Charles Heimler

Turns out Ainslie is more Finn sailor than Brit!!

2011-12-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

I've been following this story and posting updates on Facebook.

ISAF needs to insist that motorboats on the course have trained spotters on board.

Holland to France

2011-11-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

For the Armistice regatta, I leased a car and a trailer and picked up my boat in storage in Dronten..

Then, drove 1200 KM in a day to arrive near Bordeaux.

Toting kit back and forth in Europe makes my holiday happen!

Maubuisson Redux

2011-11-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

Le Grand Prix Armistice 29 Oct to 2 Nov 2011

Five races in four days with 73 Finns beach launching from the Forest Bombanes beaches.
Results are at the Cercle Voiles Bordeaux Maubuisson (Cvbm) website.
It was a great development of the euro travel program with help from HIT Masts Holland!

There is a full report of this regatta in the current issue of Finnfare published at finnclass.org.

Thank you for the special foreigner's podium to the French Finn Association and CVBM.

USA Olympic Finn Trials Weymouth

2011-04-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

This week is a prelim regatta in France. It qualifies entrants to the Trials
if the actual regatta exceeds the 80 boat quota. This is the new US Sailing Selection
System.

New year 2010

2010-01-01T13:07:00.001-08:00

Look for more postings in the weeks to come.

Letter from Europe

2009-06-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

Letter from Europe
June 9, 2009

Sailing in Europe and visiting its many interesting places in conjunction with sailing regattas has always been something I’ve wanted to do. The ending of my year’s sabbatical from work gave me the time to travel there for a week before the ISAF World’s at Medemblik, Holland and then on to southwest France for the Finn World Masters. Instead of chartering a boat for the one week of training and then one week of the regatta, I bought a boat from Jan van der Horst of HIT mast Holland, with the option that he would buy it back when I was done using it. The price of the boat will be amortized over the course of the next few summers sailing more events in Europe, such as the Masters Worlds in Croatia in 2010 and then in 2011 Punta Ala, Italy, which have fleets of 250+ as well as national championships in France, Holland, and the U.K., events which attract fleets of over 60 boats.

The first stop was Medemblik, Holland, arriving by Schiphol Airport, where I rented an Opel station wagon that would become my transportation and my hotel for the next week. The parking lots at Europe’s regattas are filled with campers and tents, so car camping is allowed. Medemblik is a medieval village on a Dutch lake that was created by damming off the North Sea in the 1930’s. It provides open water sailing and is a training center for the Dutch National sailing team, as well as Germans for whom it’s easier to get to than Kiel, the center of German sailboat racing. Finn sailor P.J. Postma as well as the Dutch Yngling team, who got a silver medal in China with their unorthodox strategy of training 9 women and only deciding the final three a few days before the regatta, base their campaigns there.

The U.S. Sailing Team AlphaGraphics (USSTAG) had a well-organized effort there in preparation for the regatta. High performance director Kenneth Andreasen was there, and Bunny Warren was hired to coach the Finn team of Zach Railey, Andy Casey, Bryan Boyd, and Ian Cook. USSTAG owns two RIB’s in Europe and is renting a third. Warren ran practices and then practice races which attracted 27 boats. The US team’s largesse was much appreciated by the Olympic hopefuls from the many assembled nations.

On the day the Delta Lloyd regatta started in Holland, I drove south to Dronten, Holland, to Jan van der Horst’s farm, which is the headquarters for HIT (Horst Innovative Technologies), where Jan had arranged for another Jan Kingma (THE KINGMAN), who is the 71 year-old Finn Master Worlds webmaster, to drive my boat and his on a double trailer to the masters regatta in France, a 1200 kilometer trip through Belgium, Normandie, and into the Bordeaux region. We were part of a caravan of Finns, as HIT mast Holland was chartering 20 boats for the event, five of which were on a trailer behind a Peugeot van and three of which on a trailer behind Horst’s Hymer caravan.

On the way, we stopped at Roderic Cassandre’s (NED 8) castle in the Loire Valley region of France. Cassandre sailed Finns back in the day when Willie Kuhweide was king of the fleet and now regularly places in the Gold fleet at the masters worlds. He bought a castle six years ago—why? He told me that ever since he was a little boy he wanted a castle. He and his wife have been renovating it with modern apartments and a 26-seat movie theater, raising chickens, and doing all the things that modern day castle owners do. He said he studied in books about 1500 castles that are on the market in Europe before settling on this one, which has a moat with water in it, a chapel, and a kennel, as well as a turret filled with fliegelmaus (bats), 200 of which flew around uncomfortably close to our heads after we inadvertently disturbed them in the morning daylight.

After a night with the Dutch knight in the castle, the caravan moved on towards Bordeaux. The toll roads all the way cost as much as the gasoline. We took breaks along the way when Margrit van der Horst would have koffie ready for us in the caravan. The sun and warmth increased the more we ventured south. I used the maps feature on my new iphone to monitor our progress while Jan told me stories about the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This was also the area from which the Normans invaded the British Isles in 1066 and laid the basis for what would become modern English—70 percent of English words are of French origin.

At the regatta, the French organizers had a clear and organized procedure to get sails stamped, registration fees paid, and registration packets distributed. The 130 Euro registration fee, which included a bottle of wine, shirt, poster, scarf, drink tickets, 2 meals, snacks, patisserie, use of the club, the easiest beach launching I’ve ever used and whatnot was incredibly fair. It all went very smoothly but on the French time schedule, which was very, as we say in California, laid-back, and subject to the club people taking a very long lunch in the middle of the day. But who cares? We were there at the beach, at the lake, with a boat, and a villa to stay for 9 days for 90 Euros per person. I rented a Gitane bike for 60 Euros and pedaled to and from the regatta site and around the village adjacent to the beach (yes, the women go topless). The tourist village of Maubuisson had just opened for the season the day before we arrived, so the shopkeepers were very pleasant to us—the possibility of gathering fresh Euros melts even the snotiest French attitude. I was the only American at the regatta—when I registered, the lady exclaimed—“The American is here. You have finally arrived. We have been waiting for you to arrive.” Within a day the yacht club staff began addressing me as “Monsieur Charles”. Through some unexplained neurological dynamic, I was able to recall my 1 year of French in graduate school and carry on most of the business of the day in French and read Le Monde in mornings. I’m sure I mangled many verb tenses but nobody seemed to care.

