Helena's 29erXX Campaign

CleverPig.org Interview

2011-11-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

CleverPig.org interviewed me about my campaign and 29erXX sailing.

Enjoy!

4th Overall at 29erXX North Americans, Top Female Team

2011-08-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

A windstorm cancelled racing yesterday, so there was no racing at all and no medal race. I would have loved to do some final laps but to be honest I needed to stop using my arm... I was recently diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome which is basically pinched nerves (worsened by sailing since I use my shoulder muscles so much) that cause my left arm and hand to go numb and it's especially painful at night, making it hard to sleep. But anyway, with this being our last event for the summer, I can fully rest it for a while now and get everything properly checked out.

We came 4th overall, and were the top all female team. Congratulations to Sam and Ian in 3rd, Jen and John in 2nd, and Kristen and Matt in 1st! I really can't say enough how I love this fleet - competitive and pushing each other on the water, and helping each other out and sharing knowledge off the water. I have so much respect for my competitors. Serious, fun, and serious fun!

Thank you to CORK for running excellent races - I've never had a RC adjust the windward mark so perfectly.

A huge thank you to CleverPig/Southport Sailing Foundation for their support. Please check out www.cleverpig.org for campaign resources and my campaign page here.

Also, thank you to the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation, their support made it possible for us to travel and compete in Kingston. We are so grateful to both foundations - sailing seriously during college while trying to save money for our futures is a challenge but generous donors truly make it possible!

This wraps up my skiff sailing for the summer. I was so fortunate to sail not only with Katy but also Max and Ashlen who both taught me a lot. I managed to put in a lot of time on the water this summer, racing or training every single weekend and most weeks in between. College sailing has raised my tactical game which helped at all the regattas.

All in all I came 2nd at 29er Nationals with Max, 2nd at 29er North Americans with Katy, 4th at 29erXX Nationals with Ashlen, and 4th at 29erXX North Americans with Katy. Eight days straight in the Gorge whooped me into shape so I can't wait for the fall college sailing season!

-Helena

Day 4 29erXX North Americans

2011-08-22T16:37:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we sailed out to the course but soon enough, thunderstorms rolled through and we could see the lightning over the land, not to mention hearing the ominous thunder! So needless to say we sailed back in and didn't get any racing in.

Yesterday and today we had 10-16 knots, starting with 10 and building throughout the day. Yesterday a couple of squalls rolled through which were pretty crazy and brought some rain. Both days were all about playing the shifts - there were some pretty significant ones and riding them the wrong way could really set you back.

We played really good first beats today and were often the top 2 to the windward mark. We led the first race all around the course today but lost 4 places on the downwind leg by not gybing out early enough to catch the big puff that the boats behind us did, which was tactically stupid on our part since all we had to do was cover. We won the second race to make up for it though! Once the wind picked up we continued to play the course pretty well overall, hanging with heavier teams by thinking hard about when and where to tack. Hitting the pin third race cost us another four boats as we doused the kite, circled, and re-crossed the finish line. But apart from these mistakes, overall it was a good day and our energy was still up, even after a total of 6 races today!

Tomorrow first start is at 10am, so we'll probably do 2 more normal races before the final medal race (counts for double points and is not discardable). It's supposed to be mid 20s tomorrow!

Day 1 29erXX North Americans

2011-08-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

We are currently in 4th place after the first day at 29erXX North Americans in Kingston, Ontario.

Today was the first day of five here at the CORK OCR. We had 8-10 knots for the first race and 10-15 for the next three races. The racecourse was quite choppy so moving weight fore and aft was really key. Our scores were 2-6-4-3.

Unfortunately somehow our kite got pulled under the boat on the first hoist of the second race (I think we heeled too much in the bearaway and the kite got sucked into the water) so we went from 3rd to capsized and then fought our way back into the race. The finish of the third and fourth races were super close, with three boats crossing the line within just a couple feet of each other. We were the last of the tight pack in the third race but in the fourth race we just beat one boat of the pack. This fleet is so exciting; boats are changing places right up to the end.

2nd overall at 29er North Americans

2011-08-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Katy and I finished second overall here in Kingston, just 4 points out of first place. The wind finally arrived for the last day of racing as it was 12-15 for all three races today! The waves stacked up on Lake Ontario which was definitely fun, especially downwind.

Some keys for us were good starts (which we nailed more than ever before!), fine tuning our boom vang for the puffs and lulls, and communicating about pressure.

We are really proud of our consistency because we finished first or second in all twelve races except for one 4th place in the last (and windiest) race today.

Tyler and Mike won with 11 pts, we had 15 pts, and Emily and Lauren in third had 32 pts.

Congratulations boys!

The CORK Olympic Class Regatta starts on Friday so tomorrow we will rig up the 29erXX - can't wait!

Tied for 1st going into the last day of racing!

2011-08-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of the CORK 29er North Americans, which means we have one more day to fight for first place!

We are tied with Tyler and Mike at 11 pts over 9 races. Today our finishes were 1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1, so we have never finished worse than second in a race.

2nd after 2 days at 29er North Americans so far

2011-08-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

Today (Tuesday, Day 2) at 29er North Americans in Kingston, Ontario was uneventful. We were on the water from 11:30 am until 3:15 pm when they abandoned racing for the day due to extremely shifty breeze all day.

This leaves us in 2nd overall so far, just one point behind our good friends Tyler Macdonald and Mike Deady (USA).

We had a great day yesterday, posting 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 in our qualifying fleet! (There were two randomly split fleets of 25 boats). It was 8-10 knots all day. Katy and I haven't sailed the 29er together since Youth Champs last August, but it all came back to her and we were hardly thinking about boathandling which allowed us to focus on sailing the course. I felt like we got off the line well and nailed almost all the shifts - always a good feeling!

Tomorrow and Thursday we will be racing in Gold fleet (top 25), gunning for first place. All the points from the qualifying round carry over and after two more races (total of 6) we will get one throwout.

Then starting on Saturday is the CORK OCR where we will be racing the 29erXX for five days.

Thank you to the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation and to the Southport Sailing Foundation/CleverPig for your incredible support.

Here's to more wind tomorrow! (and hopefully some cool GoPro footage too!)

4th Place at 29erXX Nationals!

2011-08-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

29erXX Nationals was yet another spectacular skiff regatta held by the Columbia Gorge Racing Association (CGRA). On the beginning of the last day, second, third, and fourth place were all within 3 points of each other, showing how close and competitive this fleet is. Plus, with 25 knots and the occasional but entirely possible capsize, it was always exciting – anything could happen.

I crewed for Ashlen Rooklyn from Sydney, Australia. Occasionally understanding Ash was a challenge, but I learned a lot of Aussie words! We practiced in Cascade Locks for five days before taking a day off to rest before the regatta. These five days were so helpful as we gradually found some fast rig settings and figured out our timing in maneuvers, having never sailed together before. My friend Alex Maloney (who I met at Europeans in Spain last summer) came all the way from New Zealand for this regatta with her crew Molly and coach/dad Jim. Jen and Matt, Kristen and Charlie, and Alex

and Molly were awesome training partners. Having Jim to help us with rig settings and give us feedback from outside the boat was really helpful!

Unfortunately before and during the regatta we had a few breakages, courtesy of the Gorge conditions of course. One day our jib halyard broke, the next our main halyard broke, then after rounding the windward mark in 1^st part of our tack line snapped! We had some issues with our spinnaker halyard slipping which was really annoying.

Throughout the training time and the regatta I learned a lot more about rig settings, anticipating gusts (the Gorge is really puffy), and working waves downwind in medium and heavy air. Also main trim is something I continue to work on all the time.

Congratulations to Kristen Lane and Charlie McKee, the first ever US 29erXX National Champs! Also congrats to Alex and Molly for 2^nd and Jen and Matt for 3^rd.

What I love about this fleet is how we are all sharing information about rig settings, boat handling, etc. and therefore we’re all improving much faster than we would individually.

Thank you to CGRA for running a seamless event, to Zhik for event sponsorship, to Ian for everything, and to Oliver Scutt, Sean Trew, and Jan Anderson for super photos.

Katy and I are on our way to CORK in Kingston, Ontario to sail the 29er North Americans (Aug 15 – 18) and the 29erXX North Americans (Aug 20-24) thanks to the support of the Southport Sailing Foundation/CleverPig and the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation.

More photos here!

Second Place at 29er Nationals!

2011-07-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

29er Nationals in Coronado (San Diego) was a great success. I crewed for my friend Max Fraser from Santa Cruz who has won three 29er Nationals in the past. Conditions were unreal – a moderate 12-14 knots for each and every one of the fourteen races, plus flat water (except for some motorboat wake). The race committee was awesome, they got starts off fast which is always nice for skiff sailors.

I had never sailed with Max until the afternoon before the regatta, but we each have so many hours in the boat that it all went smoothly and was really fun. I learned a lot from his starting technique (accelerate just before those around you!) and downwind tactics, particularly at the finish line where we caught many boats.

I coached a clinic with Max and Pike Harris a few days before the event to get the newer sailors up to speed. We had 10 boats on the first day and 12 by the second. There were more new teams than I’ve ever seen at a Nationals which is really exciting for the class. Many sailors were straight out of Optis (really good Opti sailors at that) and I’m pretty sure they’re totally hooked!

Congratulations to Scott Buckstaff and James Moody for winning the event! Also I am really proud of Annie Schmidt and Marly Isler for crushing the boys, especially on the windy last day!

Thank you to Coronado Yacht Club, in particular Jill Powell for her unrelenting food production, Jon Rogers for helping with the clinic, and Commodore Mark Warner for his generosity.

Next up – 29erXX Nationals in the Gorge, Aug 5 – 7!

- Helena

29erXX Training in the Gorge

2011-07-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend and five days of the previous week 29erXX sailing in the Gorge to train for 29erXX Nationals in early August. I sailed with Katy for five days and then with Jen last weekend. It was really windy last week but only 10 knots the next weekend. Katy and I greatly improved our tacking technique (coming out with windward heel and mainsheet eased in breeze) and I'm pretty happy with my sets, although I will never be totally satisfied because they can always be faster.

Thanks to Jen and Matt and Kristen and Charlie for training with us!

I am really looking forward to 29erXX Nationals at one of the best venues in North America.

I'm on my way to Coronado, CA to coach a pre-Nationals clinic and then sail 29er Nationals with Max Fraser. Can't wait for the hot weather, Seattle hasn't been dealing the summer sunshine recently!

-Helena

Coaching 29er Nationals Clinic

2011-07-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

I will be one of four coaches at the tune-up clinic before 29er Nationals in Coronado, July 22-24. The clinic is at the venue on Tuesday and Wednesday before the event so it will be great practice. I'm really looking forward to helping out the newer teams and particularly the girls.

Max Fraser, Jon Rogers, and Pike Harris are the other coaches.

I'll be sailing Nationals with Max, the defending National champion and three-time winner. No pressure!

Helena

CleverPig Sailing Team

2011-05-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

We are proud to announce that we are now members of the CleverPig Sailing Team!

Thank you to CleverPig and the Southport Sailing Foundation for your generous support helping us compete this summer. We are looking forward to training hard and racing in the Columbia Gorge, San Diego, and Kingston, Ontario this summer!

If you haven't heard of CleverPig (get it - "cunningham," cunning ham?), it's a racing resource site that helps youth sailors with their campaigns.

Our CleverPig page is here.

School is almost over and I'm going to Team Race Nationals next weekend in the Columbia Gorge, one of my favorite places to sail in the world. After that, it's finals and then back to Seattle to start summer training! Can't wait!

Women's High Performance Skiff Selected for 2016 Olympics!

2011-05-07T10:07:00.001-07:00

ISAF has chosen the Women's High Performance Skiff as one of the 10 events for the 2016 Olympics!

The equipment is yet to be chosen. The 29erXX is a big contender.

Out are both keelboat events: the Star and Women's Match Racing. It is a shame to see WMR go because a lot of great sailors have taken up this class recently. I hope that their world circuit continues to solidify and grow over time because they have a great thing going.

Thank you to Jen Morgan Glass for her incredible efforts to make this happen. I don't know if this would have happened without her.

29erXX video!

2011-04-28T19:37:00.001-07:00

Here's some 29erXX bow cam footage from last weekend at Richmond YC! Speeeeed!

http://vimeo.com/22901550?ab

Successful 29erXX Invasion of SF Bay!

2011-04-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

Seven 29erXXs took charge of the bay out of Richmond Yacht Club this past weekend! Coach Dan Brandt led us through drills to work on accelerations, bear aways, sets and douses, and practice races. We saw varying breeze, from 3 knots to a little over 15 in puffs on Saturday.

I sailed with Ian Andrewes which was really fun - having more weight than Katy on the wire (not hard to do!) was nice in the breeze. However, we agreed that since the 29erXX is so weight sensitive, especially fore and aft, having the skipper be lighter than the crew is better for balance.
Our straightline speed was great, but the maneuvers were hardest. Gybes aren't too bad, I think tacks are the trickiest because you really have to nail the rate of turn, keep the main in, and keep weight forward.

