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9th March 2008
by Karyn Gojnich
Hi everyone,
We arrived in Europe 3 weeks ago to a bitter cold wind, hail and snow!
The countdown to the Olympic Games is on. Along with most of the teams that will represent their countries in August our team of Krystal Weir, Angela Farrell and I have just competed in the Yngling Womens European Championship. We have been racing off the picturesque town of Blanes on Spain’s Costa Brava, an hour east of Barcelona.
It is early spring time here and it is certainly nippy (and dark) early in the mornings. The water temperature is also cold at only 13 degrees, so if there is any wind, and a chance of getting wet, then dry suits are essential.
We had a range of breeze strengths over the 5 days of competition and unfortunately our team struggled to find consistency. We finished 11th overall which was a disappointing follow up from our 2nd at the World Championships.
Day one of the regatta we had 3 races and finished the day with a 22, DSQ and a 10. We learnt a tough lesson with the DSQ – everyone is playing for sheep stations!
We crossed the Greek team (Sofia Bekatorou – gold medalist in the 470 class in Athens) on port, in the middle of the work with no one else around It was close but we crossed clearly 2 meters in front of her bow. The greeks had been screaming starboard from about 2 boat lengths out, they did not have to alter course to avoid us however they did hail protest as they crossed our stern. In the protest room we were not able to prove that we clearly crossed, with out effecting them and were disqualified. We lost our 8th place and the Greeks moved up one spot to 14th for the race.
Day 2 was much better – got off the start line well and were at the front end of the fleet all day finishing with a 5 and a 2. Conditions were light, not getting over 6 knots all day. There was a strong current running along the coast and the water was quite bumpy with a surging swell All very similar to what we are expecting to see in Qingdao, China in August for the Olympic regatta.
Day 3 we had a 14, 6 and RAF (Retired after finishing). There is very little speed difference between the boats in the Yngling fleet. Mark roundings are always crowded and in Race 7 we were lucky that there was no damage done to any of the fleet as we all arrived at the top mark together. We were on the left hand side of the beat, approaching on port and did not manage the boats around us at all well.
Day 4 was an exciting day of sailing with a 13 to 18 knot easterly gradient breeze combined with 2 meter waves. We got off the start line well in both races and enjoyed the surfing conditions downwind to pick up an 11 and 2 for the day. Overall in the opening series this placed us 2 points outside of the medal race on the final day of sailing. Poor decisions earlier in the regatta ultimately cost us the opportunity of making the medal race.
The current World Champions the British Team of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson won the regatta, with Americans Sally Barkow, Carrie Howe and Debbie Capozzi in second. Third place was taken by the Dutch team of Renee Groeneveld, Annenieke Bes and Merel Witteveen.
Many thanks to Kenn Batt for giving us a heads up on the weather forecast each day and to our coach Adrian Finglas for patiently analysing areas to improve.
We now move on to Hyeres, France for the Semaine Olympique Française event where organisers are expecting around 1000 competitors from more than 50 countries, competing in all of the Olympic disiplines for one week long in Hyères waters.
Thanks everyone for your continuing support.
Karyn, Krystal and Angela
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