The day’s schedule was a holiday fest—koffie and croissants in the morning, bicycle to the club for the 1 pm start, sail one or two races, return to the club late, pull the boat up on the beach with 3 or 4 sailors helping, and talk about the racing in English accented by Swedish, Dutch, French, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, German, Czech—one of the most amazing finds was that Finn master sailors speak English really well and they were very capable of distinguishing between the lame-ass behaviour of the Bush government and ordinary Americans, whose character, culture and personalities they still admire. At the most basic level, we are all Finn sailors—in love with the boat and the “Finn ethic”. After the club scene dwindled, bicycle 4 km back to the club through the forest and enjoy the evening twilight until 10 pm—it didn’t become pitch black until nearly 11 every night.

The regatta concluded with a long prize giving ceremony in the French style. On Saturday we packed the boats in intermittent rain, the only day with rain. Then, we proceeded in the caravan north to Holland with a stop in a transit hotel (60 Euro/night) just north of Paris. I left my boat in storage at Horst’s farm (later to be transported to the Gold Cup in Denmark), took the train to Amsterdam, where I was on a mission to return to the flat on Nieuwe Keizersgracht where I spent the winter of 1977. That experience is another chapter—only to say now that they have some strange coffee in Amsterdam. I read about it in a Rich Steves column—you don’t drink it, you smoke it. And afterwards I got really lost on my rented (7.50 Euro/day) one speed Dutch bicycle circling around North Amsterdam trying to find my way back to Centraal Station.

--Charles Heimler (for more reports check out the blog at charlesheimler.blogspot.com)

Finn Master Worlds 2009 Gathers 264 to Maubuisson, France

2009-06-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

Champion du Monde Finn Veteran 2009, June 1-5

Two hundred sixty four Finn sailors ranging in age from 40-86 assembled in Maubuisson, France on a lake near Bordeaux for the 39th edition of this event, attracting participants from 21 nations to the host club Cercle de Voiles Bordeaux, Carcans, Maubuisson (CVBCM) for the annual regatta organized by the Finn World Masters.
German Andre Budzien, sailing a Pata B4 with Pata Willets mast and a North poly, won his third world championship on the final day in the Gold fleet after a four day qualifying series of 130 boats in flight races. (For complete results, go to finnworldmaster.com)
For Friday’s race, the fleet was split into two groups of about 130. The winds were generally were moderate northeasterlies for the first two days, then two days of light and shifty, and on Friday a southwesterly of 15 knots appeared. The French club provided libations, patisseries, fresh oysters and other snacks after each day’s racing, while the club bar had food, liquor, and espressos available all the time.
At Sunday’s opening ceremony following the practice race, Finn World Master president Fons van Gent (NED 748) welcomed the sailors and their companions after a contingent from each nation carried their national flag banner to the accompanying national anthem. Several counties had their whole squad march in the ceremony in a show of support for all their nation’s sailors. The last country to walk-in was France, led by 86-year old Didier Poissant, a former Olympian. The recognition of the world’s Finn sailors at the opening ceremony helped create an atmosphere of international cooperation and sportsmanship.
The host club, CVBCM, is situated beside the Lake of Carcans, which is surrounded by sandy beaches and the Bombannes Forest of pine trees and deer. It is one of the best places for bike path touring between the lake, the forest, and the ocean 3 km away. Maubuisson is a small tourist village that caters to middle-class French on holiday. Its shops, ATM machines, and restaurants only opened for the season on the day before the Finn World Masters began.
The regatta format was 1-2-2-1-1, seemingly a leisurely scheduled, but a half hour to hour sail to the course followed by a one hour sail back in made for some long days, especially when each race usually required one general recall, an I flag, and then a black flag to get a proper start. With 130 sailors of extreme experience and skill in each race, spots on the line were a premium and many paid a penalty as there was seldom even a line sag to find a starting spot within.
The courses were the traditional Olympic triangle, which rewarded those who had a knack for getting in phase with the wind on the three beats in each race, as the races often saw 40 degree shirts and deep holes when the wind was light. Finding clear air was, of course, important, and especially so when big clumps of boats on the course created their own wind shadows. Mark rounding pinwheels of twenty or more boats added to the thrill of the racing.
At the Annual Masters Meeting, representatives of Split, Croatia, site of the 2010 World Masters May 23-28, gave information about the regatta. Prevailing winds there are 8-18 and the venue will be the Gold Cup course.
For 2011, Punta Ala, Italy was selected for the Finn World Masters. It will be May 12-17.
It was also announced at the AGM that registration for the regattas will now only be done through the finnworldmasters.com website.

Report by Charles Heimler, USA Finn 32 (see my blog at charlesheimler.blogspot.com)

Sailing Team America 2012--A Village for the Best

2009-04-22T12:39:00.001-07:00

Sailing Team America 2012—Funding the Best American Olympic Hopefuls

Sailing Team America 2012 is a new foundation formed to support our Olympic hopefuls. Its specific focus is the “twenty-somethings” who have the burning desire to represent their country in the Olympic Games in 2012 and beyond. It recruits and nurtures a development squad of sailors to help them qualify for national sailing teams.

The organization formed out of the United States of America Finn Association (USAFA) this past Miami after silver-medal winner Zach Railey and USAFA president Scott Mason sought candidates for the USAFA’s Finn development program. It was recognized that there needed to be a transition from post-college level sailors into the world of Olympic sailing.

The program expanded to include 49er sailors and 29er sailors in recognition that skiff sailing will be increased in the Olympics.

“Once sailors qualify for the US Sailing Team, they receive training, funding, logistical support and so on,” said Sailing Team America 2012 Executive Director, Charles Heimler, veteran of the Laser, Snipe, and Finn classes. “And in the US, college sailing grooms the best coming out of high school. What we’re doing is building a bridge of financial support, coaching, gear and so on to move our best prospects to the next level.”

“In Miami, we provided a boat for three-time All-American Bryan Lake in his first Finn regatta,” said Heimler. “I’d known him since he was a Snipe sailor. He finished well up in the fleet and improved each day in his very first Finn event. Kids I coached in junior programs program are now young adults racing 49ers, Radials, and 470’s. Getting the “texting” generation into this Olympic quadrennial and the next one takes a village of mentors if we’re going to match and then outwit the Brits.”

“As our athletes sailing this Spring in Europe crystallize their experiences, that knowledge will be transferred to the development squads,” said Heimler. “Then we will leverage those insights at our National and North American championships this summer.”

The organization is now forming a board and obtaining tax-exempt status. More info can be had by contacting charlesheimler@alumni.ucsd.edu.