Next for the 29erXX is a demo clinic during collegiate women's nationals in Cascade Locks, Oregon. College sailing is in full swing so it was nice to hop back in a skiff for the weekend.
Thank you to Kristen Lane, Jen Morgan Glass, Dan Brandt, and Richmond Yacht Club for an epic weekend!

CleverPig.org Page up!

2011-04-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Check out our new CleverPig.org page -

http://www.cleverpig.org/29erxx/

CleverPig is a great resource for sailing campaigns.

Enjoy!

- Helena

29erXX Superbowl Wrap-up

2011-02-07T14:32:00.001-08:00

After only one race on Sunday due to light air, we placed 4th at the 2011 29erXX Superbowl! We're really pleased with this result because we proved to ourselves that even after months of not being able to sail together (or even sail in a skiff), we still have it in us to get right back into it and perform well. Just 2 points out of third place, the fleet was close this weekend and we're competing against Olympians, professional sailors, and teams that have been practicing together a lot recently. For us to hang with them and even beat them is great for us.

Our race team coach from high school, Ben Glass, was coaching at the event and said that our tactical game has improved immensely. I think this comes from our skiff sailing over the summer, especially in larger fleets like at Europeans and US Nationals, and also from my college sailing this past fall. Skiffs are tactical boats where big gains can be made by keeping your head out of the boat, especially downwind.

Congratulations to Paris and Hans Henken, the winners of the regatta, who won all but the last race! We love you guys! Congratulations to Jen and Mallory and Silja and

Miksu as well.

We owe a lot to the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation for their incredible support, without them it would be near impossible for us to run a campaign while in college. Thanks to the SYCF for helping to cover our expenses.

A huge thank you to Jen for all her work pulling the regatta together, to PS2000 for a superb charter boat, and to Matt for housing and feeding us. To Seiko and Zhik, thank you for supporting the class and helping us make the event happen.

Great photos by Fried Elliot here (the photos are purchased)

Full results here

Also, Happy 19th Birthday to Katy!! You're the best!

-Helena

Day 2 29erXX Superbowl Miami

2011-02-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

Today we had wind!

I can barely type, my hands are pretty raw - not enough sailing in the past few weeks! But it was a super fun day, double-trapping all the time. We even had a gnarly pitchpole on the last run of the third race and I have a cut on my shin to prove that I hit the forestay!

We started off the day with a 2nd in race 1, the lightest race of the day. The next race we suffered from our start and missed a couple of shifts, finishing in 5th in race 2. The third race we were in 4th before pitchpoling in a huge set of motorboat waves. Being overstood and then getting a big puff didn't help our cause and soon enough I was flying off the front and Katy was bailing out the back. I wish we had GoPro footage! The final race we finished in 4th. By then the wind was about 14 knots and there was a lot of residual chop from motorboats.

The hardest parts of today were the sets, keeping the bow from digging in the chop upwind, and not losing a lot of speed in the tacks. Another thing we have to practice is jibe-douses. But considering we haven't been able to sail together in the past few months and hardly been able to sail skiffs, we're really happy with how fast everything came back to us and how well we are doing.

We have moved from tied for 3rd to 4th place overall, just 4 points out of 2nd and 2 points out of 3rd. Tomorrow is the last day, with 3 races scheduled.

Gotta love the pink sails and the turquoise water :)

- Helena

Day 1 29erXX Superbowl Miami

2011-02-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day of racing here in Miami at the 2nd annual 29erXX Superbowl. I cannot explain how amazing it is to be back in a skiff, especially the 29erXX and especially with Katy, after so long. Throw in some Miami heat and sunshine and it doesn't get much better :)

Coconut Grove Sailing Club is hosting a very smooth event, we only wish there was a bit more wind. Today it was mostly one-trapeze conditions, a lot of balancing and really trying to avoid windward heel. The third race was windiest and we were both on the wire for a bit.

Race 1 was our best, we finished 2nd behind Paris and Hans and there was a big gap between us and 3rd place. We had a good start and only tacked twice on the first beat plus two quick tacks at the windward mark, so that helped our speed.

Race 2 was definitely our worst, we finished in 7th. We tacked out early at the start, putting us on the opposite tack from the rest of the fleet. We should have tacked back onto starboard a lot earlier because the whole fleet gained on us and we just fell behind. We gained on both downwind legs but not quite enough to pass the pack.

Race 3 we rebounded and finished 3rd. Our start wasn't great but we played both upwinds really well, rounding the first windward mark in 3rd. Downwind we were passed by two boats but got them back on the second upwind. I'm glad we ended the day well.

Results link

Tomorrow's schedule is for 4 races, and then 3 on Sunday. Time to go edit some GoPro footage - wish there was more wind to make it more exciting, but stay tuned!

Thanks to sponsors Seiko, West Coast Sailing, and Full Plane!

-Helena

Seattle YC One-Design Sailors of the Year!

2010-12-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

We have been named Seattle Yacht Club's One-Design Sailors of the Year for 2010!

This is a great honor especially as we are junior sailors.

Thank you to the Seattle Yacht Club, the Race Team, and our coach from the start, Ben Glass.

Helena wins Top Female Crew of the Maxam Trophy Series!

2010-11-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

Helena won the Top Female Crew award for 2010 in the Maxam Trophy Series, aka the Pacific Coast Championship Series
This award is based on competing in the PCC series which consisted of 7 events. Skippers and crews are scored individually in each event. Our good friends Max Fraser and David Liebenberg won the overall series - congratulations guys! Also congratulations to Paris Henken for top female skipper. We love you Paris!
Thank you to Sailing Pro Shop and Magic Marine, to Coronado Yacht Club for their help with organizing the tallies, to the Maxam family for their continued support, and to StFYC, CGRA, SBYC, CBYC, and ABYC for hosting PCC series events.

Fall Wrap-up, Full Plane Sponsorship, and Looking Ahead

2010-11-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

After a whole summer together, being apart for two months (at colleges in different states) this fall has been really weird but we are both managing to fit sailing into our crazy schedules and we are looking forward to being reunited and sailing over Thanksgiving!

Between homework and actually flying planes(!!) at flight school, Katy went 29erXX sailing in Seattle for a weekend and then squeezed in another weekend in Victoria, BC. 29erXX promotion is hard work!

I have been sailing more than ever - specifically college sailing in FJs on the Stanford sailing team.
I love all my team members to death and we are very lucky as a team with our support and resources. Flying to the east coast for several regattas in September and October was hectic but I have improved so much.

I know that I can bring my new knowledge of tactics to improve my skiff sailing. I have my 29er and 29erXX rig here at the Stanford boathouse and managed to squeeze in some XX training with teammates Oliver Toole (49er Development Team member) and Eliza Richartz.

Exciting news - we're stoked to be new team riders for Full Plane! Full Plane, of San Diego, CA, makes the most comfortable wetsuits around.

Check out their website and our bios here:

Katy / Helena

If you're reading this, you probably know and love Full Plane, so become a fan on Facebook!

Our next event together is the second annual 29erXX Superbowl in Miami, Feb 4-6. We will be going two days early for the pre-regatta clinic. After a fall apart (at school), we can't wait to get back in the XX and RACE!

Finally, congratulations to the 2011 Development Team! We are really excited to see the next generation fulfill their potential this coming year as the 2010 team moves on - guys to the 49er and us girls to the 29erXX. Hopefully the 29erXX will secure its spot in the 2016 Olympics and soon enough the US will have to make a 29erXX slot on the Development Team :)

Happy Thanksgiving,
Helena

A Photo of the Week on Sailing Scuttlebutt!

2010-08-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

Here we are in the Gorge... made it as one of the photos of the week on Sailing Scuttlebutt! Thanks Dad for the photo!

Successful 29er 101 Clinic!

2010-08-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend we coached a 29er 101 clinic at Sail Sand Point on Lake Washington. All the teams made great improvements and were looking a lot more comfortable in the boat by the third day! We worked on trapezing technique, rigging tricks, sail controls, mark roundings, and general boathandling. Off the water we talked a lot about tensions, sail setup and shape, and boat preparation.

The conditions could not have been better for beginners - 8 to 15 knots the whole weekend - plus, really warm fresh water and not a cloud in the sky the whole time. Mt. Rainier was stunning the whole weekend too!

Thanks to Jonathan, Dave, Alex, Kelsie, Katie, and Ryan for coming from Bellingham (WA), Portland (OR), and everywhere in between! Most of all, thank you to Sail Sand Point for hosting, it would not be possible without them.

If you are interested in private coaching or perhaps even a clinic, contact us at cenname.scutt (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks!

Seattle 29er 101 Clinic!

2010-08-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

Seattle 29er 101 Clinic!

If you want to give the 29er a try, this clinic is for you. No skiff experience necessary.

You don't need a skipper/crew, you don't need a harness, and you don't even need a boat! We'll even provide lunch and snacks! All you need to bring is sailing gear and a water bottle.

The focus of this clinic will be rigging tips and boat-handling, but fun is the priority. Our goal is to make the learning curve less steep so that you can go fast, faster. This is a great way to prepare for the Junior Olympics at Shilshole the following weekend.

Hosted by Sail Sand Point (Lake Washington is warm!).

Friday August 13: 5 PM

Saturday August 14: 10 AM - 4 PM

Sunday August 15: 10 AM - 4 PM

Cost is $80 per person for the whole weekend (14+ hours of coaching).

Coaches: Katy Cenname and Helena Scutt are members of the 29er US Sailing Development Team. We have competed in the 2009 and 2010 Worlds, 2010 Europeans, and recently placed 9th at US Nationals. We are US Sailing Level One Certified and instruct at Sail Sand Point.

Act fast - Space is limited to ensure plenty of time in the boat and coaching attention. Sign up by emailing your name, age, and phone number to cenname.scutt@gmail.com.

6th place at US Youth Championships

2010-08-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

After almost 24 hours of driving, we made it back to Seattle after our almost 3-week California road trip! The US Youth Championships was a great regatta to wrap up our whirlwind summer.

Here's evidence of us winning a start on the last day! We were bow out on everyone (with the West Coast Sailing logo at the boat end).

We placed 6th out of 13 boats. The fleet was really strong this year; it is fantastic to see such a high level of skiff sailing here in the US.

The conditions were a few knots lighter on average than at Nationals, and on the final day we had two light air races in the morning before the wind really filled in. The kelp was still abundant though! We had longer days than at Nationals. Day 1 we sailed 5 races of two laps each, Day 2 we sailed 5 races of 3 laps each (exhausting!), and Day 3 we sailed two races of 3 laps and 2 races of 2 laps.

Our best finish was 2nd in the final race - we were leading around the top mark in the final lap and sailed really hard in the final run but Antoine and James (winners of the regatta for the second year in a row) caught us by just a few feet at the finish. It was awesome to end in such an intense race! Congratulations to Antoine and James for sailing a really consistent regatta!

Results

The 29er fleet coach was Frank Ustach who will be my assistant coach for Stanford sailing next year. I'm looking forward to college sailing but not so sure about sailing slow boats! ;) Congratulations to my future Stanford sailing teammate Mateo Vargas for winning the Laser Radial fleet!

On that note, Katy and I wrapped up our 29er regatta season for the most part. We are coaching a 29er clinic in Seattle this weekend to energize the Northwest fleet, but other than that and our summer practices, our 29er campaign together will be resumed next summer!

Thank you to West Coast Sailing and the SYC Foundation for making this possible and thank you to US Sailing and the Youth Champs Committee for a superb regatta. Also, we could not have done it without our host families throughout the trip: the Frasers, the Toole family, the Bogerts, the Henkens, the Macdonalds, and the Raskis. We are so lucky to have such generous friends and fellow sailors!

Top Female Team at US Nationals!

2010-07-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

We had a great regatta at the 29er US National Championships in Cabrillo Beach YC in San Pedro last weekend. Out of 30 boats, we placed 9th overall, and 3rd place Youth team and 1st place Female team. The water was flat and the wind was between 12 and 20 knots all weekend. Our best races were two 4th places. The keys were to stay flat, put on a lot of vang, and more importantly, avoid catching kelp! We have new purple Progrip on our boat so we got to stare at that all day. Thanks to West Coast Sailing for the new sails!

Next weekend is the US Youth Championships at the same venue. It will be a really competitive regatta but we feel confident with our recent results in Spain and at Nationals!

Congratulations to Max and David, the National Champions once again, and to Sterling and Hans for placing as top Youth team. The level of the fleet gets better and better.

29er Europeans = Success!

2010-07-08T23:28:00.001-07:00

Apologies for the late update, Katy and I just returned from Costa Brava, Spain, where the internet was just about the only thing that wasn't perfect. The sunshine, the medium wind, the warm water, the sandy beach, plus 114 boats... doesn't get much better.

