Dean's Blog

Dubai is over

Hi

Sorry for a long delay between posts.  Dubai in the RC44 was pretty hectic.

The final season event was a double point scoring regatta which unlike previous events could not be discarded either, so plenty of points up for grabs and a few teams very close together going into the seaon ending event.

The match race event proved to be our downfall for the year.  With the 1st day cancelled due to a lack of wind the committee decided to settle the season scores for the MR in 2 groups and only 4 races.  This seemed somewhat tough as we had probably had 45 odd races during the year over the 5 events, and then 4 races to decide the overall placings.

The event couldn't have started on a worse note for us when we had another equipment failure during the 1st prestart of the 1st race against Sea Dubai.  The steering cables decoupled from the cog on the steering hub and I was forced to steer the entire pre start and race with the emergency tiller.  This was certainly a 1st for me, but not ideal when every race is a must win!

We bounced back well to win our next race, but then lost the remaining two to finish the match race series a disappointing 9th.  This dropped us to 4th for the season having led pretty much all year.

We bounced back well in the fleet racing section of the regatta to finish a strong 2nd which also placed us as top boat for the fleet racing for the season.  And then combining the fleet and match race scores we ended up 2nd overall for the season.

We went to Dubai with the goal to come away with the overall title but it wasn't to be.  2nd for the year was ok, but after having had a strong year with all the other sailing 2nd is good enough!

I am in Paris for the next 2 days for the Boat Show and some work for Nexus.  There may even be an announcement from Nexus tomorrow...stay tuned

All finished in Nice

Today was the final day of the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Nice and we were up against Azzurra in the best of 3 final.  They had sailed very well throughout the series so we knew it would be tough.

Today was one of those days for us we things never really fell into place.  We didn't sail badly, Azzurra just sailed better.  The difference between winning and losing in a tight contest can often be determined by one key moment in the race. 

We lost 2-0 which was incredibly dissappointing for the team after having sailed well for the 2 weeks of the regatta.  But when you get to the finals it is all about lifting your game and we just did not manage that today. 

After what has been an incredibly successful year for ETNZ, the expectation to keep winning makes coming 2nd even tougher to swallow.  We will be much better for the result and will push even harder to perform well in Auckland for the LVPS series in March.

I am now flying to Dubai for the final regatta of the RC44 class.  I am sailing on Artemis ( a competitor in both TP52 and now LV) and we sit 2nd overal for the season although we are leading both the fleet race and match race rankings.  A good result in this event (starts Wednesday) we could easily win this circuit for the year.  The flip side is though a poor performace and the other teams are not far behind!  Always another challenge to focus on.

All for now

A day off in Nice

Today was a rare day off racing for us today.  The racing that did take place though finalised the four teams that would proceed through to the semi finals starting on Thursday.  They are ETNZ, Team Origin, Azzura and Synergy.

With a compressed format for the 2nd RR we have raced and beaten BMW Oracle, French Spirit and All 4 One leaving us on 9 wins and 1 loss.  We have our final race tomorrow against Synergy which has no effect on the overall results.

 

As the top qualifier from the RR's we have to then choose who we will race in the semi final.  This is always a terrible position to be in as it is always difficult choosing 1 of the top 4 teams as they are always strong.  We will race tomorrow before we decide who we will be our opponent.

The schedule is for a maintenance day on the boats on Wednesday, then semis and finals over the final 4 days.

Round Robin 1 nearly complete

We have now had 6 of the 7 races required to complete the 1st RR here in Nice and we have had a good start winning all 6 races.   Since the last blog we have had some very close and tough races against Synergy (Russia), Azzura (Italy), Artemis (Sweden) and today agains BMW (USA).

The unique aspect is that we all sail the supplied boats which are supposedly equalised.  However the weather has certainly been the greatest equaliser with some very shifty and testing conditions.

It is never good in my opinion when you can see snow on the mountains not too far from where you are sailing, and this is very much the case here in Nice.  A typical day sees us racing in a 10-12kt offshore wind in the early morning which literally blows straight of the mountains and it is freezing.

We have our final race of RR1 tomorrow against Team Origin who have been sailing very well to date so this will be a good test for the Team moving into the 2nd round of this competition.

I am very pleased with our improvement, but as always we can do better.  Nice to have a challenge!!

Racing in Nice

It is great to be in Nice and back into sailing the V5 AC boats like we sailed in Valencia in 2007. 

The weather has not been playing the game and for the 1st week of practice we managed to get a total of 4 hours on the water so it hasn't really allowed us to spend as much time as we would like getting our heads back into the Match Racing game.

One of the great things sailing with the ETNZ guys is how quickly it falls back into place, and although we have a huge amount of room for improvement, we are making steady gains which is satisfying at this early stage.

We have now had 2 races.  The 1st was against French Spirit which we won comfortably, and then today against All 4 One which is a combination of K-Challenge and German Team which we also won after leading for the 1st lap and then having them retire due to gear breakage.

What is unusual for me is sailing in boats we have had no input in.  We have 2 Mascalzone boats from 2007, the K-Challenge boat from 2007, and one of Alinghi's boats from Auckland in 2003.  It feels a little strange to be sailing on boats that we have competed against over the years, but interesting to see how teams have developed their equipment.

All for now

Dean

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