Sailing Blog
32 Europeans Wrap Up »
May 24, 2010
A valuable lesson learned en route back to Minneapolis is that it is always good to be surrounded by hard working people. With more airline cancellations and delays due to the ash cloud over northern Europe, the Samba team travel agent, Nina Dendrinos did an unbelievable job of getting everyone home on time instead of being stranded at airports. We all spend enough time away from our families just sailing, let alone dealing with travel delays, and it was a great relief to be re-routed and home on time.
Overall, we left feeling good about the 32 Europeans…good, not great. While our goal was to finish with top honors, we were happy with our 4th place finish, knowing that when the breeze was steady and fresh, we had great boatspeed, boathandling and could hang in the front of the fleet. Looking back on the results, coming slow out of the gates on the first day is what really hurt us taking home finishes of 9, 8, 4. Even though our finishes were not great the first day, we still were able to keep our heads high since we displayed good speed, but found ourselves on the wrong side of a few unfortunate shifts.
What left us feeling ok about our performance is we finished the event with a 1, 5, 1, including the last race in nuclear Mistral conditions which is what Samba enjoys the most. One thing that became very clear in our breezy races is that John can drive the boat very well and relishes those type of conditions. The team up on the front of the boat also did a great job of making sure we stayed clean and did not get into any trouble. A large part of success in the Melges 32 class comes from sailing fast and clean and when the breeze was on, we did a great job on both of these key items.
Lastly, we also did a good job of working on items that we felt needed attention from our disappointing finish in Miami. One of the main bullet points was our starting routine, as we often found ourselves in a tough spot when we needed to pull the trigger. For the event in Cagliari, we simplified our communication in the back of the boat, and focused on starting in an area that would let our speed do the work once the gun went. We found ourselves in the front row, bow out with speed of every start this past event…a huge improvement from our previous outing.
Again, our finish at the Europeans was not as we had hoped, but in the overall scheme in preparing for the Worlds in September, this regatta was a success. A huge thanks to Catherine and John Kilroy for making the trip possible and to the Samba team for being great on and off the water.
Up Next in the 32 is Audi Series Event #4 in Lake Garda, Italy, than back to the states to make the final run for the worlds.
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