We finished 8th in silver fleet, putting us in 33rd place out of 114 boats overall. 18th place youth team (under 18 years), 7th female team, and 4th youth female team! Results here

This is the result of lots and lots of practice, both at home in Seattle and around the country, mainly Southern California and Miami. It was hard to keep focused with the distractions of school, graduation, and everything else, but it paid off. I think we've come a long way in our boathandling and boatspeed, thanks to the CISA and US Sailing Development Team clinics. Our fitness is better than ever thanks to the Development Team clinic at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. But most of all, we trained hard throughout the whole winter. I sailed with several different people (Miami clinic with Tyler, Worlds with Jen, Midwinters West and clinic with Julia, Miami clinic and 29erXX with Paris) which I think was key in overcoming a sort of skill "plateau". So when I came back to sail with Katy after a month or two, we both noticed a marked improvement.

Back to Spain - the venue was a campsite called La Ballena Alegre, 100 miles north of Barcelona, so we were sailing on the Mediterranean. We shared an awesome Danish coach, Kasper Paulsen, with the rest of the US 29er Development Team (James + Antoine, Mac + Timmy, Finn + Alek, plus Chanel + CC) for 6 days of training plus one lay day (spent touring Barcelona). After a practice day my wrist really hurt and I couldn't use it at all so I took the next day off and went to the doctor. Fortunately that seemed to do the trick and it didn't hurt later on, but it made me appreciate being in good form which I usually take for granted.

The event started on July 1 with two days of qualifying and three days of the final series.

Qualifying - two randomly assigned fleets of 56 boats each, a total of seven races. We were in 37th place at the end of the two days after finishing 13 - 16 - 28 - 15 on July 1 in medium air, then 30 - 25 - 16 on July 2 in heavy air (18 knots).

Final Series - July 3 was 8-12 knots that helped us finish 11 - 6 - 7 out of 30 boats in silver fleet. Good day!

July 4 (!!) - a thunderstorm rolled through which prevented us from sailing. I did, however, attract many hungry sailors to our bungalow for my famous homemade crepes with Nutella! We kept up the American spirit with red white and blue everything, even painting our faces and stomachs.

July 5 - the final day of racing was tough. The breeze filled in from the north (as opposed to the usual easterly) so it was shiftier and therefore more tactical. We finished 12 - 14 - 22 out of 30 boats in silver fleet. In the first race we caught at least 10 boats in the last downwind leg - phew!

Our starts improved and they were decent considering that the Europeans' small 29er regattas are bigger than North America's largest. We used to have bad starts and fight our way through the fleet, but now with better starts we obviously position ourselves better for the whole race. There were lots of general recalls, I flags, and even the black flag a couple of times.

It was great to be able to watch the other fleets race from the beach. The steady wind and flat water (except for the windy day when waves were a meter high!) made for prime skiff conditions.

We made lots of European friends - British, Danish, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Norwegian, and even some Kiwis. Some fun highlights: seeing the F.C. Barcelona Stadium and La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, making whirlpools in the pools at the campsite, beating British boys at football (soccer) on the beach, watching World Cup games surrounded by diehard Germans, challenging the French to a volleyball game, a delicious team dinner in L'Escala, devouring Vicky's chicken pasta dinner, showing the Europeans what Fourth of July is all about, a visit from Leandro and the I420 team, and a couple of midnight dips in the ocean.

Congratulations to Annemiek and Kaj of the Netherlands - new European champions! We wish good luck to all the teams competing in the 29erXX Europeans (at the same venue in Spain) but we know they'll have fun no matter what.

Thanks to Kelsie, our "boat girl," for sticking with us and always boosting our mood. Hella Nutella. :)

Thank you to the generous SYC Foundation for their support of us for this regatta. Their support of Seattle youth sailors is so admirable. The same goes to West Coast Sailing whose support ensures we're always set to race hard with the right equipment. Also thank you Tom and Sue Scutt and to US Sailing for their trailer support. Photo cred to friedbits.com and Kelsie Pickle.

Up next: Cascade Locks "The Gorge" for the Pacific Coast Championship this weekend, then leaving next weekend for US Nationals and US Youth Champs in Cabrillo Beach, CA.

Spain-bound: 29er Europeans

2010-06-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we leave for Costa Brava, Spain! We are so excited to return to Europe this summer. Our boat has already arrived at the venue (Club de Vela La Ballena Alegre) and our coach Kasper, from Denmark, will arrive the same day as we do. Most of our US teammates have already arrived there too. We'll have a week of training including two days of measurement before the racing starts on July 1 (through July 5).

The venue has thermal winds starting at noon of about 10-20 knots. There will be no current and small and short waves, so the conditions will make for fast sailing! There are 113 boats so competition will be intense!

Event website: http://www.29ereuropeans.org/

We'll try to update as often as we can but computer and internet access may be unpredictable.

Thanks to Nick Scutt, T&S Scutt, Sailboat Deliveries Ltd, and Stephanie Aird for making this happen. Of course, thanks to West Coast Sailing too - their logo on our mainsail will make us easy to spot in photos! And a huge thank you to the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation for their gracious support of this regatta in particular.

29erXX.com

2010-05-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Follow the 29erXX action (new, events, where to buy, etc) at www.29erXX.com
Bookmark it!

Thanks to Jen Glass for awesome work!

Winners of the Seattle NOOD!

2010-05-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

On home (Shilshole) waters, Team Cenname/Scutt won the "29er/Open Skiff" fleet at the Seattle NOOD last weekend!

We were competing against 5 other 29ers as well as a few International Canoes, Musto Skiffs, and Swift Solos (all singlehanded), finishing 1st out of 13 boats. It was a good challenge for us because those other skiffs are faster than us upwind so when we were ahead of the other 29ers we focused on chasing down those other skiffs. Out of the 29ers, we won 6 races, got 2nd in one race, and 3rd in one race.

The wind was light (always below 8 knots) so therefore current was a big factor, especially in the afternoon when we had a strong flood. I think our thoughtful decisions on playing sides of the courses really helped us. The other key was picking up on the small oscillations in breeze direction. Being on the right side of a couple of those shifts gave us huge gains on the long upwind legs.

We were really pleased with our performance - everything was controlled, smooth, and seemed to "click". We felt that our starts were good (full speed off the line is really important in light air - don't waste any time/distance accelerating) but most importantly we talked about even single tack, gybe, or other decision and it showed in the gains we made. This was the first time I worked on gybing in front of the mast. It does really help keep momentum in very light air gybes though. Towards the bottom of the course there was motorboat wake and I moved my upper body fore and aft to help surf the small waves downwind when possible.

Thank you to the Canadian 29ers that made the trek southward and to SYC and CYC.

One month from now we leave for Spain, so fitness training and quality time on the water are our priorities!

Helena

29erXX Hangtime in Seattle

2010-05-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

Gotta love the double trapeze!

On May 7 and 8th we had some "Hangtime" right here in Seattle at Shilshole. We were lucky to have Paris came up from Coronado, CA and Erin, Jessica, and Anne came down from Victoria BC to sail the 29erXX with us. With our boat, the Canadian boat, and Jen's, we had three 29erXX's to do some tuning and boat handling drills with. The sun cooperated and the wind was great on Friday, good on Saturday, and nonexistent on Sunday (a plot by our mothers so we'd have to spend time with them on Mother's Day!).

One valuable thing was the chance to look at the sail shape (especially the leech) from a motorboat behind the boat. We found that the sails look flatter in the boat than they actually are.

The West Coast 29erXX fleet is growing fast. This is a really exciting time for the class all around the world. Stay tuned for more from the 29erXX - hopefully the new Olympic class for women in Rio 2016. Fan the 29erXX Facebook page for updates!

Helena

CISA Video & Interview

2010-05-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

We are featured in Jacqueline Schmitz's excellent video compilation of the CISA clinic in Vimeo.

Hear Helena at 1 min 30 sec and check out the aerial shots and video!

Thanks Jacqueline!

CISA Clinic 2010

2010-04-13T02:26:00.001-07:00

CISA was an awesome clinic, once again. With fitness in the morning, sailing for at least 4 hours, and classroom lectures, we were exhausted each day, but the quality of the coaches and enthusiasm of the other sailors kept us motivated.
The 29er fleet had 11 boats and 3 coaches - Zack Maxam, Charlie McKee, and Cameron Biehl. Graham Biehl also joined us on Thursday.

Days 1 & 2 - Boathandling and Boat speed

We did layline drills, 4 boat tuning, and many practice races. The lumpy waves improved our technique in both chop and swell and made us more aware of fore-aft placement. Even downwind, once you get out of the fast “ripping” mode you need to quickly transition into weight forward mode in order to make the most of the momentum that waves can give you.

Coaches have been emphasizing concentration, 100% focus, and the importance of making quick decisions. Decide and learn from it, don’t just go with the flow and mindlessly sail the course.

I have a lot more notes but those are the biggest points… good stuff happens with lots of boats, lots of coaches, some breeze, and sunshine.

It was great to really be able to focus on tactics and strategy on Day 3, usually clinics are focused on building the boathandling but since everyone was at a decent level we were able to move into strategy.

Day 4 – Racing
Katy and I had our ups and downs. We found the waves to be okay until the wind really dropped off and then we found it really difficult since we’ve never practiced in that.
The strategy discussion from the day before helped in one particular instance – we were on starboard downwind, Antoine and Hans were a fair distance ahead of us. Since there was no one behind us for a safe distance, I remembered Charlie emphasizing gybing before the others ahead, so we made the call and gybed. We ended up catching one or two boats at the finish that I know we would not have made gains on by simply following.

Thank you to CISA, Jerelyn Biehl, Andrew Campbell - CISA clinic director, our coaches, and the Macdonald family for hosting us and so many other CISA sailors. We would not be where we are without CISA's support.

29erXX Hangtime in Coronado

2010-04-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Spring break was dedicated to 29er training. After 2 days of Midwinters West, 2 days of our Development Team clinic with Willie, and 1 day off (tried to go surfing, but no good break), it was time for four glorious days of 29erXX sailing! We each stayed in Coronado for our whole spring breaks even though they were different weeks. But, during the weekend of overlap, we arranged for some 29erXX "Hangtime". (Katy even went 49er sailing twice - yeaaah!)

San Diego's South Bay gave us ideal weather for sailors new to the XX rig to learn fast. Flat water and about 12-15 knots = perfection.

We worked on the mechanics of wire-to-wire tacks and jibes, speed tuning, and then the last day was 'race day' which was incredibly close and very competitive, even with teams switching crew etc.

Paris had just bought her rig and I really wanted to get her going in it. We also had Jen Glass's rig and mine down there - the first time 3 29erXXs have been in one place on the West Coast!
Paris picked it up incredibly fast. So did Zach Downing, a new 29er sailor from the area. Kristen Lane solidified her skills from the Miami Superbowl regatta in February, and we finally got Jerelyn Biehl, Int'l 29er class CEO, out sailing with her son Graham, US Sailing Team Alphagraphics member (470).

All there really is to say is that there's nothing better than high performance boats, some sunshine, and genuine people out sailing fast. Being a part of the 29erXX movement on the cutting edge is really something special.

Thank you to Jen Glass, Ian Andrewes, Kaitlin Driscoll, Tamra, Ed, Paris, Sterling, and Hans Henken, Peter and Kristen Lane, Jerelyn and Graham Biehl, and Zach, Tracy, and John Downing. What an awesome group!

We're working on some more 29erXX Hangtime up here in Seattle - May 8-9. Let us know if you are interested!
- Helena

29er Clinic with Willie McBride

2010-04-13T01:03:00.001-07:00

For the two days immediately after 29er Midwinters West, Willie McBride (of Santa Barbara, an accomplished 29er sailor currently campaigning in the 470) coached Julia Paxton and I as well as fellow Development Team members Mac Agnese and Timmy Zenderman. Only having two boats was actually quite ideal because we got a lot of individual attention to address our weaknesses.

Coronado gave us the typical, beautiful conditions for practice - sun and a light to medium breeze. This was a really valuable clinic because not only did Willie give us tips on the water, but also tools and drills so we can continue practicing at home.

I worked on light air gybes, mainly easing the kite as far out as possible before the gybe and pulling the kite over as fast as possible. We did a blindfolded drill which really helped me understand my feel on the kite. I also figured out my ideal foot placement in tacks which was something I really wanted to solidify.

Here are some drills – great for one-boat practice at home:
Rudderless
Crew – trapeze on one leg, or pull up high on trap wire and focus on main trim
Windward heel
Blindfolded
"Kill the crew" (lots of sets and douses)
Slalom around set of 4-5 buoys
5 circle (360) races
Kinetics race
Singlehanding

Thank you to Willie, the Henken family for hosting Julia and I, and Coronado YC for the kind use of the motorboat.

-Helena

Two-page spread in Sailing World!

2010-03-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

Check out the April edition of Sailing World, pages 12 and 13!

There's a quality up-close photo of us 29erXX sailing in Lake Garda, Italy last summer accompanied by an article with an interview of Jen Glass. The 29erXX is everywhere! Whoohoo!