The Difference at the international level

2009-04-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

After sailing for over a month with some of the top Finn sailors, here are the main items I observed. They, along with The Playbook by Canadian Olympic Chris Cook, can help those interested in improving their Finn sailing.

1. These sailors are very disciplined and arrive on time.
2. They emphasize gym programs, even after sailing on the water.
3. They ride bicycles to and fro as their transportation, thus saving on expenses and working it into their training.
4. Very careful about what they eat and drink--oatmeal, fruit, cliff's bars, fruit cups big meal after sailing and vices like coffee and a pastry on Sunday.
5. Open, conversational personalities and are helpful to other sailors.
6. Do things to promote the Finn class and Finn fleets overall
7. Speak English well as their second language (except GBR, of course).
8. Mental endurance and physical stamina. Can concentrate and perform keenly in all wind conditions through the length of a training session and a regatta, especially in the medal race.
9. Are truly having fun, and are appreciative of the nice places they get to sail in.
10. Spend the pre-season lining up sponsorship, kit, and regatta schedule that's locked into place for the whole season and whole quadrennial.
11. Have Coaches and coach boats with debriefings.
12. Arrive at the venue 10 days to 2 weeks before an event to acclimate and train.

--Charles Heimler

Finn Team American 2012 Begins London Medal Quest

2009-02-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

Olympic Finn Team America 2012

Midwinters Regatta Shows Gains for USA Sailors Railey, Casey, Boyd

(Harbordale, Florida—February 16, 2009)—The next generation of American Olympic Finn medal contenders earned two of the four trophies at the 27th running of the Finn Midwinters this past weekend in an international field that included Olympic medalists, world, and national champion sailors of the men’s premier single-handed dinghy.
Past USA Finn National Champion Tom Lihan reprised this year’s event, also awarding first-place honors in the Women’s Radial to 2008 Gold-medal sailor Anna Tunnicliff (Plantation, FL).
2009 Silver-medalist Zach Railey finished second in the standings behind Ed Wright (GBR). The Royal Yachting Associations firebrand, training here for the winter, also place first in last month’s ISAF World Champs Miami, edging 5th place 2008 Olympian Chris Cook (CAN) by a point after winning the medal race.
Andy Casey (Alameda, CA) notched a fourth place, just a few points behind third place winner, Rafael Trujillo (ESP), the 2004 silver-medalist and 2007 World Champion.
Bryan Boyd (Annapolis, MD), challenged for the lead most of the regatta, finishing 7th.
Conditions were hot, humid, and light wind for most of the vent, save for two races on Saturday that allowed for open kinetics. The fleet generally sailed more within the rules after the race committee empowered the six coaches attending the event to yellow-flag sailors who illegally propelled their boats.
Three events this winter, the Coaches Regatta and Miami OCR in January, and this just-concluded, were the time when the national sailing teams begin coagulating their programs for the next Olympic competition, and the ISAF World Championship series (Australia, Miami, Mallorca, Hyers, Medemblik, Kiel, Weymouth), assessing the state of their sailing toward the next quadrennial preceding the Olympic Games in England in 2012.
For the American part, US Sailing will name the representatives to those games after a 3-regatta selection trials. USSA), the national authority for American Olympic sailing, will name the summer, fall, and winter regattas of 2011 that will provide data points for that selection in the near future, according to USSA coach Luther Carpenter, who added that this selection process differs from the traditional national open regatta held up to now by the USA Finn Association (USAFA) and USSA.
USAFA has also named their development sailor. Bryan Lake (North Shore, HI), a 3-time All-American sailor at the University of Hawaii, will be provided with a Finn at upcoming North American Finn regattas and clinics.

Finn Midwinters 2009 in Lauderdale

2009-02-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

The Road to Weymouth Continues This Weekend for Team America 2012

FT Lauderdale, Florida, February 12, 2009—The top Finn sailors in North American join the top Finn sailors from the UK, Spain, and Poland in this year’s Finn Midwinter Regatta, hosted by Lauderdale Yacht Club on the Atlantic Ocean in south Florida.

The newly-minted U.S. Sailing Team Finn squad includes Zach Railey, 2008 Olympic silver medalist, Andy Casey, 2007 U.S. National Champion, and Bryan Boyd, 2005 U.S. National Champion.

Their main competition for podium honors will be Spain’s Rafael Trujillo, 2004 Olympic silver medalist and 2007 Finn World Champion, Britain’s Ed Wright, Royal Yachting Association’s performance team athlete who won last month’s ISAF Worlds Miami OCR, and Poland’s Rafa Szukiel, a 2008 Olympian at the games in China, and 7th at Miami, and Norway’s Peer Moberg, also a 2008 Olympian who finished 6th at Miami.

Canada’s Chris Cook, who sailed to a 7th in the Quindao regatta and 2nd at Miami, will return to the coach boat to mentor the promising young sailor, Toronto’s Matt Johnston, who made it to the ISAF Worlds Miami Regatta medal race in his first major event.

Temperatures are warming at the venue, with highs expected in the low 80’s and light southeast winds of 5-10 knots. Because the course is set close to shore, sailors will have to strategize between heading offshore or up the beach for windward legs. Strong currents generated by the nearby Gulf Stream and strong southerlies the previous few days with also factor into each sailor’s game plan.

Olympic sailing heads back to the Continent in April for the ISAF Worlds in Palma, Majorca, Spain and then Hyeres, France. The USA team plans racing those events as well as the other ISAF stages in Medemblik, Kiel, and Weymouth, punctuated by the Finn Gold Cup in Copenhagen in July and the European Championship in Varna in August.

Country-bound Finnsters will head for New Orleans for the Mardi Gras Hangover regatta followed during the week by the North American Masters championship for those over 40. The first major 2009 West Coast regatta is in Long Beach at ABYC starting March 21.

More information at ussailing.org, nafinnclass.org, finnclass.org, charlesheimler.blogspot.com

Copyright 2009/Charles Heimler

Double point Finn showdown at Miami World Champs

2009-02-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

Miami OCR Dispatch #3 -- Medal race

ISAF created the medal race to bring spectator friendly drama to sailboat racing. At the ISAF World Championship in Miami, it got what it wanted. Only those with access to a motor boat, however, were able to see the excellent sailing skills of the top ten Finn sailors of the regatta. Gary Bodie, the event co-chair, told me that they’d once tried to organize a spectator boat for $10 a ticket, but no one signed up. It’s their loss.

