Monday, December 7, 2009

Beijing to London: Olympic Social


Jen and I will be spending Christmas in my hometown of Calgary, AB. We are hosting an event at my home club of Glenmore Sailing Club on Dec. 27th from 7-10 pm. Jen and I will discuss our campaign for 2012, then Steve McBride of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club (former Head Coach of the Alberta Sailing Association) will talk about his experience coaching at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. Steve coached the SKUD 18 team to a Bronze Medal finish.

Please see the poster and remember to RSVP.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

470 Photos

If you are interested in the 470 you can view photos of the boat on flickr at

Friday, November 13, 2009

Remembrance Day Training

Jen and I took part in the Remembrance Day Ceremony at Royal Vic Wednesday morning and then spent the afternoon on the water. It was our first long session in decent wind since starting to sail together again. It was a really good afternoon and I think we made alot of progress getting comfortable in the boat together.

Here is my first attempt at video editing from the day.

470 Pictures

470 Shots

Big Changes!

Lots of things have happened since the last post! At the regatta in October there were two female teams, Jen and Kristine and Liz and I. After NQR's both Kristine and Liz decided they do not wish to continue sailing 470's. This left Jen and I both a bit confused, but we have now decided to sail together. Jen and I sailed together for the 2006 season and then sailed with different people while I focused on finishing my degree. We are both focused on sailing now and training to try and qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London.

This blog will continue to feature updates on our sailing and can be linked to directly or from our new campaign website at www.jenanderinsail.ca.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Goldstream

Drove out to Goldstream on Saturday in the pouring rain. The fish weren't running yet but the leaves were gorgeous in the rain. Climbed Finlayson (which kicks my butt every time). Didn't go all the way up as the rocks were really slippery.
Goldstream 09

Post NQR

I called the regatta we sailed in earlier this month the "NQR" as in National Qualifying Regatta; however the Canadian Yachting Association did not make it a qualifying event for the 470 fleet. It was the 470 Canadians, but as the CYA forgot to even award the women's title, they don't seem to have placed a high priority on the event. The next major event for the 470 is the Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in January.

Monday, October 5, 2009

NQR's- Day 4

When we de-rigged Saturday night the jib halyard was jamming in the mast. We didn't pay too much attention as we were cold and tired. When we started rigging the boat Sunday morning we discovered the problem: the port spreader had punched through the side of the mast where it attaches. If we had not noticed this and gone sailing, the entire mast would have broken and caused alot more damage to the boat.

So needless to say we did not race, and so finished up the regatta in last. It was really dissapointing not being able to sail, especially since it wasn't as windy as it had been predicted. We did go on the water and watch the racing, and it was nice to be able to watch the boats at the front of the fleet and see how much harder they worked the boat.

So nqr's is over, now back to training!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

NQR - Day 3

We left the dock this morning in about 8 knots from the NE, with our mast set up for light air. By the time we got to the course a short sail away, it was 14 knots. We pinned down to our medium air setting as it got windier. We started the first race and right off the line fell into the boat above us. We attempted to tack out to clear our air, but the jib got stuck and then so did I. The boat capsized on top of me while Liz jumped over onto the centreboard, where she promptly fell off because we had buffed the boat to a shiny finish on Tuesday. This was of course witnessed by the entire laser fleet. We got the boat up and went blasting off to the right side of the course, where there was more wind (which we didn't need) and big waves which threw water into our faces. At some point the boat and I lost contact while I was trapezing and I flew through the air and then slammed back into the boat still on trapeze, much to Liz's amusement. Once around the top mark we shook the water out of our eyes and put up the spinnaker. All was going well until a gust hit and the kite went soaring to windward. As the boat capsized to windward Liz again flew through the air. Since we were already losing the race we took our time getting the boat up, attempting to douse the kite. Unfortunately the kite had wrapped itself around the port spreader and trapeze line, so we sailed back to the dock to untangle it and set our mast up for heavy air. We headed back out having missed a race and changed our mast set up again, as the wind had now died down to 10 knots.