29er Midwinters West 2010

2010-03-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

29er Midwinters West - Coronado Yacht Club, San Diego - March 27-29

from Helena, crewing for Julia Paxton

Even though we could not sail on Friday because of school, Julia and I finished 7th last weekend, out of 23 boats. We had a really fun time and are pleased with our performance, having all races in the top 10 except for our first race on Saturday (11th place). South Bay delivered with sunshine all the time and breeze (mostly).

Saturday: The first race was light and lumpy, with big (> 90 degree) shifts, so there’s not much consistent info to take from this race other than keep your mind open. The rest of the day, however, we saw anywhere between 3-12 knots.
On starts, the line wasn’t excessively crowded so I felt like it was more about having good timing and technique with the acceleration in order to poke your bow out in front before you got buried.

One of our weaknesses was working through the slop (mostly motorboat wake). The key is keeping smooth with the movements that you can control.
Another trouble spot was downwind. Often I was on the trap, knees bent, but I felt like the boat was coming over on top of me and the only way to stop that was to head up drastically to the point where VMG was decreased because our angle was so high. I think this comes down to recognizing the transition stages (in this case, medium to light air). Staying forward in the boat, both upwind and downwind, was important.

Sunday: With slightly more breeze overall, our focus was on keeping the boat as flat as possible and alternating between pointing mode and bow-down, “fast forward” mode. Being able to execute each mode at any time and transition effectively between each mode is key.

I know I can work on fine-tuning the vang adjustments and playing it more often in the upwind legs. This involves communicating with the skipper because in the lighter air they will be the one pulling it on, even though the crew should have a better feel for it in the main and a better view of the overall sail shape as well.

Thank you to David Shaner for driving the boats down, fantastically fun Julia for sailing with me, Stacy Childers for the photos, Jon Rogers and Coronado YC for hosting the regatta, and the Henken family for having us!

I'm down in Coronado for the rest of the week training with some of the Development Team and then 29erXX training later this week. A productive spring break!

Olympic rings at Colorado Springs

2010-03-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

Eat, lecture, 2-3 hour workout/fitness testing, lecture, eat, lecture, another 2-3 hour workout, lecture, eat, lecture, stretch/team yoga, team meeting, collapse into bed. It's intense but we are learning so much and inspired by our team and the other athletes around us. The team pros have taught us about nutrition, psychology, training periodization, and designing our personal workout programs.

The Olympic logo is on everything here, from the mattresses to the plates. It's so awesome to be surrounded by driven athletes whether they are sailors, swimmers, wrestlers, or boxers.

By far the hardest workout was the pool test. In teams of 3 we had to do laps in the pool with pushups, squats, crunches, and burpies in between. It was brutal: as Katy said, "The hardest thing I've ever done in my life." We have a renewed respect for swimmers now!
After that, head coach Kenneth said our next challenge was something completely different. Expecting laps or some other torturous workout, he informed us that we would be split into 4 teams and had 20 minutes to invent and perform a 45 second synchronized swimming routine! The performances were hilarious and gloriously un-synchronized. After some girly flutter kicks by the guys and launching Katy out of the water in a (not so) perfect back dive, fortunately our team finished 3rd so we didn't have to swim the 4 laps that fourth place did.

The last activity was the Team Challenge, involving weight balls, hurdles, ladders, piggy backs, and even tug of war. The competitive element was a great way to keep people engaged after 3 days of exhaustion.

It's been fun getting to know the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics as well as the Development Team sailors from other classes that we don't usually see since they sail different boats.

As we return home to life at home with distractions we'll be sure to implement the changes we've learned and raise the bar on our training at home, both on and off the water. Thank you to US Sailing, the Olympic Training Center, and all the coaching and personal training staff who made this happen!

Training Camp in Colorado tomorrow!

2010-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

We're leaving Seattle super early tomorrow morning to go to the US Olympic Complex in Colorado Springs for a US Sailing Team Alphagraphics and Development Team Performance Enhancement Training Camp. We're looking forward to learning a lot and meeting the other sailors for around the country! Read the press release here.

Preparing for our Training Camp at the US Olympic Training Center -

2010-03-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

We are busy here preparing for our Performance Enhancement Training (PET) camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs which is coming up in just over 2 weeks.

We're really looking forward to the physical training and learning about nutrition, funding and running an Olympic campaign, and sport psychology. The US Sailing Team Alphagraphics (the current US Olympic sailing team) will be there, which is really exciting. And there should be other Olympic athletes from other sports there as well. Needless to say, we are really excited for this incredible opportunity! Check back for updates.

Beautiful sunny practice - in February!

2010-02-23T15:59:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday Katy and I made the most of Seattle's gorgeous clear, sunny day with the first practice of the season together at Shilshole. And guess what - there was even wind!
It seems like everyday I look at the lake (I can't see Puget Sound from where I live, but the lake usually has comparable wind) and it is totally glassy like one giant mirror. But fortunately for us there was a nice 8-10 knot southerly.
We took Katy's best friend Kelsie for a sail because she's been bugging Katy about it forever. She was a total natural and we had her trapping flat-out, playing the main and trimming the kite in no time. Here's Katy and Kelsie downwind.
Katy and I switched up so I drove and she crewed, because it is always good practice to understand each others' roles better.
We're looking forward to more practice this weekend, just hoping for some sun to top it all off....

US Sailing Development Team Clinic, Miami

2010-02-16T04:54:00.000-08:00

I'm just about to leave Fort Lauderdale after another superb Development Team Clinic in Miami over the past 3 days. Yesterday (Monday) we had no wind so we had a few meetings about training, Europe trips, other general logistics, and setting up standardized boat measurements on controls such as the vang so that we can all compare settings before, during and after training.

Unfortunately Katy could not attend the clinic, but I recruited Paris Henken of Coronado CA to sail with me and it worked out so well. She's only 14 but she's definitely an up-and-coming force in the fleet and she's already giving the older boys a run for their money. It is really important to me to support the girls in this fleet, especially with emergence of the 29erXX. Speaking of the XX, Paris just bought a rig so that makes for 3 29erXXs on the West Coast! Whoo!!!

Alright, I'm getting excited - back to the clinic:
The first evening we had Anna Tunnicliffe of US Sailing Team Alphagraphics talk to us about proper training which was really cool.

Saturday and Sunday made up for the lack of wind on Monday. Instead of sailing out of the US Sailing Center in Coconut Grove on Biscayne Bay like we did in December, this time we sailed out of Miami Yacht Club on the Atlantic Ocean. This meant big swell, which was both exciting and eye-opening. It really demands more balance in the boat as well as communication, because, for example, trying to gybe while being swept the 'wrong' way by a wave will really mess you up. It requires a different sail shape for the best acceleration. We found that a lot of vang was fast and we're going to adjust our scale to reflect that finding.
Downwind, Graham got me straightening my legs and fully locking my knees with shoulders back which gives the skipper a steady feel for the boat.

Thank you to Graham and Hannah for being really encouraging as coaches. They laid out drills that gave us exactly what we wanted to practice and encouraged discussion amongst us sailors in terms of settings, measurements, etc which is exactly what we need to practice in order to train most effectively as a team.
Thanks to Leandro for organizing everything and helping us work as a team.
Also, a huge thank you to Tamra and the Henken family for making this possible for me. I had a super fun time on and off the water with them and I'm just so excited about their new XX rig.

Now that I'm back home for a few weeks it's time for some hard physical training off the water, as well as on-the-water practice with Katy.
- Helena

29erXX Seiko Superbowl Wrap-up

2010-02-09T23:06:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the late update -

The final day of the 29erXX Seiko Superbowl in Miami was a great success. We had perfect sunshine and 15 knots, more or less, which was superb for double-trapping steadily and hardly overpowered. We were able to get 4 races off, finishing 5-3-6-5 of 9 boats, a huge improvement from our performance the day before. Let's just say that day we were dragging 150-200 lbs of water around the course with us... equivalent to a medium manatee...

We finally got our rig settings to something we were satisfied with. It surprised me how little difference there was in the tensions between the caps, primaries and lowers on this setting which seemed to work best.Our tiller snapped completely in half (!!) when Julia fell on it from not completely hooking in, but amazingly she stayed with the boat even though she was in the water, and I kept it upright as Julia crawled back in. I trapezed flat-out while she drove with a six inch tiller and simultaneously did a wicked repair job (electrical tape and spectra!) so we barely lost any distance and were able to finish 5th in that race.

Overall, we learned a huge amount about the boat, as did all the competitors. Everyone was so open in sharing tips and excited about sailing this rig. The 29erXX is where it's at.
Congratulations to Hannah Nattrass (AUS) and Graham Biehl (USA) - 1st place (Seiko watch winners!) and Francisco and Sofia (ARG) in 2nd.

Thank you to Stacy Childers for the photos, Julia Paxton for sailing with me, and especially to Jen Morgan Glass, who works tirelessly for the class to make this all possible!

For more info on the 29erXX
To keep updated: 29erXX Google Group (including event calendar) and become a fan of "29erXX Sailing" on Facebook

-Helena

29erXX Seiko Superbowl in Miami

2010-02-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-01-29T23:48:00.001-08:00

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!

2010-01-29T01:18:00.001-08:00

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)

2010-01-29T01:06:00.001-08:00

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

2010-01-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-12T19:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-10T19:25:00.001-08:00

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

Thanksgiving CISA Clinic

2009-11-30T22:50:00.001-08:00

Sun, wind, breakfast burritos, In-N-Out burgers, Thanksgiving dinner, and at least 4 hours of sailing per day... sounds like one fantastic Thanksgiving weekend! We had a super time last weekend at the Thanksgiving CISA Clinic at Alamitos Bay YC in Long Beach.

After driving 24 hours straight from Seattle on Wed. and Thurs. we had an afternoon to gobble up Thanksgiving dinner and regain sanity before sailing Friday - Sunday.There were 10 29er teams and 10 I420 teams.

The weather was perfect - sunny and light to medium breeze. We got better at working our weight responsively through typical Long Beach chop/slop/swell (a little of everything!).

Thanks to our coaches Cameron and Zack for running lots of races (14!) and useful drills. After mystery starts we really improved double-tacking to hold our position on the startline, as well as timing acceleration off the line. Katy got into the habit of really working the jib upwind to perfect trim and adjusting in the puffs, and I practiced crew weight placement in light air downwind and nailing wire-to-wire jibes in the heavier wind. Communication and jib trim helped me to play less main upwind. We did a drill where outside boats jibe downwind which really helped, and sometimes it is the classics like 'tacking on the whistle' that help to cement perfect technique. I have pages and pages of notes on trim, maneuvers, and settings - the more you know, the more you realize you don't know... every little bit of power counts and leads to another 1/2 boat length, which adds up around the course! The video analysis really helped, not only seeing ourselves but other boats in our group too.

We feel we've come a long way since the spring CISA clinic. After the 14 races we were 4th out of the 10 boats (after Antoine/James, Sterling/Hans, and Max/David) and top girls. These days we have our head out of the boat and we know that coming around the windward mark we can whip out a set or even a jibe-set at the last possible second. Quick decision-making and execution really help.

For Worlds (coming up in a month!) I am going to continue getting in better shape and working on perfect sets and douses with Jen (back to cold, cold Seattle!). Katy is whipping her crew Burgess into shape for the Youth Worlds Qualifier in January and he's picking it up fast. As we learned at the clinic, it is all about making the regattas easier than the practices.

A huge thank you to the Macdonald family (Peter, Deon, and Tyler) for putting us up (putting up with us?!) for 4 days, not to mention hosting 4 other 29er teams! You made it so easy for us to roll in and out and even had a full breakfast on Sunday!

Thank you to Max and your trusty van for getting us and our gear to the club everyday, and for helping load up the boats onto the giant Miami-bound trailer. Safe trip, Max!
Thank you to Danielle Richards for a phenomenally seamless clinic, we are so lucky to have such awesome opportunities. Thank you Mr. Bolton for the ride to Long Beach Airport!

(<>And finally, the most enormous thank you to my father, Oliver, for driving to Long Beach AND back in 3 days, doing the second leg by yourself. We could not balance school and sailing without your help. You are endlessly supportive, never critical, and it means the world to us! When we sail well we can't wait to tell you because we know you'll be smiling even bigger for the rest of the day.

Overall, the clinic was just the winter tune-up we needed to be on top of our game for the big winter events coming up.

-- Helena

Fall Sailing

2009-11-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

Since the Octoberfest regatta in a 29er, Katy and I have had some quite diverse sailing experiences in the last month and a half.
I took my father for a 29erXX sail - let's just say he's not as agile as he used to be! Instead of crewing like usual I ended up skippering in at least 20 knots which was really fun - and fast!

Katy has taken Burgess, an SYC Race Team member, 29erXX sailing a couple of times and had a blast as well.