In this iteration of the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta Stage Two of the ISAF Olympic Dinghy World Championship (RMOCRSTISAFODWC, 2009), Chris Cook of Canada sought to over-come his medal race bugaboo and hold off Brit Ed Wright.
As it turned out, Cook had one of his best medal races but finished just behind Wright, and with the double-points awarded in the medal race, saw the yellow jersey, which he’d worn for the whole regatta, slip off his back.

Cook had to sail through some boats ahead of him to be able to challenge Wright on the final downwind run after Wright took the lead at the top of the course.

Wright then had enough of the course to himself to focus on speed and less on positioning. In the two initial legs of the course, match racing your closest competitor and then positioning yourself to round the weather mark and make gains on those ahead in points, is a monied strategy.

P.J. Postma of Holland caught a few waves just 50 metres from the finish to pass Rafa Trujillo, who found himself having to jibe after stalling on the back of a wave. Just within their periphery, American Andy Casey’s downwind technique was firing on all cylinders, and he managed to slip across the line ahead of Trujillo, 2007 Finn World Champion.

The full kinetics allowed flag was up right before the warning, which presaged a great 30-minute, four leg, drag race. The yellow and red triangle signals the conditions that Finn sailors relish and their upwind athleticism and downwind kinetics elevate to a level unknown in other one-design dinghies.

Combine a 300-pound dinghy, 15 kts. of breeze and accompanying Biscayne Bay chop and, 116 square feet of sail area, and male adrenaline—and the sight is ready for television. For the sailors who’d been practicing in the Coaches Regatta the kinetic-style sanctioned by racing rule 42, the medal race was a culmination the winter training in Miami.

The medal race also allowed Floridian homeboy Zach Railey, to move into 3rd for the regatta. After earning in China the USA’s first silver medal in Finn in 16 years, the sports management major has been helping his coach, Kenneth Andreasen, revamp the USA Olympic program, which is adopting a physical-training and money rewards for performance model to prepare for London 2012. Zach is also helping the USAFA with a Development Program, which has purchased a trainer and put 3-time All-American Bryan Lake into it. Zach’s sailing clinics are helping the new generation of Opti and Laser sailors catch the Olympic spirit.

Copyright 2009—Charles Heimler

Swinging in Miami

2009-02-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

Miami OCR Dispatch #2—January 24, 2009

Swinging in Miami

It’s not what you think it is.

Bob Carlen, Peter Henrichsen, and Fred Nicholson ran 19 boats through the process in the sailing center garage before the regatta. The USAFA charged each boat $50 for the re-certification. They were able to do this because Andy Casey and Forrest Gay brought the rig to and fro California, and yours truly volunteered to collect the money, schedule appointments, and keep records.

Devoti is charging nearly $600 for the same program in Europe—they are batching boats and trucking them to Poland to their factory to do the work. Needless to say, the internationals here were the first in line to get their boats re-certed by the USAFA.

Several installed the digital compass while several left their plastimos in. There’s some benefits to the digital, some suppose; the drawbacks include the lag time between the change of course and when it shows on the digital screen, and the fact that you can’t sight anything but your course of direction. A nice feature of the standard compass is that you can read all the points off the dial, say if you want to know the compass direction of that dark cloud heading toward the water from the city, and so on.

It took four hours to assemble and calibrate the rig and get the first boat done. After that, the measurers evolved the process, done for the first time, to these steps—

 Pay the fee
 Dry the boat
 Choose which compass and install the digital if wanted
 Weigh the boat
 Swing it on the lamboley
 Calculate two factors in a formula to determine where to re-place weight to keep a legal lamboley
 Remove lead as directed by the measurer. This will take claw hammers, a butane torch to heat a putty knife, and up to an hour. Take care not to put a hole in the hull with the claw hammer. Ed Wright, Rafal Szukiel and Pitr Mohr tied for the most efficient weight removal times.
 Install but do not yet glue new weight to correct the swing as directed by the measurer; sikkaflex works well for this.
 Re-weigh under the direction of the measurer
 Re-lamboley under the direction of the measurer. Then, glue the weight in.
 Collect amended certificate.

Minimum weight is 116 K, so some take out the back hiking straps, remove the pussy pads and use sikkaflex and sticky-back to secure the risers, or go naked on the deck all-together. Some even disavow continuous lines.

Several anecdotal reports claim that the boats feel different with the lower weight. The consensus seems to be that the lower weight is a good thing while there is a concern among people who respect the rules that there is an unattended opening for people to modify and then sail non-certificated boats. About 40 pounds of lead weight will soon become the property of the USAFA Chief Measurer.

Miami Olympic Classes Regatta/Sailing World Championship

2009-01-18T16:58:00.000-08:00

Miami sailing dispatch 1 January 16, 2009

Miami in January is like Southern California in late, late August. Balmy with a breeze. However, in South Florida the wind comes from all the directions on the compass on different days as it sits between the big continental ridge influenced by Arctic storms and the uplift of warmth streaming north from the Caribbean in the Gulf Stream.
Finn sailors here training two weeks ahead of the ISAF World Championship stop #2 include Chris Cook of Canada, whose been coaching the Canadian youth team in Florida since November. Cook was 5th in the Finn in the China Games last August.
Rafael “Rafa” Trujillo of Spain, who was the Finn World champion in 2007 and silver medalist in Athens in 2000. Ed Wright of Great Britain, who when Charles Benedict Ainslie, OBE, stays home, may be the best Finn sailor from the world’s best Olympic sailing program. Both he and Rafa are funded by their national governments and private sponsors for their sailing performances. Good finishes at this Miami Olympic classes regattas count toward maintaining or increasing their financial renumeration.
Clearwater’s own Zach Railey, who got the silver in Athens, alternates between sailing and earning money conducting sailing workshops across the Southeast. He will vie with USA Finn Association class president Bryan Boyd and 2007 U.S. National champion Andy Casey for the three spots on the U.S. Sailing team, which actually provide more in bragging rights then in actual benefits other than a few articles of clothing and a spot in some glossy photos. As best as can be learned, U.S. Sailing’s Olympic effort depends on sailors lining up their own funding through their own entrepreneurial schemes or luck having been born into the right well-endowed family. Casey spends his nights and off days doing boatwork, of which there is plenty hereabouts these days.
Three young Canadians hope to place well enough in the regatta to earn development funding through the Canadian Yachting Association—Matt Johnston, who doubles his time here as a Star crew, John Romanko from British Columbia and Adam Nicholson, Albacore sailor and aspiring actor.
American Ian Cook, between semesters at Cornell, hopes to put some experience in the bank for a future all-out Olympic campaign.
The cast hits the water every morning for intensive practice sessions, guided by the principles of Chris Cook’s just published “Playbook”, which contains diagrams of sailing drills and an articulated philosophy of training that includes working together, sharing knowledge, developing body memory, and starting and ending on time. Larry Lemieux’s clear-headed, no nonsense approach enlightens Chris’ best insights
After sailing, the pros bicycle to the gym; the others to their sanctuaries in short-term rental housing, recreational vehicles, or that night’s couch-surf digs. Lots of communication through email and text-messaging. It’s apparent who’s doing what that works for getting on the podium; and it’s even clearer for whom this is just vanity.