We had three more races during which we managed to get off the starting line and keep the boat upright. The breeze was up and down, so we struggled a bit with changing gears and getting our boat speed up. We did managed to make some good tactical decisions both upwind and downwind and were in 4th for quite a bit of the last two races.

It was a long day on the water and everyone is pretty exhausted. Although we didn't finish two races, we didn't damage any of our equipment or ourselves during our capsizes, and managed to come back and sail some good races. The forecast for tomorrow is 20 knots from 7am to 7pm so hopefully we survive that as well!

Friday, October 2, 2009

NQR - Day 2

So we didn't have much wind at all today. Postponed on shore for 3 hours and then it filled in from the South. When they lower the postponement flag on shore you have 30 minutes until the race starts on the water, a fact we kind of forgot. We ended up missing our start by about two minutes with two of the other boats, which was just dumb on our part. The wind was similar to yesterday afternoon so we headed out right and rounded the windward mark in 6th. There was better pressure on the right but for some reason all the boats ahead of us were heading down the left side of the course. We gybed over and ended up catching right up to the 4th and 5th place boats at the leeward mark. We gained again on the second downwind, and noticed coming into the leeward mark that the wind had shifted left. We played middle left on the third beat and came out dead even with the 5th place boat, which lee-bowed us but then plowed right into a large kelp bulb, allowing us to stay in clear air. The wind had now died almost to nothing and the last downwind leg was painfully slow, with us and the 4th and 5th place boats sailing all together. At the bottom of the course a race committee boat was tied off to the leeward gate mark to finish the lasers on a shortened course, and behind this was our finish line. Basically it was a mess of no wind, lots of RC boats and a lot of confusion. The boat directly ahead of us thought they had finished when they passed the gate mark and took down their spinnaker, allowing us to sail past them and across the finish line in 5th. The race committee then cancelled racing for the rest of the day as there was no wind again.

Other than missing our start it was a pretty good race. We managed to focus on our speed and made some excellent tactical decisions which allowed us to gain on the boats around us. Hopefully we will have more wind tomorrow. Results are at http://www.nqr2009.ca/.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

NQR's - Day 1

We had three races today, the first day of NQR's. There are 7 470's racing in the event. The wind was fairly light and shifty as we had several rain storms move through in the early afternoon. It was very cold and rainy on the water for most of the day.

In the first race we had a poor start and did not tack out early enough, so were behind most of the fleet. We managed to catch up a bit on the downwind by sailing into the current before gybing, and crossed the line second last. This ended up being a 5th as one of the boats had to retire due to equipment issues. The second race had an okay start and got out to the right where there was more pressure, but the wind had lightened quite a bit and we couldn't get the boat up to speed, and ended up last. We tuned up with the other girls after this race and made some adjustments which helped with our speed. In the third race we were over early but so was half the fleet. We ducked the line and then got out to the right and were with the rest of the fleet. Downwind we had good speed but had failed to locate the next mark, so ended up missing a chance to gain on the boats ahead of us. We rounded in 5th but sailed left too far and lost a boat on the upwind. We closed the distance downwind but did not manage to catch them before the finish.

Overall it was a good day. We are fast in a straight line but have major issues going around marks, especially when the laser fleet is rounding the mark at the same time!

Three more days of racing. Hopefully it warms up a bit. Results at http://www.nqr2009.ca/.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

470 NQR's


We will be sailing in the 470 national qualifying regatta this weekend. Although it is unlikely we will qualify for the National Team having only been sailing together for a month, it should be a good indicator of where we stand and great experience for the future.


Results can be found at http://www.nqr2009.ca/

470 Sailing

I have been sailing the 470 Dinghy on and off for the past three years and have just started sailing with a new partner. We have been training for the past month and sailed in our first regatta together this past weekend (Fall Dinghies at RVYC) and didn't come last, which is promising!

Calgary-Toronto Photos


I drove to Calgary at the end of August for a few days and then flew to Toronto for a wedding. Pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.ca/lh/sredir?uname=eflanagan111&target=ALBUM&id=5387125676031767793&authkey=Gv1sRgCLLaqYSxmIW3Jw&feat=email

Butterfly Photos