I sailed a practically windless Melges 24 regatta with Dalton Bergan as part of the Puget Sound Series and the following weekend, Oct 17-18, I sailed the Pumpkin Bowl regatta at West Vancouver YC in a 29er with Kate, a younger Race Team member. Kate has been sailing the 29er for a little over a year now and she's come a long way! It was great to give her some tips and a taste of independence as her first regatta without her parents. We finished 3rd after several races in conditions anywhere from 2 -15+ knots. Prior to the regatta we practiced at Shilshole in almost 25 knots and it made me nostalgic for summer Gorge sailing!

Katy and I sailed in the first annual SYC Halloween Team Race regatta over Halloween weekend dressed as ninjas with our fellow teammates Jen, Dalton, Lindsey, and Ally who all have a ton of college sailing and team racing experience. Team racing is like chess on the water; I really enjoy how it makes me really think tactically.

In November I sailed the Round the County race on a Davidson 29 around San Juan County, a total of about 70 miles in two days around Orcas and San Juan Island amongst others. Sailing longer distances demands patience, and sailing long distances in the Pacific Northwest winter demands patience and cold tolerance! We had a big squall at the start and got the 29 foot boat planing in a big puff! The San Juans are breathtaking, there is no where like it on earth.

Finally, last weekend I sailed Turkey Bowl in a 29er at Shilshole with Jen Glass who I will be sailing 29er Worlds with in less than 6 weeks. Saturday was very windy but my drysuit kept me warm and we worked on fine-tuning maneuvers like double gybes and getting off the start line at full speed while holding our lane. The cold sailing here will definitely make me appreciate the Bahamas even more!

All these diverse sailing experiences make me a more well-rounded sailor, plus it is fun to mix it up.

Thank you to Mark and Andrea Basco, the Andrewes family, Jen, Dalton, Ben for running the Team Race regatta, and fleece hats for keeping us warm!

Tomorrow Katy and I drive down to Long Beach, CA for the CISA Thanksgiving clinic. It is usually only for Californian sailors but we were lucky enough to be invited. We cannot wait for some excellent coaching and warm weather!

Helena's Binnacle Article: "Katy and Helena's 29er Summer 2009"

2009-10-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

Here is an article I wrote about our summer 29er sailing that was published in the "Junior Race Team Report" section in the Seattle Yacht Club's monthly newsletter, The Binnacle.

Katy and Helena's 29er Summer 2009

Katy and I have had a whirlwind of a summer in our 29er (a skiff designed for youth), between Worlds and North Americans we've sailed in three countries in the last two months! From camping to plane rides to driving to sailing, we've spent a lot of time together this summer and here's how it all went.

We spent three weekends in June camping in Cascade Locks, Oregon (aka The Gorge) getting some heavy air practice for Worlds. All three weekends were a blast, basically just eating, sleeping, and sailing. One weekend we had the whole SYC Race Team with us, but the other two we had to do our own drills by ourselves. We are so lucky to have one of the best places to sail in North America just a few hours away! Over July 4th weekend we sailed the WAVES regatta at Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. We were really proud of our performance, winning 1st place out of twelve 29ers with 14 points after 13 races and 2 throwouts.

After that it was off to Riva del Garda in northern Italy for two of the most epic regattas we have ever sailed. Lake Garda's cliffs drop straight into the water and the sun was almost always shining, bringing a 15-25 knot breeze every day. The first event was the three-day 29erXX Gold Cup. The 29erXX is a newly designed class - the 29er hull is the same but the boat is pushed to its limit with a taller mast and twin trapezes, so the skipper (Katy) gets to trapeze as well, not just the crew (me, Helena). The class will hopefully be chosen as the Women's High Performance Dinghy for the 2016 Olympics (who can resist its hot pink sails?!). There were 15 boats in this event and we finished 11th, with our best finish being a 4th place. We were really happy because we'd sailed the boat less than ten times before. Every day after racing all the sailors would gather and discuss rig settings etc. - it was so exciting to be part of a developing class, surrounded by so many awesome sailors, especially girls who can beat most boys!

Three days later the 29er World Championship started. With 186 boats, it was truly awesome. There was a practice race with all 186 boats starting on one line! After three days of a qualifying series we were placed into bronze fleet (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Emerald). It was consistently at least 20 knots and Katy and I were one of the lightest teams there so we struggled upwind. Our best race was on the very last day when the wind was substantially lighter, much more Seattle-like conditions. We finished 6th in that race and it was great to be reminded that we are competitive on a world level. Our starts really improved as we learned to hold our position on the line with 55 other boats in our fleet. Mark roundings were always crowded, especially when boats came blasting in on opposite tacks toward the leeward gate and you can't see under the spinnaker. You really have to think ahead unless you want another boat's spinnaker pole doing some serious damage. We had some really long days on the water, waiting up to 2.5 hours between races while they raced other 29er fleets on our course. Worlds taught us a lot about boat preparation - how to be patient, precise, and thorough - and about taking care of ourselves to ensure we were ready to race our hardest. It was so cool meeting tons of sailors from around the world - over 20 different countries!

We finished 128th which wasn't up to the standard we set in our goal, but more importantly we learned so much about big fleet racing (we don't have big 29er fleets in the U.S.) and we're ready to practice even harder. We also have to remember that our size was a big disadvantage, so in a fairer weight comparison we were 14th out of the 42 female teams competing.

Our final event of the summer was the CORK Olympic Classes Regatta/29er North American Championship in Kingston, Ontario. This event had much lighter winds which really helped us as we finished 6th overall (2nd place females) out of 40 boats. In one race my trapeze wire broke while sailing downwind and I fell straight into the water! We lost three places in that race but were able to fix it afterwards. We even won a race later that day! Kingston is a gorgeous place to sail and the water of Lake Ontario is really warm.

For those younger sailors who want to raise their game, we really emphasize three things: Practice in all conditions as much as you can, make sure you know how you want your boat set up (so that you can do it, not your parents), and the more you 'give it your all' out on the water, the more fun you will have. Those are three keys to becoming the best sailor you can.

We would like to thank West Coast Sailing for sponsoring us and the Seattle Yacht Club Foundation for their support. Also, a huge thank you to Ben and Jen Glass, who have coached us from the start, and to the SYC families whose encouragement and enthusiasm makes sailing all the more exciting. We are going to 29er Nationals in San Francisco in two weeks and are thrilled that four other Northwest teams will be joining us - that's the most in a long time, if ever! As this season wraps up we can't wait to see what the next one holds, for us and for the Northwest 29er fleet.

-- Helena

Heineken's Insightful Article

2009-10-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

Paul Heineken has written a very insightful article as to the status of the U.S. 29er fleet. He sailed with his daughter Erika at the most recent 29er Nationals, and I might mention that Mr. Heineken is 63 so this is no small feat!

Check it out: "2009 29er Nationals Follow Up by Paul Heineken" see: http://www.29ernorthamerican.org/

Fall sets in

2009-10-03T23:05:00.001-07:00

You can never have enough sailing photos, especially while reminiscing of warmer summer sailing days as fall sets in.

Nostalgia... of Italy, Kingston, and the Gorge.

It was such a thrill to represent the USA at Worlds and North Americans this summer. Thank you to everyone who helped us along the way so far. We can only look forward to more sailing, more improvement, and even more fun!

Amongst other practices, every week this fall/winter we will be doing some two-boat tuning in the 29erXX against Jen Glass and Mallory Fontenot. Between the two boats we're hoping to get a better idea of the proper rig settings for varying conditions (like the 49er, the XX rig has caps, shrouds, and lowers instead of just shrouds like the 29er) as well as make our boathandling seamless. We're looking forward to a strong showing at the 29erXX event planned for Miami this coming February.

Photo credits (and gratitude) to Ingrid Abery (http ://www.hotcapers.com/) and Oliver Scutt.

Nationals on City Front

2009-10-03T00:38:00.000-07:00

An epic 2009 29er Nationals regatta was held at St. Francis Yacht Club on the City Front of famous (notorious, perhaps?) San Francisco Bay. 25 29ers fought it out - congratulations to our friends Max and David who won the National title.

At peak we had a lot of current - almost 5 knots against the wind - and puffs of more than 28 knots on Saturday afternoon. This led to bigger waves than we'd ever sailed in, which was super fun (and a little bit sketchy!) downwind. Wahoo!

We were one of only 10 teams that sailed in the fifth race on Saturday. Everyone was exhausted but our long days at Worlds in Italy paid off as we stuck it out. We came out with more intensity on Sunday and got 4th place in the first race of the day. Slightly lighter conditions favored our size in that one race more than any other, plus we had a cracking start off the line right at the boat end. So much of sailing is mental preparation - it's about focus, determination, and motivation.

We finished 13th overall, putting us in 5th place youth team, 2nd place female team, and 1st place youth female team. We're proud of our result considering our weight (lack thereof) in the breeze and therefore the necessary boathandling to manage the boat, but we also know we can improve on starts and sets.

In heavy wind we felt our jibes have improved with practice. Because of the puffs on Saturday we kept a little bit more board in than we would have otherwise. In the flatter water on Sunday we still kept the vang on tight in order to keep the leech engaged and point better. I'm going to work on hiking harder downwind (hmm, it seems you can never hike hard enough) so that we can really power up and Katy is going to work on playing the jib in the puffs upwind which will require communication and more synchronization with the main trim.

Some exciting news - the US 29er class had its annual meeting on Saturday night at St. Francis. My father, Oliver Scutt, was elected US Class President. He is really honored and thrilled to lead the class in the upcoming year and I'm very proud of him for stepping up to the responsibility.

Thank you to Thomas Maher and family for providing us with a place to stay, also to Wanda for fabulous accommodation one block from the yacht club, to Ben for coaching and the photos, to my dad and David Shaner for towing the boat there and back, and to Chip Nielsen and St. Francis YC for hosting a phenomenal event. Of course we're glad we were sailing, but the view from the shore must have been spectacular too.

You'd better get used to the fog, 'cause it doesn't get any better than SF Bay!

Results here

- Helena

1st place 29er 2009 NWYRC

2009-10-03T00:13:00.001-07:00

Octoberfest was the last regatta of the Northwest Youth Racing Circuit, putting us 1st place overall for the 2009 series for the second year in a row. Thank you to everyone who has supported us thus far, and to all our competitors for always being positive, sportsmanlike, and fair. Also, thank you to our sponsor, West Coast Sailing, who also sponsors the NWYRC by showing up at youth regattas and bringing lots of cool prizes. We are so lucky to have a world-class sailing vendor like West Coast Sailing in our backyard.

Northwest sailors rock!

Octoberfest Regatta

2009-10-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Octoberfest at Sail Sand Point - yes, technically it was still September, but we still had a super time. In fact, there was another twist - we didn't sail together, we sailed against each other! We decided to mix it up for once - Katy sailed with Burgess Malarkey, an SYC Race Team junior, and Helena sailed with Lisa Renehan, a race team parent, new 29er owner and a veteran double-handed sailor.
Here's a photo of Lisa and Helena with the purple kite leading Katy and Burgess with the blue kite.

We got some great practice against each other while teaching others the tricks of the 29er, so it was a win-win-win-win situation for all four of us! After 5 races on Saturday, Katy and Burgess were 1 point ahead, but by mid-day Sunday Helena and Lisa had taken it back with a 1 point lead. In the second to last race on Sunday we literally rounded the second leeward mark together, leaving us with a very short upwind beat to duke it out, match-racing style! Helena and Lisa pulled ahead (barely!) but it definitely got our hearts pumping! Helena and Lisa placed first overall, with Katy and Burgess just one single point behind. But more importantly, we each had to really focused and work really hard to beat each other and learned more than if we had sailed together once again.

In terms of conditions, we caught Lake Washington at its best. It may have been shifty, but there was wind and it was sunny! It doesn't get much better than that in late September here.

We are really excited that we had six 29ers sailing on humble Lake Washington when two years ago there wasn't even a fleet. Thanks to Jake and Abby for trekking over from Orcas Island and to Maddie, Josh, Sam, Andrew, Kate, and Dani for giving us some competition!

Also, thanks to Sail Sand Point, Morgan Collins, Jamie Stewart, Corinthian Yacht Club, Lisa and Jay Renehan, Burgess Malarkey, and Ben Glass for a fantastic weekend, not to mention incredible hamburgers. These local regattas are serious fun!
Here is a photo of a breath-taking sunset at Shilshole after a long practice.

We be JAMmin'

2009-09-15T18:17:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was the Johnny Adams Memorial Regatta (JAM) in Port Madison on Bainbridge Island. This is always a special regatta because it is the one regatta that we get to sail to! On Friday we sailed straight across Puget Sound from Shilshole to Port Madison which is 6 miles, more or less. Thanks to Maddie Erjavec for sailing with me since Katy couldn't make it!

The whole weekend was light winds, with Saturday being 4-8 knots and Sunday having 5 knots at the most (until the tow back to Seattle, when ironically the wind picked up to 15 knots bringing big, cold waves with it! Funny how that goes...)

On Saturday we had 3 races and did a fourth switching crews with other boats. It was good to give them some tips but mainly just to switch it up since there were only 3 boats and we were all finishing in the same places. Sunday morning was the most windless day I've ever seen - we could point the boat in any direction and sail trim didn't even matter.