TEAM AMERICA 2012 OLYMPIC FINN CAMPAIGN

2008-12-25T13:13:00.001-08:00

TEAM AMERICA 2012---

“London calling” summers in Weymouth, Portsmouth UK

The state of USA Olympic sailing--

Special Education
Watching the Olympics has been somewhat painful as a US sailor. With just two exceptions, the US Sailing Team has been a woeful disappointment. Despite a loud, expensive, and powerful push by Team Chairman Dean Brenner to focus on finding, selecting and training the best prospects for Olympic medals, the US team's total take in Qingdao will be exactly what it was four years ago: One silver medal and one gold – and only a last-beat hail mary of a shift for Olympic gold-medal favorite Anna Tunnicliffe secured her that gold – at the penultimate mark she looked like the owner of nothing but bronze.
Zach Railey's silver-medal Finn performance was truly outstanding and unexpected, and he's certainly the US's real standout story of the sailing games, while Anna's gold was really a stroke of luck for a girl who'd been kicking ass on the international radial circuit for the past year. The rest of the US field was a comedy of errors: Andrew Campbell's DSQ and subsequent BFD showed his total inability to withstand the pressure cooker of the Olympics, and the USA's other good chances evaporated with a sigh – Tornado stars Charlie Ogeltree and John Lovell blew it before the racing even started with their ugly gamble on the cool-sounding but useless chupacabra sail, and medal favorite Sally Barkow and her Yngling crew choked away their chances in the final race.
The rest of the US sailors were more or less invisible in China, and it may be time for US Sailing to do some serious soul searching. Their Board of Directors signed Brenner to a 4 year extension – through Weymouth – before these Games began. According to the US Sailing website, “Under Dean's leadership, US Olympic Sailing has enjoyed significant improvements in private fundraising and corporate support, which has contributed to increased support for US athletes and improved performance on the water for the US Sailing Team.” Perhaps they're victims of their own hype – but it's hard to see where, exactly, that improved performance went this month.
These Olympians are incredible sailors, and the ones we've spoken to are great people. They are completely dedicated to their sport – but with the resources, size, and number of sailors in the USA, there's just no logical reason for their dismal performance. Perhaps pomme Bob Fisher had it right when he said, “Maybe US SAILING should take a leaf out of the Royal Yachting Association’s book and develop an Olympic squad.”
We spoke to a top Olympic coach today, and he's not sure whether an RYA-style squad is the answer. “In some of these countries, you sign up to do an Olympic campaign and it becomes your life,” he said. “You may need to join the military as part of your training, you might need to sacrifice ten years to be part of a professional-level team, and the loss of your freedom and independence is the price you pay for the improved training and support you get as part of a national system. When US sailors do a campaign, it's their campaign, their challenge, and usually their money. Without major changes to the system, we just won't be competitive with the RYA-style teams – and I'm not sure that we're ready to accept the sacrifice that it will take to get there.”
Will Brenner find a way to spin Qingdao as some kind of success for US Sailing? Probably. Will he admit that his credentials as a Shakespearean scholar, public speaking coach, and failed Olympic trials sailor may not have prepared him for the role of head of the US Sailing Team, or even that he's learned some hard lessons and needs to rethink the way they do things? Refreshing as it would be, we're not holding our breath.
08/20/2008 sailinganarchy.com

What is need NOW--

Zach Railey’s achievement in winning a silver medal in the Finn class after three years of full-time training is impressive, and sets a new bar for American Finn sailors. If Zach can do it, there are several other American Finn sailors who can also do it to with proper training and supportive development. That training and development is expensive, as Railey’s campaign spent about $120,000 a year just to win the Olympic Trials.

USA sailors are expected to fund their own campaigns without help from the USA Olympic Sailing Committee.

So, in order to push Zach and develop a core of Olympic sailors, TEAM AMERICA 2012 will—

• Help promising USA Finn sailors attend the Finn Worlds, Europeans, USA Nationals and North Americans, and training weeks at Weymouth, site of the London 2012 Games.

• Conduct clinics throughout North America to enhance the skills of the Finn fleet in order to develop the level of Finn sailing—a rising tide of sailing skills will benefit those at all levels of the fleet.

• Lobby the decision makers in the USA Olympic Sailing Committee and ISAF to promote the interests of the Finn.

What YOU can do—

You can support TEAM AMERICA 2012 in these ways—

Become a sustaining member and receive our quarterly newsletter, available only by mail. $100/year

Become a Bronze medal member by contributing $500.
(This pays entry fees for two sailors at the Finn World Championships and European Championship)

Become a Silver medal member by contributing $1,000.
(This pays airfare for a sailor to attend the Finn World Championship or European Championship).

Become a Gold medal member by contributing $5,000.
(This funds an American sailors’ expenses to attend a Finn World Championship or European Championship).

Contact TEAMAMERICA2012@yahoo.com to become part of the effort to bring American sailing back!

traveller poems

2008-12-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Year's first day beside the sea

New years day beside the East Sea
It is cold at dawn, placed on the steep hills overlooking
The still grey Korean surf

As the sun rises from the water skybound
A cool breeze stems across those cliffs
And daybreak lightens the horizon

Standing before the Sokkharam Budda,
Gazing in the new century first day.

Pause in the Mojave

Driving Barstow to Needles a poem begins, the traveler
Sits at the riverbank, long reeds pierce the sky, resting in water
Desert sun light bored into hard red rock.

A long journey behind, a long journey ahead
But now a pause to rest
Collect the fragments of a scattered mind.

