USA 50 Racing is in Aarhus, Denmark 2022
July 5, 2022
Day one of Europeans is done and dusted. We had nice pace upwind, lil better pace downwind than in Kiel (yay improvements!!) and some great starts. Here’s a little clip of our pin end start in race 1. Thanks super coach @julesmarie9 for this video!
When we left the dock we thought we’d be “speed racing” all day, but it turned out to be pretty shifty, cloud driven racing conditions. Oh yeah and that 30 knot squall that rolled through was fun. One of the trickiest days of racing we’ve had since we’ve been back in the boat. We had a nice day with a 12, something in the teens, and a 3 in the scores.
I’m proud of our team for a few reasons:
1. David has been off the water dealing with a nasty case of Covid since we arrived in Aarhus. Sorry we forgot to mention that before 🙂
Without any training time and just a quick splash yesterday we were just a bit out of routine. To be honest, because of how sick Dave has been we didn’t know if we’d be able to race the first day at all! And guess what? Exceeded our hopes. We did an excellent job managing expectations for today. Dave crushed it at pacing himself when his body struggled and being clear about what he needed from me. Not only that, but we really brought our best to each other all day.
2. Okay, also proud of our team because the work we’re doing on racing comms is paying off. When it got really hard on the course or the conditions became confusing today, we kept performing. Not perfect, but that’s not what we’re going for. We’re going for resilient and fast 🙂 and it’s getting better and better every race!
Day two tomorrow and our boat is happy and we are managing our health and choosing how to and when to push hard at our focal points. Really excited to get back out on the course tomorrow afternoon. Go USA 50!
JULY 6, 2022
Tough day in the office! We had excellent starts and top mark roundings today, but just couldn’t seem to convert that good stuff into solid races.
Struggled to keep the boat in top gear all the way around the course, with special difficulties on the second upwind beats!
That being said, it was another extremely shifty, funky day of sailboat racing. There were loads of passing lanes, and lots of giant lulls as obstacles. Had to be really head out of the boat in order to make sure not to miss the next change! We learned a lot… excited to take another shot at it tomorrow!
Thanks for following our racing! Sending you guys a big virtual hug for your good vibes. We’re working hard over here to squeeze the most out of these experiences racing with the fleet, and your support really means the world to us!
Let’s go!! Day 3 tomorrow!!
JULY 7, 2022
Better day today for USA 50. While our second beats improved a lot, we struggled to set up good first ones to work with. Dang it! Always something else to chip away at 🙂 Downwinds a click better than yesterday… little by little a little becomes a lot. Gotta take our wins today because they keep adding up.
Happy that we made gains in the places we set out to improve. Was a really shifty day out there, and staying on top of compass numbers seemed to be pretty important. Honestly, while it wasn’t always in our favor, the racing was pretty fun!
David is almost back at 100% and I’m grateful his health is returning. This virus is no joke + the last few days have been really hard on his body. Proud of this guy for sending it.
More work to do tomorrow. Yippee ki yay!!!
JULY 8, 2022
Day 4! 3 races in 15-25 kts. Flat water, puffy, shifty. Had 3 good starts. Happy with the mechanics + decisions on the starting line.
R1 - Started @ the pin in a huge lefty. Tacked immediately and were crossing the fleet. Struggled to foil well. Tried to sort out our speed. Got a little header and chose to tack back onto starboard + get farther left. We liked the left and had wanted to play that side. Soon we had made it into the left pressure + decided to “lead back” the group we were with so we could get lifted. That didn’t play out so well… the left pressure was high and shearing and we sailed out of it. Made gains in the following laps. Ok we got this!
R2 - Started near the pin in a lefty. Hung w our pack for a minute or so, but were still clearly not as fast as the boats around us. Okay, starting to feel like a set up issue, not technique. It looked like the boats above us on starboard were going to have us on the port layline. Decided to get clear early on a left shift. We waited for our moment. Came into a header and pressure, and when the boat in front of us tacked and the boat below us tacked, we led. AGAIN we fell out of the lefty and watched as the far left and far right both filled… ouch. Went well downwind, but lost even more second upwind. Def our worst race of the series 🤦♀️ Oh well at least our downwind speed is getting so much better!! Super cool to be ripping downwind instead of struggling there 🙂
R3 - Frustrated but resolute after race two, we screwed our heads on and made some setup changes. Then we made some strategy changes. Started a little higher on the line, held longer to the left to make sure we stayed in the left pressure. Oh wow! Much better speed! We were finally not fighting the boat. Positive set up changes. Good downwinds and a really good last upwind and we put together the best race of our day. Woohoo!!!!!
Learned so much about set up + technique in really breezy foiling today. We’re lucky to have these conditions in which to improve. Thanks to David for his immense patience with me today as I learn and fail at tactics! Tomorrow we are looking forward to applying the things we learned. Here we go!!!
JULY 9, 2022
2022 Nacra Euros has come to an end. We finish 16th after two races today.
Very wild race course close to shore with an offshore breeze. We knew anything could happen so we tried to make a plan with that in mind. Turned out to be much simpler than we thought… go left! First race we hedged right and had to fight tooth and nail for every point. Second race we went left and things fell into place.
Overall we feel proud that we sailed this event after a week without training, some serious Covid, and our coach’s flight canceled and delayed until after racing started.
We learned so much and checked some important boxes.
Excited to get back home and put in some time training in Newport. Thank you for your support and love!!!