Here's a picture of me messing around with Andrew and Opti sailor Blake. It's the new double-trapping... a little ridiculous.

But when a light breeze filled in, Katy and I took turns singlehanding and I sailed with Jack, an Opti star who can't wait to get into the 29er. Jack won that race too!

(No, Katy didn't sail with the dog. But she probably could have.)

As always, the JAM regatta provided us with new pajamas and a cozy fleece blanket for winning our fleet. Our sponsor, George from West Coast Sailing, was there supporting the Northwest youth sailors as he always does. Great job to Kate, Dani, Sam, and Andrew, our fellow 29er sailors!Thank you to PMYC, our coach Ben, Matt and Andi Pistay for having us to stay on Anomaly, and West Coast Sailing.

CORK Wrap-up

2009-08-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a final post about CORK/North American Champs -

We finished in 6th place overall, 2nd place female team to two Canadian girls who have competed in Youth Worlds and recently won the Canada Summer Games. We're proud of our performance, knowing that we did really well in the light air and can improve our finishes in the heavy air so that we'll be more consistent overall.

On Day 4 (Wed Aug 27) the wind was super shifty - the committee boat was posting headings of 345 degrees, then 030 degrees, and back to 345 degrees a minute later. On race we were last off the start line (it was not going our way) but we rode out the beat with a perfect shift and rounded the mark in the top ten! Similarly, another team went from 4th on the first beat to almost last downwind, and then back to 4th. Let's just say the shifts were crazy and it made for a couple ridiculous races. There was one crazy finish where 18 boats rounded the gate at the exact same time before heading to the finish. Fortunately we finished ahead of the pack but we watched as boats leading the pack would get rolled and all of a sudden be trailing behind, having suddenly lost 18 places in 18 seconds. Messy!

On Day 5 (Thurs Aug 28) there was no wind. Well, just enough for the RC to send us out for a few hours to drift around. We jumped in other people's boats and took turns singlehanding for a while.

At the awards, USA swept the podium with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places! Max F and David L won, Antoine S and James M took second, and Tyler M and Brian B took third. Go team America!

Results are at: http://cork.org/results2009/OCR/29rtbl.htm

We also talked to most of the girls sailing with us hoping to promote the 29erXX in North America and got some contact info in an effort to facilitate communication. There was a lot of interest which is great to see!

Some thank yous - to Alex Erjavec for so kindly letting us stay at her place near the YC, to PS2000 for our $1 charter (yes, only ONE dollar!), and to Geoff Webster for the photos. You can see the complete gallery here: http://photoone.smugmug.com/Sports/COK-OCR-Aug-2009/9388457

CORK Day 3

2009-08-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was much windier, probably 15-18 knots the whole day. There were also surprisingly large waves considering it is a lake (although a huge one at that!) We did five races in total, finishing in 17th, 10th, 8th, 23rd, and 15th. These results aren't as good as yesterday's but we are definitely the lightest team in the front of the fleet so we're holding our own considering our weight. And the good news is that we're still in 6th place with a 13 point lead over 7th place and just 5 points behind 5th place.

Katy had some great starts, one or two we got buried in bad air and had to bail out but the majority we were bang off the line in clear air which helps a lot.
In the second to last race going upwind I got hit by a huge wave while I was glancing backwards at the main and it literally knocked me off my feet. We capsized and unfortunately the spinnaker sheets also got wrapped around the bow but we didn't see that until we were already sailing again. So then after rounding the windward mark I tried crawling past the mast to flick the spin sheets round the bow but the waves were too big to dig the bow that deep so we flipped again... ugh. We still beat boats but let's just say that race is definitely our throwout.
No more breakages, no more trap wires randomly failing, so that's good.

CORK Day 2

2009-08-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Day 2, Monday) was super. It started out with very light winds but it built gradually throughout the day. The first four races were 5-8 knots and we finished 9th, 7th, 11th, and 4th. The last two races were a little windier, about 10-12 knots, and we got a bullet(!) and a 6th place.

In the second race of the day, I (Helena) was the only crew on the wire because I am so light. This was working well for us (we were in third place) until 100 yds from the finish I suddenly found myself in the water after my trapeze wire broke (yeah, haha, I laughed just not at the time...). The small shackle under the puck where the cleat meets the wire gave out. I still had the shackle but it was pretty bent so we used some Spectra in its place (thanks Max and David!). It really sucked because I had to climb in the back of the boat and even though Katy kept the kite flying through most of the ordeal we lost three places to finish in 7th.
Our starts got better and better throughout the day. Katy did a great job being right on the line in clear air in the last few races and it really shows in those finishes.
In the race that we won we had our best start (so close to the line we almost thought we were OCS) and just kept the boat powered up all the time even in the lulls. We were in third on the final downwind leg but thought we were going to lost it because our spinnaker sheets somehow wrapped under the bow. Fortunately I managed to crawl up to the bow and fix it while Katy kept the boat nice and steady. Then things went our way when Antoine prevented Max from gybing so they both overstood the layline to the finish, allowing us to sneak in and sail less distance to take the lead.

CORK Day One

2009-08-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of racing at the CORK Olympic Classes Regatta/29er North American Championships here in Kingston, Ontario. There are 40 boats in our class. So far so good! Our charter boat is great so far, no issues there.

Racing was really light today, mostly marginal trapezing (at least for us, being one of the lighter teams! Other teams barely used the wire at all). After 1 general recall the I-flag went up for the following start. We got through half a race and were in 3rd heading to the windward mark for the second time when they abandoned the race because apparently "there was a big shift" (hmm, not really) It was too bad because Team USA was doing really well at that point (All top 4 boats were USA)!

The second race (well, technically the first) we started at the boat end and there was suddenly a shift that favored the pin end, but at least we were on time and had good boat speed. We rounded the windward mark in 17th or so, then caught some boats for the rest of the race (W, gate, W, finish) to end up 6th after a little drift to the finish. (2nd place US boat right behind Tyler M/Brian B.) We're happy with that as our goal is to finish every race in the top 10. We floated around for a while before they finally sent us in. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more wind...

CORK coming up in Kingston, Ontario

2009-08-17T16:17:00.001-07:00

We are getting ready and excited for the CORK regatta in Kingston, Ontario next week...

The CORK OCR is from Sunday August 23rd through Thursday 27th so we have a few days to sort out our charter boat, get back in the 29er rhythm, and get a feel for the conditions. It's the 29er North American Championship and right now there are about 38 boats registered which is a decent turnout. There will also be 49ers, Lasers and Laser Radials, Finns, 470s, and RSX windsurfers so it'll be a busy place!

The sailing will be on Lake Ontario (Portsmouth Olympic Harbor, the same venue that hosted the 1976 Olympics) and the wind should generally be 10-15 knots, perfect! Stay tuned for updates of course.

Worlds Days 4, 5, 6

2009-07-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's time to catch up after the whirlwind that the last week has been, between the last few days of racing and the car/bus/train/plane travel back home.

On the first and second days of the final Worlds series we had three races each, and on the final day we had one race before packing our boat up. We were in the Bronze fleet with 53 other boats. The first and second days were challenging, as it was consistently windy (around 20 knots, typical Garda), but the last day we raced in the morning so it was only 12 knots or so. We have a lot more experience in those lighter conditions and it showed as we pulled off a 6th place in that race, which was a great way to end the regatta!

Throughout the event we had a tough time being one of the lightest teams in the strong breeze so our speed suffered upwind. But, we don't want to use our weight (or lack thereof) as an excuse in the heavy winds so we'll just have to spend more time sailing in places like the Gorge for practice.

Being in big fleets (45-55 boats each) taught us a lot. When there are a lot of boats in the fleet it means the startline is longer so picking the right end of the line is more important than usual. It also means you have to be able to set up on the line much earlier than usual and be able to hold your position, which we improved at with time. A big fleet also forces you to think a lot harder about which side of the course to take because on Lake Garda it seemed that you had to pick either the right or the left (one of those would be a lot more favorable than the other) but you could not sail between because the middle just never paid. We had two courses to figure out (Alpha and Bravo) so that made it interesting as well.

I (Helena) am happy to report that after a few days of rest the pain in my left arm/elbow (which unfortunately prevented me from getting a lot of sleep, ugh) has gradually subsided so it's safe to say it was simply overuse from sailing all day, everyday. If a World championship doesn't push one to overuse it I don't know what would. Hopefully the pain won't return once I start sailing again.

Congratulations to the Aussies who dominated the event with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places in Gold fleet. Well done to Max and David for being the 1st place American team (9th in Gold fleet) and exceeding their own expectations! Also representing the Americans in Gold fleet, Judge and Matt sailed superbly to earn 10th overall and Oliver and Hans finished 16th. Great job guys!

There are some fantastic professional photos of the 29erXX Gold Cup by Ingrid Abery which are now available on her website, www.hotcapers.com. There are plenty of us so if you have a minute, check them out and you will get a feel for the boat's new design and the event (think up close and personal).
Also, keep your eye out in the North American sailing magazines for Seiko ads - we modeled watches for them in a photoshoot while rigging the 29erXX so you just might see us in print or online!

Results are here: http://29erworlds.org/ and here's a link to Fraglia Vela Riva's photos of Worlds: https://www.photoshop.com/user/fragliavelariva/?wf=share&trackingid=BTAGC&galleryid=40a5cb62e6bc4ace99f63b5c8ff1200e

Coming out of this event, we are proud of how far we've come since starting to sail the boat just last year, but we are also excited to keep sailing now that we know what we need to improve on in order to do better in big regattas in the future. We are super psyched about the XX rig especially! Being on the water so long with the intensity of the racing we had plenty of good times and rough ones too, from which we are a stronger team as a result.
One of the best parts of Worlds was meeting so many people from around the world. And since they sail 29ers, you know they are cool people ;) This brings us to one of our most important points - a big THANK YOU to everyone who made it possible for us to attend such a phenomenal event.
Thank you to our families, friends, The Seattle Yacht Club Foundation, West Coast Sailing for making sure we're always set to sail our best; our coaches Ben and Jen Glass without whom we wouldn't have dreamed of going to Worlds; Graham Biehl for outfitting us with the all US team gear, coaching us all day and staying positive; Jerelyn Biehl for her endless encouragement and hard work in the 29er class; Dave Hall for coordinating the 29erXX rigs; Julian Bethwaite for his invaluable tips and thumbs-up (and for designing the boat of course); Henry and Helen for shuffling our boat and sails around in England, Tom and Sue for making the boat transport possible, and to Tony for towing our boat from England to Italy and back! As you can see, a lot goes into this and we really couldn't do it without all the support we get from so many different people.

Best of luck to all our skiff friends competing in the East Coast 29er Circuit in these next couple of weeks. We wish we could be there supporting the growing 29er class on the East Coast (but work and family calls!).
Our next big event is the CORK regatta in Kingston, Ontario in late August. It is consistently the largest 29er gathering in North America so it should be lots of fun!

Day 3

2009-07-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

In short, today was a rough day. We started on Bravo course with an earlier start time than usual but the wind filled in earlier than usual and just as strong as ever, if not stronger. The waves were unusually large today and all over the place from different directions. With some rollers like small ocean swells and some sharp chop it made for difficult upwind sailing which is where we usually suffer when it's breezy because we are so light.

We had two races on Bravo course which were not good due to a couple of unfortunate boat-to-boat situations that resulted in capsizes but fortunately no boat damage. After a 1.5 hour wait we had one more race on Alpha course where we finished better than we did in the first two races (but that's not hard to do).

Now it's time for some rest before the last three days of racing. We've made it halfway through, and the last three days were the windiest out of the whole week-and-a-half that we have been here, so we're pretty tired.

The photos in this post are some professional photos from the 29erXX event last week. The photographer will post more on her website soon - http://www.hotcapers.com/

They posted a list of all-female crews and there's a total of 42 teams (out of 186), and we're proud to be one of them!

One note in case you were confused - our blog is titled USA 457 because that's the number of the boat we have in Seattle, but in the photos/results we are racing under USA 931 because that is the number of the boat which we purchased in England and are using here.

Day 2

2009-07-22T01:24:00.000-07:00

The second day was a long one. We were on the water from 12:30 until 6:30 but only had 3 races (which is plenty, but it took forever). This is because they send our fleet out to do two races, then made us wait for two-and-a-half hours on the water while another fleet did two races before having us sail one more. The wind was pretty much 18-20 knots all day with some lighter lulls and heavier puffs as always.