Generation 1.5 Meets Second Language Writing and American College Culture

2008-12-20T12:37:00.001-08:00

ERIC Identifier: ED482491
Publication Date: 2003-10-00
Author: Harklau, Linda
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics
Generation 1.5 Students and College Writing. ERIC Digest.
An increasing number of U.S. high school graduates enter college while still in the process of learning English. Referred to as generation 1.5 students because they share characteristics of both first- and second-generation immigrants (Rumbaut & Ima, 1988), they do not fit into any of the traditional categories of nonnative English speakers enrolled in college writing courses, nor have they been the focus of much research on students learning to write in English as a second language (Harklau, Losey, & Siegal, 1999). Familiar with U.S. culture and schooling, generation 1.5 students have different learning needs from other English language learners, such as immigrants with limited English proficiency and international students who travel to the United States for the express purpose of earning an American college degree. This digest discusses some of the special needs of generation 1.5 students in the area of writing instruction and explores issues faced by English as a second language (ESL) and college writing programs in providing these students with appropriate writing instruction at the college level.
GENERATION 1.5. STUDENTS
Generation 1.5 students are U.S.-educated English language learners. There is great diversity among them in terms of their prior educational experience, native and English language proficiency, language dominance, and academic literacy. Some of these students immigrated to the United States while they were in elementary school; others arrived during high school. Still others were born in this country but grew up speaking a language other than English at home. They may see themselves as bilingual, but English may be the only language in which they have academic preparation or in which they can read and write. At the same time, these students may not feel that they have a full command of English, having grown up speaking another language at home or in their community. Equipped with social skills in English, generation 1.5 students often appear in conversation to be native English speakers. However, they are usually less skilled in the academic language associated with school achievement, especially in the area of writing. Academic writing requires familiarity with complex linguistic structures and rhetorical styles that are not typically used in everyday social interactions.
One of the most common traits among generation 1.5 students is limited or no literacy in the first language. According to Thonus (2003, p.18), many of these students have lost or are in the process of losing their home languages without having learned their writing systems or academic registers. Unlike international students, generation 1.5 students lack a basis of comparison in fully developed oral, written, or both systems of a first language.
PLACEMENT IN COLLEGE WRITING COURSES
Placing generation 1.5 students in appropriate college writing courses presents a challenge. Many students who were mainstreamed in high school may find themselves placed in an ESL composition course in college because their writing exhibits characteristics of second language writers. Unfortunately, most instruction in ESL composition courses is designed either for international students who have learned English formally, are literate in their native language, and are accomplished students in their home countries; or for ESL students who have had limited exposure to English and to U.S. culture and education. Neither of these options is a good fit for generation 1.5 students. Nor do regular freshman composition or remedial courses serve these students well. In mainstream writing courses, students are likely to encounter teachers who lack training in how to work with students from non-English-language backgrounds and who are unaware of their specific needs and how best to help them develop their writing skills.
Valdes (1992) argues that it is crucial for institutions of higher education to devise criteria to distinguish between students who are not fluent in English and therefore need ESL instruction and students who may have problems with academic English but do not need ESL classes. She refers to these two nonnative groups as "incipient bilinguals" and "functional bilinguals." Incipient bilinguals are still in the process of learning English. Their writing contains many grammatical errors, and they can benefit from ESL classes in which they will receive specialized instruction. In contrast, functional bilinguals are no longer considered English language learners, but they may have learned nonstandard forms of English that persist in their writing. Such "fossilized" forms include, for example, past tense verbs or past participles with missing -ed endings or present tense verbs lacking agreement with third person singular subjects (e.g., missing -s endings) Valdes (1992) suggests that functional bilingual students should be placed in mainstream classes and taught to identify the fossilized features of their written English and given guidance in and opportunities for editing their writing.
INSTRUCTIONAL ISSUES
While some generation 1.5 students come to collegeprepared for the academic writing required in a collegecontext, many do not. Difficulties in writing seem to stem from a lack of priorinstruction in the kinds of writing needed for academic domains and a lack ofattention to the problems that interfere with students' ability to show whatthey know in writing. To work effectively with generation 1.5 students, collegewriting faculty should do the following.
"Be aware of students' prior academic literacy experiences."
Understanding the prior educational background of generation 1.5 students is essential to understanding what they need from writing instruction. Many of these students were placed in low-ability classes in U.S. high schools and have had little experience with extensive or academic writing. Research has shown that high school students in low-track classes are socialized into literacy practices that differ from those used in higher tracks (Harklau, Losey, & Siegal, 1999). In low-track writing classes, instruction focuses almost exclusively on substitution drills, dictation, short answer, or writing from models.
Students have little experience with revising their writing or writing from sources. This is in stark contrast to the experience of college-track students, who are taught argumentative and analytical writing and who have experience writing research papers. As a result, although generation 1.5 students may have the cognitive skills needed for college-level courses, their writing skills may not reflect this ability and may prevent them from keeping up with their English-speaking peers.

