29erXX Seiko Superbowl in Miami

Yesterday was our practice day and Julia’s first day sailing the 29erXX. It is definitely safe to say that she, among several others, is hooked (literally!).

The atmosphere is incredible – a group of exceptionally talented sailors just looking to try something new, in a boat which is quite humbling, and just go fast and therefore have a ridiculous amount of fun. Discussions have been very open as we share rig settings, boat handling tips, and epic wipeout stories. The 49er guys have lots of tricks but even they will admit that the 29erXX is in fact harder to sail than the 49er. Because it has less leverage (no wings) , there’s a narrow margin in which you can save a capsize. Unfortunately all the charter boats (and therefore every single other boat here) lack the rudder gantries and longer spinnaker poles so we decided not to use those out of fairness.

Wind was 8-12 knots in the morning and 12-17 knots in the afternoon, making the already steep learning curve a little bit more manageable. My abs hurt from trapping hard, but mainly from laughing so much. The boat just makes us happy and we can’t stop smiling and cracking jokes. We worked mainly on maneuvers – tacking, bear aways, and gybing. The practice race was a good chance to practice starting, which is hard in these boats because they are almost impossible to control without speed.

The water is very warm which makes capsizing less annoying (we had our fair share of swimming today) and although it is overcast there is still a warm breeze. Coconut Grove Sailing Club is living up to its name as we had coconuts falling uncomfortably close to us in the parking lot yesterday. Julia calls them “silent assassins”.

Today was Day 1 of racing, but unfortunately the wind was quite uncooperative so we only sailed one race. The whole fleet was late to launch and long story short we were late to the start by 2 minutes, putting us in last, but over the two laps we gained on boats, which is a good sign for our boatspeed, and ended up catching 2 boats to put us in 7th place. It was about 8 to 10 knots for the race but after that it completely dropped off. We waited around for over an hour but no pressure was filling in so we started a single handed race... but by the time the boats were halfway to the windward mark, a squall started rolling through so the race committee sent everyone in by tow. Obviously we're looking for more wind, more sunshine, and less rain tomorrow, but we'll see... no matter what, this boat is great and the fleet is even better.
- Helena

Sailor Chick of the Week!

Helena sent in an article publicizing the 29erXX regatta that is next week and it was announced today that she is Sailing Anarchy's Sailor Chick of the Week!

"Yes, we just had our SCOTW yesterday, but there is no such thing as too much of a good thing, right? Helena Scutt..." Continued here!

US Sailing Development Team and more exciting news!

We are thrilled to be part of the US Sailing Development Team this coming year.

"Forty-eight talented athletes have been named to the 2010 US Sailing Development Team (USSDT), a new, youth pipeline team supported by US SAILING’s Olympic Sailing Committee. The USSDT was created to help young athletes, who have been identified as future Olympic prospects, acquire the skills necessary to launch successful campaigns and compete at the Olympic level."

Coach Leandro Spina (right)

We are honored to be one of the four 29er teams selected (the only females) and this represents a lot of hard work to reach this point, but obviously, there is much more to come.
The USSDT will provide us with some great training opportunities, from sailing to fitness, sports psychology and nutrition.

Next fall Katy will be at Central Washington U's flight school, an awesome program that has been Katy's dream for several years. Helena was accepted early to Stanford U and can't wait to be sailing in Palo Alto with the team there.

An article from Stanford: "Future Cardinals Named to U.S. Development Team"

An article from Palo Alto Online: "These Sailors are Olympic Quality"

Blue Bahamas (more photos)

Check out the West Coast Sailing blog entry featuring USA927


Lauri's 49er on prime beach real estate
skiff horizon

Windward mark hoist

West Coast Sailing! USA 927


some wave action
aero-shots!!
at the leeward gate mark
reef
light air
a little stronger
a little stronger - not us! our Cayman Island friends.

Thank you so much to Fried Elliott for the photos!

Bahamas! 2010 29er Worlds

Ok, so it wasn't warm. At all. But, it was still an amazing regatta in a beautiful place. The water was the brilliant turquoise that Katy and I call "The Color" even on the overcast days. The fine white sand wasn't bad either.
After a week of challenging conditions on Grand Bahama Island, the 2010 new world champion 29er team has been crowned just 6 months after the 2009 Worlds in Italy (Congratulations to Fisher and Gouron of France!). Jen and I finished 20th out of 35 teams, and 2nd place females. Our best race was a 6th, we had 3 top 10 finishes out of 19 races. (Results here also see the 29er Worlds site)