The first race was our best - we finished in 22nd. It's all about getting a good start and holding your lane upwind with clear air on port tack to get over to the right side of the course.
The second race was also pretty good and we finished in 23rd. Yesterday they started putting a leeward mark downwind of the finish so you have to round that and then douse the kite and head upwind/close reach to the finish. A lot of boats capsized on that maneuver but fortunately we were never one of them.
In the third race we weren't on top of our game. It was after we had been waiting around for 2.5 hours and we didn't bring food because we didn't know we'd be out for that long. Looking back, we definitely should have brought more food anyway because you never know how long you'll be on the water, so that's a lesson for us to stick by in the future. During the race we had a bad start and went to the left side upwind, which was not favored. We couldn't really get in the groove and it showed as we finished in 35th, so that's our discard so far.
Here's a Danish team rocking the Viking look just for fun! (during the practice race)

All in all we are currently in 108th place out of 186 boats. But, in terms of all-girl teams, we are 11th out of 39 teams which we are happy about. It's looking like we won't make the Silver fleet which was our goal, but we have to keep in mind that it's our first Worlds, first big fleet regatta, and we've only sailed the boat for one year so there are a lot of people with a lot more time in the boat than us. Plus, we are a pretty light team in this consistently heavy air.

Today (Wednesday, Day 3) will be the last day of the qualifying series and after that we'll be put into the Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Emerald fleets. The RC is hoping to get 4 races off so they'd better move faster than yesterday!
Time to go rig and eat some pasta... Ciao!

One more thing.... in case the link to the video we mentioned in an earlier post didn't work, here it is.

Worlds Day 1

2009-07-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Today, Monday, was the first of the three qualifier days but first of six days of Worlds total.
Conditions were the windiest that we've had here so far, probably around 20 knots with some heavier puffs of 22. There were whitecaps all over the lake and definitely the biggest and most confused waves that we've seen here yet.

We were in Red fleet (random selection) so after Yellow and Blue fleets did two races each on Alpha and Bravo courses respectively, we went out on Alpha course and did three races while Green fleet raced on Bravo course. Then Yellow and Blue went out for one more race each. All races were windward-leeward, twice around, which they will be for the rest of the regatta.

The first race we were doing pretty well until we capsized at the windward mark. Ugh. A boat came under us to leeward and headed us up while we were hoisting and we just didn't have the leverage to keep the boat upright. We lost quite a few places but gained a couple back during the rest of the race for a finish in 32nd place out of 47 boats. The good news is that other than that we didn't have any protests/collisions/breakages for the rest of the day. (Things can get pretty ridiculous though. Yesterday, during the practice race, at the gate two Italian boys wrongfully tried to round the mark inside of us (no overlap) so we yelled, "No room, no room!" They just cheekily quipped back, "No room, eh? MY ROOM!" with a smirk. Boys, boys...).

The second race was an improvement over the first right from the start. The basic course strategy was to hit the right side as early as possible, which meant defending a starting position on the line as close to the boat as possible, then tacking over onto port as soon as possible. This is challenging because everyone wants the boat, and then you can't tack onto port until all the boats on starboard tack over or fall back. But we managed to get onto port quite early. We had a really fast downwind leg - trying to match our speed in the 29er XX is a good way of pushing ourselves to go faster. Anyway, we finished 27th in that race.

The third race was the best of the day. We wound up in 24th. The thing about Worlds is that unlike smaller regattas, you can actually see how every mistake costs you. For instance, 50 yds from the finish we punched a wave so the boat slowed down fairly significantly for about 3 seconds, and just in that time a boat passed us from behind, so it was a visual of just one little mistake's impact. Other than that one instance we were perfect of course ;)

Katy got better and better at starts as we grew more confident in our pre-start maneuvering abilities. It is not easy trying to line up with 47 other boats with big waves, 20 knots, and people yelling in other languages but she did an awesome job, especially in the third race.
Basically we have never done large fleet racing before (our fleet today was 47 boats, and the largest regatta we'd previously done in the 29er was 22 boats) but as you can see from the races today we're catching on fast. Regattas at home will never be the same again!

We have also met a lot of cool people at this regatta. For instance Jullian Bethwaite, the designer of the boat, the vice president of ISAF (Helena enthusiastically told her all about the 29erXX), and Gerardo who now is the former 29er class president, to Jen!! Meeting all of these people has been great and they are all so supportive of two girls from the northwest corner of the USA who they just met.

Thanks to our coach Graham Biehl for his tips and always staying positive out on the water!
We are just so pumped to be sailing with SO MANY awesome sailors from around the world. The most recent numbers are 185 boats (!!) from 20 different countries. Pretty sweet.

Tomorrow a lot more photos from the 29er XX Gold Cup will be released so be sure to check back tomorrow for those and a day 2 update! Ciao!

EPIC

2009-07-20T01:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sunday) was an EPIC practice race of almost 200 29ers (I believe the actual number is 187) in a beautiful 15 knot breeze. 29ers covered our end of the lake from cliff to cliff. We started in the middle of the line and it was crazy to look left and see one hundred 29ers, then look right and see one hundred more! Downwind we looked behind us to see dozens of spinnakers making a rainbow of colors across the lake. So cool!

Last night was the Closing Ceremony of the 49er Worlds (see below for a photo of their medal race, the top ten boats out of their 90-boat fleet) and the Opening Ceremony of the 29er Worlds.

Today racing begins! For the next three days we're split into 4 random fleets (red, green, blue, yellow; of about 45 boats each) for the qualifying series before they break us into fleets based on skill for the last three days (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Emerald). So basically we'll be doing 3 to 4 races per day for the next six days.

This is our coach, Graham Biehl, wearing his headcam in the motorboat.

This is Judge Ryan and his crew Matt Noble wearing a headcam. They would have won the practice race by quite a distance but bailed out just before the end - it's superstition that it's bad luck to win a practice race.

Keep coming back for updates as the 2009 29er Worlds continue this week. Oh, and leave us a comment so that we keep posting!

-- Helena

Video!

2009-07-17T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
Check out this professional video from the second day of our racing along with the 49ers racing. It's pretty awesome, and we are in it!!!!
www.presstv.eu/World49er2009/15.07web.mp4

We were also in two photo shoots yesterday. The first was done on land as we modeled some Seiko watches while rigging up the boat. The second was done on the water after racing with some video and still shots with all the boats that were given Seiko spinnakers for the regatta. We should be able to get a hold of those pictures by Tuesday.

Yesterday was the last day of the XX event, we had three races scoring 7th, 11th, and 9th which put us in 11th overall. We are really pleased with our performance seeing as how we finished all nine races and beat at least three boats in every race! Congratulations to Jen for getting 3rd overall with a great comeback after having someone break their spinnaker pole on the starting line of the last race of the second day! And also to Silja and Will for really showing everyone how to sail these boats. And to Sara and Hanna, from Sweden, for representing the all girl teams up on the podium as they came second in the regatta. This was an amazing regatta that we are so glad we decided to do. We both learned so much and had tons of fun while doing it, we really think that those three days of racing will help us in the worlds that start in just three days! Thanks for all the support it really helps us and gives us motivation! We are enjoying a rest day after three long days of racing and five straight days of sailing. We got our boat all measured and are now ready to start our 29er training tomorrow!

Well we both think it is time for a nice swim in the lake! (It is much warmer than people have told us!)
Ciao!

Check it out...

2009-07-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

Our sponsor, West Coast Sailing, posted a blog entry about our visit to the shop in Portland... check it out:
http://westcoastsailing.net/blog/?p=31

Only one more day of the 29erXX!

2009-07-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

Since our last update we have had two days of racing in the 29erXX Gold Cup, with this coming afternoon being the third and final day. So much fun!!! We don't really want to go back to the 29er... Katy is dreading having to hike instead of trapeze!

We are tied for 10th right now, just one point behind 9th and 3 points between 7th and 8th place which are tied. So as you can tell it is close racing. There are lots of really experienced sailors and everyone has some good and some bad races. We are one of the 5 all-female teams (out of 15 boats) and the lightest pair by about 25 pounds.

Each day we've had three races in a nearly perfect 15-18 knots. The first day of racing we placed 12th, 7th, 10th. The last race we were in 5th place until we capsized downwind trying to point to high - so as you can see, changes happen fast. Yesterday we had better starts and got 4th, 12th, and 6th so we're improving as we catch on to the faster settings and learn the intricacies of the course. The best moment was in the first race when we played a left shift and were 2nd around the windward mark, it's a good feeling!

The new rig is fantastic. It has hot pink sails and their cut is definitely an improvement over the older prototype rig that we have borrowed from Jen a couple times. Some differences between the 29er and the 29erXX: pulling the centerboard up a couple of inches earlier than you would in the 29er, tacks are difficult/slower because Katy has to get on/off the trapeze, the kite fills faster on jibes because it is a masthead kite, Helena has to take the mainsheet through the tacks, the bow wants to dig more (both upwind and downwind) so it is more sensitive to weight placement.
Keeping the boat flat is just as important as ever. Upwind we cross legs to help Katy remain stable and to also keep our weight as close together as possible to cross the waves better. We have two footstaps downwind (that are on little wing extensions) and usually we each have a foot in the footstrap to get our weight back and keep us from flying forward.

Today we have one more day of racing and then a photoshoot afterwards with some other 29erXXs and 49ers for Seiko Velatura, which is sponsoring the class. A few of the boats in our fleet including us have spinnakers than say Seiko Velatura. Rumor has it there will be a helicopter, headcams, masthead cameras, and motorboats all filming us so stay tuned! We just saw a 'highlights' video from yesterday with us in it - we'll get you that link as soon as it is posted.

Thanks for following our progress so far, it is awesome to get all the support! Your comments are really encouraging, keep them coming! Ciao!

(PS... Helena recommends passionfruit gelato...but Katy would rather have a capuccino.)

Lake Garda!

2009-07-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

Helena and I are sitting here in beautiful Lake Garda, Italy. We are enjoying some yummy pasta after an amazing day in the new XX rig. We have now been here for 3 1/2 days... time is flying. Anyway everything is going great so far. Graham Biehl is our coach and has been terrific. He is so much help and clearly has lots of enthusiasm about our team doing well. He is also super pumped about us sailing the XX event which begins tomorrow!!!
Yesterday was the 49er Worlds & 29erXX Gold Cup Opening Ceremonies and today was the practice race. It went really well for us - we finished 2nd only to our coaches (Jen Glass and Graham Biehl) even though it was the most wind we'd ever sailed the boat in so far (15-18 knots).
As for the new boat that we bought from England, we have finally got it in good shape but it still leaks a bit on the water. We spent a whole day on boatwork while we waited for the XX rig to arrive. They came on the top of a truck, all 15 of them! It took over 4 hours to convert the boat from the regular 29er rig to the 29erXX rig because there are lots of new additions: the mast, the rudder gantry, the wing extensions with more footstraps, and a longer spinnaker pole. The hot pink sails seem to stun everyone. All the time people come up to our boat and stare at it or even stroke it and say something in another language which is probably something along the lines of "this is the XX rig it is so cool!"
Sponsors for this event include Seiko and SLAM so you'll notice in the pictures that we have SLAM bow stickers, the Seiko logo on our jib, and of course West Coast Sailing on our mainsail.
The weather has not been typical Garda so far. As we got here we drove through a hailstorm, then the last few days there was not much wind, but today was windy!
Other than that, our apartment is super close to the sailing center (Fraglia Vela Riva) and we definitely can't complain about the food!
There are pictures to come as soon as we figure out the technicalities of uploading. Stay tuned... the XX event starts tomorrow!

Riva del Garda here we come!!!

2009-07-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

We can't believe it... we've been waiting for months and now we're leaving in less than 36 hours!

It's going to be a long journey - from Seattle to Chicago to London to Venice and finally to Riva del Garda. But to tell the truth, it has already been a long journey. This event has pushed us to practice a lot, through the sun, the rain, and yes, even the snow. We hope all the hours will pay off. I (Helena) was splicing a new main halyard today because it snapped at WAVES, and I was thinking about how many hours have been put in off the water too.

This is our first World Championships. We don't really know what to expect, other than A LOT of boats and A LOT of superb sailors. That and crazy-crowded starts and mark roundings. Of course we want to do well, but the main things for us are to enjoy it, learn a lot from all the phenomenal sailors, and most of all, have fun, because that is why we sail the 29er in the first place. We can't wait to meet all the other skiffies: over 370 of them, from over 20 different countries! I'm sure we'll be humbled by all the awesome sailors there. Oh, and we can't wait for the fabulous Italian pizza, pasta, and gelato!

We've only sailed the 29er for a year (last weekend, the WAVES regatta, was our "first anniversary", being the first 29er regatta we ever sailed together, and only the second regatta we'd ever sailed as a duo), so it has been a whirlwind of an experience already.

Here's a sincere thank you to everyone along the way for all your encouragement, support, and well wishes, whether they were on the water, on the dock, wherever... you know who you are, and keep it coming!

Check back for more updates to come during the regatta, but for now... Ciao!

Loadin' up in England

2009-07-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of our 29er being loaded on a British trailer to be driven to Garda this week by a British team. It is finally hitting us.... we're going to Italy!

Part one of the journey, outside my relatives' house

Part two of the journey, loaded onto the mega trailer

A huge thank you to Tom and Sue, my grandparents, and to Henry and Helen, my uncle and aunt, for helping us get the boat to Italy. Going to a regatta overseas requires a tremendous amount of coordination and cooperation, including shuffling sails

and this boat around these past few weeks. Being on the other side of the Atlantic, we couldn't have done it without your help! And one more very minor person... Oliver, you are truly 29er SuperDad! Thanks again.