"Promote academic literacy."
Reid (1992) believes that to be prepared for college writing, generation 1.5 students must be exposed to authentic writing tasks in the content areas so they become aware of the schemata, purposes, and rhetorical conventions needed for academic writing. This exposure should begin before students enter college. Hartman and Tarone (1999) argue that generation 1.5 students should have exposure to a wider range of writing in high school in order to promote their academic literacy skills.
"Help students develop critical literacy."
Blanton (1999) argues that literacy acquisition is not the same thing as language acquisition. She believes that critical literacy makes a crucial difference in academic success because it involves more than learning to read and write. It demands that students be able to engage in questioning, discussing, evaluating, and writing about what they have read. Students who have no experience talking about reading or writing do not know how to do this.
"Recognize diverse needs."
Ferris (1999) notes that because of differences in generation 1.5 students' background and experiences, their writing instruction needs to be different from the instruction offered to international and ESL students. For example, in addition to providing clear and explicit feedback on students' writing, teachers may need to teach generation 1.5 students how to make use of feedback and how to revise and edit their work. In addition, many generation 1.5 students cannot identify parts of speech, although this is assumed to be prior knowledge in most grammar and editing texts. So teachers may need to supplement the texts with focused instruction on formal grammatical features and editing strategies. Thonus (2003) recommends that writing instruction for generation 1.5 students affirm their cultural and linguistic heritage, emphasize learning how to write rather than what to write, and balance grammar correction with instruction in rhetorical styles.
CONCLUSION
It takes many years for literacy in a second language to develop fully. To be successful in college, generation 1.5 students may need to unlearn previous practices and learn new ways of approaching writing. To do this, they need access to instruction that recognizes that they are different from other English language learners. This instruction needs to make room for their diverse backgrounds and strengths and prepare them for life outside the classroom.
REFERENCES
Blanton, L. L. (1999). Classroom instruction and language minority students: On teaching to 'smarter' readers and writers. In L. Harklau, K. M. Losey, & M. Siegal. (1999). Generation 1.5 meets college composition: Issues in the teaching of writing to U.S.-educated learners of ESL (pp. 119-42). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ferris, D. R. (1999). One size does not fit all: Response and revision issues for
immigrant student writers. In L. Harklau, K. M. Losey, & M. Siegal (Eds.), "Generation 1.5 meets college composition: Issues in the teaching of writing to U.S.-educated learners of ESL" (pp. 143-157). Mahwah, NJ: Earlbaum.
Harklau, L., Losey, K. M., & Siegal, M. (Eds.). (1999). "Generation 1.5 meets college composition: Issues in the teaching of writing to U.S.-educated learners of ESL." Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hartman, B., & Tarone, E. (1999). Preparation for college writing: Teachers talk about writing instruction for Southeast Asian American students in secondary school. In L. Harklau, K. M. Losey, & M. Siegal. (1999), "Generation 1.5 meets college composition: Issues in the teaching of writing to U.S.-educated learners of ESL" (pp. 99-118). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reid, J. (1992). Helping students write for an academic audience. In P. Richard-Amato & M. Snow (Eds.), "The multicultural classroom" (pp. 210-21). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Rumbaut, R. G., & Ima, K. (1988). "The adaptation of Southeast Asian refugee youth. A comparative study." Final report to the Office of Resettlement. San Diego: San Diego State University. [ERIC Document Service Reproduction Service No. ED 299 372]
Thonus, T. (2003). Serving generation 1.5 learners in the university writing center. "TESOL Journal, 12," 17-24.
Valdes, G. (1992). Bilingual minorities and language issues in writing. "Written
Communication, 9," 85-136.

Second language writing & the culture of American education

2008-12-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

Exploring second language writing and the culture of American education

Here are names common to my role sheets in English 1A: Rodriquez, Nguyen, Darawish, Do, Huang, Puzar, Devera, Torres, Hernandez, and so on. Each is a student who has experienced an American high school, graduated, and has entered community college for all the right reasons—to be successful, to gain an education, to make something of themselves. And each is plagued by a level of reading comprehension and written expression that is below college level. Each has language that is a mixture of a first language that represents their heritage and the as-yet-charted “interlanguage”—what they learn as a result of immersion in the culture of American education.

Students in English 1A typically are not readers, not writers, and view English class for the most part as a hoop to jump through on the way to their real purpose—attaining a degree in business, computers, nursing, social work, real estate, some profession that popular lore and parental pressure has deemed the quick way to a middle class lifestyle. Reading and writing are not skills to master in order to do well in college work, in their view. Rather, it is a quantity of units that go on the transcript.

The fact that each has graduated from high school, has a number of relatives who are successful in their fields, and are able to succeed in their other classes without the sorts of literacy skills we English teachers would like them to have further reinforces the idea that English class is an ordeal to be endured, the less pain the better. But we English teachers think we know better. We tell our students that writing well is important in the workplace, that the skills learned in English 1A will help students succeed in their other classes, that there’s a writing skills test they must pass in their junior year in order to take classes in their majors. And most play along with those ideas, knowing in the back of their minds that writing well is an asset, one which they want to master if only somebody will take the time to actually teach them how to master it. And because those who can write well will do better than those for whom writing produces a mishmash, it’s still worthwhile to teach English composition.

But when the plurality of community college students are not native speakers of English, and are actually functioning in their lives in two or more languages, then how do they learn the higher academic and cognitive skills taught in English composition? To try to answer this question, I enrolled in the Teaching English As A Second Language Program at a university near to my home.

Award winning journalism

2008-12-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

This is an article team-written during my freelance journalism career--

http://www.projectcensored.org/static/1984/1984-story22.htm

Speed City Finding Its Legs Again in San Jose

2008-12-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

The Jaguar Men Sunday won the game and the James Clark Classic tournament championship hosted by Cosumnes River College in Sacramento with a dominating win over Feather River, a team they only beat with a gift basket in the last seconds a week ago.

The win gives San Jose city a 7-3 record, which they take into this weekend's San Jose City College Classic Tournament in the Jaguar Den.

Feather River's cold shooting in the first half and San Jose's motion offense allowed the Jags to compile a 20-point lead at halftime.

B.J. Lassiter hit three treys and two field goals in the first half to take 13 points into the locker room, and led the Jags to lead 17-9 with 10 minutes left, 27-14 with 5 minutes left, and 34-14 at the end of the first half.

In the second half, City led by between 16-20 points until garbage time arrived in the game's final minutes when Feather River's Garhett Parent, a 6-6 freshman, found a hot hand and scored three consecutive baskets, one a 3-pointer.

SJCC's Neel Narayan, a freshman point guard, was named by the coaches as the tournament's most valuable player. He scored 12 in the final game's win, and had 9 assists against Napa Valley and 7 assists against Alameda in the first two games of the tournament.

The "Fijian Flyer", whose Indian family immigrated from Fiji to Silicon Valley, is finding a home sparking Coach Percy Carr's Speed City offense.

City's Isaiah James, freshman forward, and Chris Randel, sophomore forward, were named to the All-Tournament team. James' leaping prowess and Randel's emerging deft footwork are increasingly snagging the defensive rebounds that launch the Jaguar fast-break scoring machine.

The tournament host, Cosumnes River College, finished third with a win over Alameda. CRC is coached by James Giacomazzi, who played at San Jose City College, received a basketball scholarship to UC Riverside where he was All-Conference his senior year.

He was then an assistant coach at San Jose City College for five years while earning a masters in Human Performance/Sports Management at San Jose State before getting the head coach position at CRC.

The tournament win and their overall 7-3 record help boost San Jose City to move up two places to 10th place in the coaches Northern California poll.

report by Charles Heimler (charlesheimler.blogspot.com)

San Jose City College Basketball

2008-11-29T10:37:00.000-08:00

Randel, Lassiter and Reggins Find Good Fortune in
San Jose City 57-55 Win in Tournament Opener

Riddled with turnovers and missed open shots, San Jose trailed Feather River for the entire first half, which ended with Feather River leading 33-25, an 8-point margin that they increased a fourth of the way in the second half to 45-34.