The race course was very, very shifty and quite difficult to read. The shifts were oscillating for the most part, so it seemed that the middle rarely paid, therefore the aim was to pick a side of the course and win it. That said, we saw all types of conditions: light and lumpy, heavy and choppy, light and flat, medium and flat, Northerly and Westerly, you name it.
I learned so much from sailing with Jen, a veteran of the 29er. We had our pre-race preparation dialed in and were almost always first off the beach. On the way out to the course I spent a lot of time peering over the side of the boat trying to gauge the depth of the sandy bottom (using sea stars as a measurement) and watch out for coral reefs. A few boats didn't see the reef until it was too late and either busted their centerboard trunk or even blew up the centerboard itself. I'll admit, we brushed the sandy bottom with the centerboard at a very low speed once. Not a good feeling...
Overall we found that we needed better acceleration at the start. We definitely improved our starting set up technique from the first couple of days. It would have been very helpful to go into the regatta with more time in the boat together, but each others' travel schedules, work, school, and the fact that it is dark in Seattle by 4 pm in the winter made that difficult. But still, I feel like I fine-tuned a lot in the Bahamas and I know which areas I can improve.
It was fun to meet more international teams and to have the 49er guys around as well, whose presence brings the 29ers more media coverage.

A HUGE thank you to Jen for sailing with me and teaching me a lot. Thanks to Ben and Leandro for coaching and debriefs. Thank you to West Coast Sailing for your continued enthusiastic support and for the mondo logo. Thank you to Emily, Emily, Danielle, Lauren, and Lauri for the accommodation, and thank you to Jerelyn without whom the event would not be possible!

U18 USST Clinic in Miami

There was nothing better than hopping on a plane headed to Miami as soon as we got out of school for winter break! From Dec 18-21 we sailed at the US Sailing Center in Coconut Grove, FL. Katy sailed with SYC team member Burgess Malarkey so that they could practice for Youth World Qualifiers (coming up this weekend!) and I sailed with Tyler Macdonald (from Newport Beach, CA).

There were seven 29er teams as well as Laser, Laser Radial, and I420 teams also training. The fleet was about 1/3 from Seattle (yeah!), 1/3 California, and 1/3 Florida. We learned a lot both from U18 team coach Leandro Spina and from sailing with different people for a change.

Four days on the water gave us time to really focus. We talked about race preparation and making marks on sail controls for more precise, repeatable tuning. One thing we practiced was making transitions between sailing conditions and dividing all sailing into 4 main conditions: light, side force, driving force, and heavy. Leandro took some photos, particularly of the leech, so that we could analyze sail shape which was really valuable. It takes lots of experimentation and experience to learn to see a fast sail shape.

The clinic was a well-timed tune-up for Worlds for me and a superb chance for Katy and Burgess to train together.

Thank you to the Macdonald family, the Screve family, and Childers family for supporting us in Miami, and of course to Leandro and Max Fraser for coaching.

After sailing we loaded the boat onto a massive 29er trailer bound for the Bahamas - quite a feat.

Seeking Warmth in Winter!

Seattle has been setting record low temperatures in the past two weeks. Last Sunday I had to pour near-boiling water over the 29er to melt the ice on the deck! Yes, I began to question my sanity. But thanks to drysuits, hot chocolate and fleece, practice continues. Needless to say, it will all be worth it when we are sailing in sunny blue waters in the next few weeks!

The 29er is on a massive trailer making its way cross-country, and next Friday we'll catch up to it by flying to Miami.

We're sailing in the US U18 Clinic at the US Sailing Center in Coconut Grove, Florida for 4 days. Katy is sailing with Burgess Malarkey, a fellow SYC race team member with a lot of 420 experience. Katy and Burgess are practicing for the Youth World Quals in January so that they will have all the moves and seamless teamwork!

The clinic will be my last tune-up before sailing the 2010 29er Worlds two weeks later in..... the Bahamas! January 2nd-9th... a week of sun, sand, and super intense sailing. I cannot wait - it is 80 degrees there right now!

I am sailing the clinic with Tyler Macdonald from Newport Beach, CA and Worlds with Jen Glass. Worlds with Jen will bring my 29er sailing full-circle - apart from my first few 29er sails with my dad, Jen was the one who really got me into the boat and taught me the ropes of skiff sailing. The rest is history! I owe her so much, and to me this event is the culmination of countless hours on and off the water.

Thanks to our sponsor, George at West Coast Sailing, we've got a new gigantic, snazzy West Coast Sailing logo for our Worlds sails. This one is WAY bigger than the one we had at the Worlds in Italy. Here is Jen for a size comparison!

- Helena