-- Helena

Rear-ended :(

2009-07-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

Bad news... I was rear-ended on my way from Sail Sand Point (where I am a sailing instructor) to Shilshole while towing the original blue 29er #457 on Tuesday. The trailer absorbed all the impact so fortunately both the car and I were completely fine... however the boat and trailer were not. I saw in my rearview mirror as the boat was jolted upwards and landed three inches from the back of the car. As you can see, the hull needs fiberglass work on the transom and the trailer is a write-off because the tongue is bent sharply (the whole thing had to be taken on a flat-bed towing truck back to my

house). But, it could have been a lot worse - for instance the mast that was sticking out 4 feet from the back of the trailer would have gone through the windshield if the car that hit me was any taller. And thank goodness for our other 29er which we were able to use at WAVES.

So, a few lessons learned: keep your distance when driving (I did, but the guy behind me didn't), ALWAYS secure your boat as well as you possibly can (if the boat wasn't properly tied down it would have hit the car), and think about adding your trailer to your AAA policy (not just your insurance) too.

This yellow line completely snapped, the tongue of the trailer bent like an aluminum can -->>

<<-- Bolts sheared upon impact

-- Helena

WAVES in Vancouver

2009-07-06T22:43:00.001-07:00

As I write this, Katy and I are on our way back from the WAVES regatta at Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. We are really proud of our performance this weekend, winning 1st out of twelve 29ers. On the first day we won all four races, even after being OCS in the last race. We started off the second day with two more bullets, then got two second places and a fourth place in the last race after a quick capsize on the second windward leg. The course was long (3x W-L) and the strategy was the same as always: hit the beach upwind, and stay on low angles downwind. We practiced faster gybes and sets and found that more vang helped us point upwind in certain wind speeds. Being OCS was a "good" way to practice maneuvers in limited space and escaping from bad air, which will be important at Worlds. On the third (and last) day of racing, we won the first race, got two second place finishes (after an OCS start), and won the final race. The whole day was a closer battle between us and two of our best sailing competitors and friends, Erin and Jessica from Royal Victoria YC. They pushed us to work hard with their speed, especially upwind, and together we like beating up on the boys ;)
All in all it was a fantastically well-run regatta and a great way to be sent off to Worlds in just a few days! Here are our results - we finished with 14 points over 13 races (threwout 4th and a 2nd place finishes).
http://www.royalvan.com/racing/pdf/Foxtrot03.pdf

A special thanks to Mik Erjavec who so kindly let us borrow his trailer for the weekend after I was rear ended (see entry below), to Steve McBride of Royal Victoria YC for being our surrogate coach, to Viv and Norman for their gracious hospitality, and to all those who helped us get back into Katy's car (long story). And well done to Kate and David Shaner for their father-daughter sailing!

Gotta Love the Gorge

2009-07-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

We spent the last three weekends camping in Cascade Locks, Oregon (aka the Gorge) getting some heavy air practice. All three weekends were a blast, basically just EAT (pb&j and Johnny's double scoop cones!), SLEEP (through the notorious trains) and SAIL (what else?!). We are so lucky to have one of the best places to sail in North America just a few hours away!

The first weekend, June 13-14, was with the whole SYC Race Team so all our friends were around. The following Monday was Helena's birthday so Katy made her lots of delicious cupcakes which were steadily consumed the whole weekend!

Here's Helena goofing off and not keeping the boat flat while Katy hikes as hard as she can... haha

The next weekend, June 20-21, we brought our friends Matt and Josh to sail our other boat as tuning partners. We ripped a spinnaker bag straight down the middle and ripped an eyelet out of a spinnaker, so for Sunday we were down to one boat but Helena crewed for Katy, then Josh, then Matt in some big breeze.

After both teaching sailing all week, we left right after work on Friday for our final weekend, June 27-28. was the Columbia Gorge Racing Association (CGRA) Opening Weekend so there were lots of people around. We each went out in an O'pen Bic for some mini-fun. The I14s were surprised to see us there yet again. We made the most out of the light Saturday morning by practicing rudderless sailing for over an hour. This drill is great because we don't need another 29er to practice with, and it gives us a feel for the boat and how it turns (using the hull shape) plus it makes us focus by really keeping us on our toes. By the afternoon and all day Sunday we had about 20 knots or more, so we definitely got what we came for.

On the way home through Portland we stopped by George, our sponsor, at the West Coast Sailing shop. We stocked up on stickers, got some sweet WCS waterbottles, and gear, not to mention a couple of Awesome Aussie Skiff DVDs. We're so proud to be ambassadors for a company that is so dedicated to and involved in dinghy sailing, particularly one that supports and believes in us youth sailors! (http://www.westcoastsailing.net/aboutus/sponsored-sailors.html)

A few months ago the magazine 48 Degrees North published a short piece about this sponsorship... check it out here: http://content.yudu.com/A14lq3/48NMar09/resources/62.htm

29erXX practice

2009-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Katy and I went out for a ripping 29erXX practice the other day. We used Jen's rig on my boat and had a blast. It is pretty ridiculously fun having Katy literally 'hanging out' right next to me. The XX rig is the next level for us in terms of skiff sailing, being a more powerful rig and a double-trapeze boat. Katy is getting better and better at trapping and I must say, I'm kinda jealous that Katy gets to drive AND trapeze at the same time!

Oh yeah, and speed makes us giggle and gives us funny faces... see below!

Seattle NOOD

2009-07-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

May 16th-17th was the Seattle NOOD at our home venue, Shilshole Marina, hosted by Corinthian YC and our very own Seattle YC. Unfortunately Saturday was completely dead wind, we didn't even leave the dock. Hey, at least it was sunny! Instead we played some intense Ultimate Frisbee games, but we felt really bad for the three 29er teams that we dragged down from Victoria, Canada. Of course they were good sports about it, but I guess they had to be since they were staying at my house! Sunday was still super light and shifty wind, but the RC managed to get 4 drifter races off. We wound up 2nd (out of 7 boats) to our good friends Erin and Jessica from Victoria. (Results here: http://sailingworld.com/nood-regattas/seattle-wa/2009-sperry-top-sider-seattle-nood-regatta-final-results-1000071976.html )

Also, the 48 Degrees North magazine featured 29ers in their coverage of the event (June 2009 issue) and we made the inside cover! Yes, a huge two page photo! Too bad I look like I'm doing nothing, reclining on the bow... see for yourself here... http://content.yudu.com/A1886e/48NJun09/resources/4.htm

So what did we learn that weekend? That Helena sucks at putting on bow stickers, and that playing Ultimate in a wetsuit is not the best idea (Katy). But all in all we were proud to have a legitimate-sized 29er fleet at a Seattle regatta. Things have come a long way and we want to continue this fleet growth!

Kitten Cup

2009-07-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Another belated entry... Kitten Cup was way back in late April at Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. We finished in 1st place out of nine 29ers with a total of 9 points over 8 races. The photo is us receiving our prize in our awesome West Coast Sailing shirts!

With a variety of wind conditions over just two days, it was a great chance to practice what we learned at the CISA clinic and I think our results show what valuable practice we got down in California. It was all about staying flat.

We always enjoy our trips up north to race with the Canadians because they're always so friendly and race fairly, it keeps us coming back!

Here's Katy messing around in the parking lot on her longboard, in sailing gear of course.

Results here: http://www.bcsailing.bc.ca/Images/Documents/Sailwave%20results%20for%20BC%20-%20Canada%20Games%20Trials%202009%20-.htm

Fun in CA

2009-06-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

A huge (belated) THANK YOU to the Childers family (CC, Stacy, and Dan), the Golison family, the UCSB sailing team, and In-N-Out Burger for treating us so well while we were down south, way back in April! We couldn't do it without you! --Katy and Helena

CISA Clinic

2009-06-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

After Midwinters West, Katy flew back up to Seattle for school but I was on spring break so I stayed in CA and drove around touring a few colleges (all with sailing of course) because the next weekend (Apr 4-7) was the CISA (California International Sailing Association) Clinic in Long Beach. We were lucky enough to be selected by resume for this highly selective clinic run annually out of Alamitos Bay YC. This clinic attracts the best sailors and coaches in the nation so it was truly an awesome experience to be surrounded by so many fantastic sailors. It really gave Katy and I motivation to work hard to be the best sailors we can be.

Our 29er coaches were Ben Glass, Cameron Biehl, and Jon Rogers. A huge thanks to them, as well as to Andrew Campbell (who sailed a Laser in the Beijing Olympics last summer) who was the head coach of the clinic, and to Jerelyn Biehl, who puts a tremendous effort into organizing the clinic and CISA as a whole.

We did some rudderless sailing, switched crews/skippers within our teams and with other boats, and did some long distance upwind legs (can you say 'tack on the whistle'?). We begun each morning with a workout on the beach from Harry Legum of Annapolis Sailing Fitness because we just weren't exhausted enough from sailing all day, and we'd end each day with a lecture from a guest speaker. The clinic lived up to its reputation for its intensity - we left our host's house at 7:30 each morning and didn't return until 9:30. Our host family was awesome and we can't thank them enough for their hospitality. CISA was such an amazing experience and really jumpstarted our season.

--Helena

For more information (photos, results, and about CISA) go to http://www.cisasailing.org/

March - 29er Midwinters West in San Diego

2009-06-29T22:03:00.000-07:00

It's time to revive the blog as we begin the final countdown to Worlds in Garda (leaving in 10 days!) ...we promise we'll be more on top of this from now on!

Here is some long overdue news, starting way back in March with the 29er Midwinters West at Coronado YC in San Diego CA.

The day before the regatta was a clinic (run by Jen Glass, Ben Glass, U18 coach Leandro Spina, and Jon Rogers) which was a helpful intro to Coronado's conditions and some useful tuneup. A special thanks to the Childers family for hosting us and to Stacy for coordinating the clinic as well. Turns out we had an uncharacteristically windy four days, but the sun was out so we were loving it!

This was our first time sailing our new boat, 29er #927 (white hull) which we bought from a private owner who sailed it out of Richmond YC. The boat is fast!

Unfortunately we were still adjusting some rigging on it though - just our luck that the spinnaker halyard system worked all through the clinic and the morning of the first day of the regatta, only to jam at the windward mark of the first leg of the first race of the regatta! For the rest of the day it continued to malfunction but we made the best of it and fixed it afterwards which led to better results for the next two days.

It was awesome to race with so many boats (just as many boats as there were at Nationals last summer) and also to see so many female sailors/teams. 18 out of the 44 sailors were girls. Katy and I finished 11th/22, with our best finishes being 3rd, 5th, and 6th. We were pleased with this performance, being one of the first regattas of the season, and considering that we were sorting our the rigging on our new boat.

Results here: http://29ernorthamerican.org/2009/results/MWW.htm

-- Helena

2009-01-25T16:36:00.001-08:00

Well today was an interesting day in Seattle. Helena and I got down to shilshole slightly dreading going out in the cold weather but decided it was worth it and got dressed. We started to rig the XX but as soon as we put it in the water and realized how hard it was to even hold against the dock decided to not take the boat out. The wind had been building for the last ten minutes so instead we sailed Kate Shaner's boat out of the harbor with plans to gets some other kids sailing it once we got out. The conditions on the water are usually not as bad as we think when standing on the dock but today was a different story. We went up wind for a bit but had some difficulties dealing with a main halyard that was a bit too short and also connected to the jib halyard therefore making hard to trim either sail very well. We made an attempt to go down wind but due to some 5 foot waves (guessing..) pitch pulled quickly after. I, only wearing a wetsuit and some layers, instantly got cold so Helena was nice enough to get everything situated before righting the boat. I got cold a bit quick so Ben had Alexis get in the water for me and while she was able to right the boat she also got cold quick and so i still ended up sailing the boat in. Helena and I made it in just fine and I quickly ran to the shower to try and warm myself up. It may have not been our favorite day of sailing but we always learn a lot even in short times about our sailing, gear and especially the boat set up.

Good Job to everyone else who stuck it out, and thanks to Alexis for letting me warm up a bit!

-- Katy

(the picture above is me and Helena sailing today)

2009-01-16T08:43:00.001-08:00

Hello to all :)
Helena and I just started this blog to keep everyone posted on how our training and upcoming season is going. We will continue to post after clinics, regattas and be sure to share some exciting stories from our weekly practices. We went out for the first time last weekend in about a month due to some crappy Seattle weather. It was a great day that relieved us both of the sailing withdrawal we were feeling!

We would like to thank our sponsor West Coast Sailing, you guys have truly given us more motivation to fight through these cold winter days so we can accomplish our goals for the season.
There is nothing coming up all that soon so things might go a bit slow but as spring and summer get closer we will have much more up to read about!
We will also be posting many pictures so all can see our good and bad moments on the water :)

Thanks to all!
--Katy