won the pin end and were able to tack and […]

Today we had some consistency and some luck. The day started out with 16-22 knots from the Northwest. This is typically a very shifty direct as the wind comes off the shore and today was typical. Sometimes the left looks good and sometimes the right comes good. Very hard to know. In the first two […]

We had a windy forecast today; 15-20 from the south going southwest and west with a cold front approaching. Things started off slower than expected with less than 10 knots of wind from 200 up to 1030. So we changed from our heavy air mainsail to our all-around main at 1030. As soon as we […]

We finally got a finish and quite a few people did not. There were two races today, both in 5-7 knots of wind from the southeast. In both starts, we had one general recall with the line biased to the left side by 15 degrees and then without moving the line the committee put up […]

Today were are back at it in Miami after a week in Key West Sailing the Farr 40. Phil could not make it today as he was attending his wife Chrissy’s induction into the Hall of Fame at her University. So I had to bring one of my long time friends, Rod Davis, out of […]

Well, it didn

We are back at it here in Miami. We got into town last Wednesday, trained Thursday and Friday and raced today. Well, we tried to race today. We actually had one of those days where you think you have forgotten how to sail. This weekend

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

We had one race today on Biscayne Bay in 10 knots of wind from the North West. After two general recalls we had a Black Flag start meaning if any boat was over the line in the last minute before the start they were disqualified. You guessed it. That was us and about 8 other […]

We had a good work out today on Biscayne Bay. It was the first day of the Commodores Cup, a three-race regatta, held every year here, in Miami, in December. Normally there would be 18-20 boats at this event but because everyone in the US is gearing up for the Olympic Trials in March and […]

This weekend opened the Star season in Miami. We had approximately 40 boats for what is normally a lo-key weekend regatta due to the build up for the US Olympic Trials which will be held here in March. We were fortunate with the conditions with winds of 10-15 knots both days from the East. This […]

It ended well. Today, we were greeted with more typical San Francisco Bay conditions. Windy, cold, foggy and big current. Both races today were decided by a big move on the first run. In the first race of the day, Howie Shiebler and his crew Will Stout hung it out into the middle of the […]

Back in front! We had a great day with a 4, 1 and are now back in the lead of the Star North American Championship. Two more races will be sailed tomorrow on the San Francisco City Front course. The wind was late in arriving again today but we got race number 3 off around […]

Tough day for sailing on San Francisco Bay. The wind did not cooperate for until abou 1400 today and then is was on the light side. However, this coupled with a realively weak current made for the most “open course” racing that you can have on SF Bay. Normally, racing on San Francisco Bay, expecially […]

We started out the Star North American Championship with a bang…a gun acutally. We won the first race which was held on the Berkeley Circle Race course in 12-16 knots of wind. 40 Stars were on the line for the only race of the day which got under way about 14:45. We will race six […]

The best way to classify the ISAF World Championships is to say that it is a festival of sailing. 11 regattas going on at the same venue at the same time, 2000 sailors, 6 racecourses, it is a great display of our sport. For the purpose of exposing the sport through media, this is a […]

The medal ceremony, last night, was special. It is the music, the pace and formality medals to the presenter on a silver platter, the way they announce the names and their countries, and the raising of the flags and finally the applause

Would of, could of, should of. We got the Silver. Not bad. Saving some improvement for next year. The day started out with us in fourth, 5 points out of first. We knew it would be all on today because of the caliber of the competition and the conditions. It was too light to race […]

God likes us. Nothing bad happened to us before the start, we had a good start sailed well on the first lap and rounded the first downwind mark in 5 th . Then, the wind started getting weird. First it was our turn to loose a bunch. People on all sides of us had a […]