After a half-time adjustment session with the coaches, San Jose worked the lead down to 1-point with 5 minutes remaining in the contest when forward Chris Randel grabbed a defensive rebound, hit with a pass the streaking upcourt Quinston Reggins, who handed off to B.J. Lassiter in the right side fast break lane for the lay-up.
On the next possession, Reggins notched a stolen pass and hurled to ball to Lassiter, who when his path down the lane was blocked, stopped, stepped out, pivoted, and then hit an 6-foot jumper.

The Jags then grabbed the game's momentum for the last 5-minute run when Randel stole a Feather River look-in pass, hit Reggins who missed the downcourt lay-up when double-teamed at the other end, and then grabbed the follow-up rebound for a 2-point put-back.
Feather River missed 4 scoring opportunities with the game tied 55-55 in the last minute as Feather River set their sight on the win and San Jose defended for the overtime.

And then the Jags got an unexpected break

A Feather River turnover on an inbound pass with ELEVEN seconds left on the clock led to a missed shot by San Jose that rebounded off a Feather River's player hands, to the floor, and into the waiting grasp of San Jose's B.J. Lassiter, whose floater after the loose-ball pickup swished the Jaguar net to ice the cake with 1 second left.

It was unexpected good fortune for Percy Carr's team, which is now 3-2 and headed for the tourney semi-final game with Solano (5-2) Saturday at 6pm. If the Jags make it to final game it will be against perennial rivals DVC or Cabrillo, last year's conference champion.

Finn Lore

2008-11-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

Finn Lore

Peter asked me to write about what makes Finns, and especially certain Finn sailors, so legendary in the sailing world. He suggested that I look at a column Corky Caroll writes about the early days of surfing in California. For you non-surfers, Corky Caroll was a champion surfer and local Orange county beach wave-rider known to all along the SoCal beaches. Caroll defined much of the “laid-back” character of surfing. The philosophy of the time could be defined by the occasion that I met Corky, years past his prime when he was doing surf reports at a San Diego radio station, and would drive along PCH to the recording studio in the early morning. This was before Caroll and other SoCal surf pioneers founded the first surfschools, which have now become the mainstay of popular beaches. It was a dark night and I was hitchhiking from near Doheny to Leucadia. Carroll picked me up in his Ford Econoline and we chatted along way about weather. He was really low-key but definitely established in what the current generation calls “his creds”.

Year later, Henry Sprague showed up at my house, an out-of-shape grownup who’d hadn’t sailed a Finn in a decade and a half. The famous Andy Kern of Chicago had moved from the Midwest to find Sprague, rescue him from oblivion, and give him a Finn to sail. That first training day Sprague fell asleep on my living room floor still in his wet sailing clothes, worn-out from a normal Spring day on the Richmond Southhampton.

Now the Finn sailors of this generation know Henry as alternating personalities between Super Henry, the kid who port-tacked the fleet at the 1974 Gold Cup on the way to winning the USA’s first FGC, and the pure-evil maniac portrayed in a YouTube video that circulated the summer before most recent Olympic Trials. Nobody knows for sure the true Henry, but when I was a teenage Sabot sailor in Ventura, Sprague was a regular fixture in the sailing rags of the day. He’d been put on a trip to Europe to sail Finns and came back to make the monthly-regatta meeting circuit to talk about the trip and fundraise. That’s how it was done in those days.

Now that we’re looking as a Finn class to how to fundraise, ideas that blast from the past that make sense today are like Carroll’s sailing schools and Sprague’s yacht clubs talks. And picking up Finns sailors that are hitchhiking to the next regatta.

At the beer bash/AGM, a conversation about Mexico led Peter and me to remember the columns that Jack Smith had written about building a house there. So this is the column about one Finn character—there’s others whose exploits are printed about in the archives of Finn Solos and Finnfare that go back to the Sixties. Reading them and hearing the stories about them around the regatta circuit, when put together, help define the unique character of Finn sailors. Lots of you out here have collections of these periodicals—what stories do they bring back to mind?

--CH

USA 32

3 Olympians at 2008 USA Finn Nationals

2008-11-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

3 Olympians on 2008 Nationals Podium

Dan Slater, Richard Clarke, and Zach Railey, who earned a silver medal in Quindao last summer, mastered the 33-boat fleet and SF Cityfront fall conditions to finish 1-2-3 in October’s national championship.

The wind increased each day of the regatta, most of the racing sailed in an oncoming flood tide, and the wind with enough south in it to send shifts off the Marina District on to the race course. Slater built his finishing score by mastering the countercurrent up the wall from Ft. Mason to Anita Rock as well as the shifts early on in the event. Slater and Clarke matched with 3 wins apiece as Slater was better until the last day when the stiffer breeze favored Clarke.

Clarke, a three-time Olympian for Canada and now Pegasus sailing director, used his frequent experience on SF Bay to only trail New Zealand’s Slater by one point for the series.

Zach Railey, who switched from Lasers to Finn after the 2003 CORK regatta, finished college at Miami, and then spent 2.5 years in a full out Olympic campaign to a silver medal, USAFA’s first since 1992, returned to California for sort of a homecoming after his successful trip to China.

Railey told norcalsailing.org: “This is the first U.S. event I’ve been able to do since the trials last October. We spent so much time internationally, training over there. It’s nice to come home and especially here at the St. Francis. It’s one of the best places to sail in the world.”

The first race was postponed for two hours awaiting the arrival of the westerly. On schedule, the seabreeze built and the course was laid. Sunny skies, light ebb at the start, and the regatta was on! Railey rang the first bell with a first place finish, so as to say “I’m in the house” to his sponsors looking on the races from the plate-glass window of the club’s grill room.

Veteran Finn sailor Darrell Pack, whose light-air prowess enabled his wins at the North Americans and Eastern Championships this past summer, finished in fourth just ahead of 2007 national champion Andy Casey. John Romanko led the current Canadian national team with an eighth, just behind master legend Henry Sprague and incoming USAFA So-Cal vice-president Andy Kern.

Aussie David Giles led SFYC Youth Director Forrest Gay to round-out the top ten.

On the second and third days of the regatta, the wind arrived on time and with increased velocity. PRO John Craig moved the course further east than usual, which made the weather legs heavily-favored along the Ft. Mason-Crissy seawall, the harbor jetty, and the rocks in front of the club. “Q” flag conditions prevailed for lots of those races which made for great gains made jibing downwind in search of streaks and waves and many downwind photo-finishes.

Charles Heimler

2008-11-21T12:00:00.000-08:00