2008 US Sailing Team Racing National Championship

The US Sailing Team Racing National Championship for the Hinman Trophy just concluded at the Hinman Yacht Club. This is a special year since it's an ISAF Team Racing World Championship qualifier as well. Enjoy the podcasts below for a recap of what happened and why all these team racers won't forget the great winds and hospitality of Erie Yacht Club (if you want high resolution video of any of these, you are welcome to email me at dude1@apple.com ).

1) Silver Panda
2) West Kirby
3) Tannery Loungers
4) Tap n' Go


Why are Amanda Callahan, Elizabeth Hall, Lisa Keith and Clay Bischoff synchronizing diving into the water? Did they just win for the third time in a row?


Check out some of the awesome boat handling that Panda has while gybing.


Why is Erik Stork doing a back flip off the back of his V15? Did he and his team just qualify the the 2009 ISAF Team Racing World Championship?



part 1

part 2

part 3

Listen to a recap of Sunday's racing (including the quarter, semi and petit finals) from the encyclopedia of team racing: Ken Legler.


If you are interested in competing in the 2009 championship next year, here is a preview from Tom Dewayne.


Rip Hale comes from Martha's Vinyard, home of some of the finest sailors in the world (including Nevin Sayre).


Listen to Eric Stork talk about how he and his team did on Saturday



Matt Knowles is the youngest member of the US Sailing Racing Rules Committee. He was also an umpire at the Hinman. He was Harvard's #3 skipper for Team Racing Nationals when it was at Navy. Listen to the inside scoop on who knows the rules better: Dick Rose or Dave Dellenbaugh.


Amanda Callahan told me that Tom Brady was sailing this weekend at the Championship...I asked her who Tom Brady was and what kind of boat does he sail...


If you hiked as hard as Colin Merrick and Amanda Calahan, do you think you could beat them in a team race?



Is Adam Werblow, the head coach of St. Mary's College (aka Sail Maker's College) a turkey? Let's hear what John Vandemoer, new head coach of the Stanford Sailing Team, has to say on the subject.


The lovely colors of pink and blue.


Stanford Alum, former 470 sailor and current College of Charleston head honcho, Alice Maynard joined the umpire team this weekend. Listen to what her thoughts are on getting more women team racing as well as match racing in the USA.


John and his little sis' Katie Stork hiking hard...


An awkward moment where Amanda Callahan wanted to play with my balls...I gave her my juggling clubs instead :-)


Colin Merrick & Amanda Callahan and Pete Levesque & Liz Hall going fast while leading 1, 2 in the finals.


Bruce Hebbert, a premiere umpire from the UK was part of our umpire team. As a former Navy man whose favorite color is Oxford blue, learn the proper way to say 'leeward' in the UK.


Check out Clay Johnson surfing in the light stuff.


Clay Bischoff/Lisa Keith and Colin Merrick/Amanda Callahan lead Tannery Loungers in the Semi-Finals


Colin Merrick feels the racing rules of sailing don't clearly define when a tack is complete. In fact, the racing rules of sailing don't appear to have a definition of tacking at all. Why is this a problem? The ISAF Rule 42 interpretations rely on a notion of when a tack is complete. If tack is not defined, how can one define when it's complete? If one reads between the lines of rule 13 and the ISAF rule 42 interpretations (specifically ISAF Rule 42 Basic 6), one can guess that a tack is complete when a boat is on her new close hauled course...but there is not case or appeal that specifically states this that I'm aware of.


Listen to Amanda Callahan talk about the racing.


If you tacked as well as Adam Roberts, do you think you could help your team win the ICSA Team Racing National Championship in Team Racing?


A brief panoramic of the racing scene at Erie YC. I found Erie to be a very low stress place to host a regatta. The Hinman is a major event of dramatic proportions (arguably the largest US Sailing National Championship) that had to house 18 umpires! That's a lot of umpires! 17 teams (17 x 6 people = 102) camped or found lodging near by. With all these people, as well as a world class PRO and announcer, clubs can be nightmares to park, feed or provide hot showers. Erie YC, in my opinion, did not miss a beat and provided warm hospitality to all. A venue I highly recommend if people are looking for hosts of other events.


Listen while Charlie Enright explain his hail of alley-oop.


Words from the Commodore of Erie YC, Dave Arthurs.


The lovely conditions off Erie YC provided for some speedy reaching on legs 2 and 4 of the course.

Watch how NYYC Silver Panda rounds the leeward mark.



Gavin O'Hare, Hinman regatta Chairman, talks to us about the historic aspect of our sailing venue and the etymology of the name "Misery Bay" and the origins of the term "Don't give up the ship".


Bruce Hebbert, world famous umpire and one of the original authors of the Team Race Call Book has always said the WORST thing an umpire can do is drive through the finish line. Listen to Bruce's wife, Amanda, set us straight on this topic.


Gybe like a girl...check out how 470 world champion Erin Maxwell gybes.


Here is Erin Tacking.


Yes, it was windy enough to flip...


Erie YC has some beautiful wooden boats.


John Pratt does not do 'stinkin' podcasts...except for me...check this podcast out as it's definitely one of my favorites!


The author enjoying a relaxing juggle of machetes between races...

If you are interested in last year's coverage of this event, you are welcome to check out:
2007 Championship Coverage

more podcasts will be posted as time permits...

Cal Cup Aug 2 - F4 fins, Junior clinic and tons of breeze

Photo of Mike Percey worshiping his new F4 fin. The first Cal Cup of August was in extremely windy conditions at Coyote Point where the ebb and over 30 knots of breeze made for some very dramatic conditions. Listen to Ben Bamer talk about the hot new SF Bay area fin for formula racing: the F4

F4 Fin MP3 interview with Ben Bamer

Emmett explains why there was no racing

The CalCup started earlier in the day with a wonderful junior clinic and board repair clinic at Crown Beach in Alameda. The wind was very light at Alameda and awesome for teaching young people. Jane Moreson had invited Cal Adventures to attend the clinic and it was great meeting with them as they teach a great deal of juniors throughout the summer. The clinic was at Crown Beach, a post for Boardsports school (another location for excellent windsurfing instruction in the SF Bay area). President of US Windsurfing, Jim MacGrath, supported the clinic too...thank you Jim! While few juniors showed up, we did have a few people out in the light breeze having fun. The wind proved to be too light for racing so the racing fleet drove over to Coyote for some killer breeze.

vacation

my family and i went to martha's vineyard for the east coast junior windsurfing championship, the mad river valley of vermont and boston. we had a terrific time.

ECJWC

The East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championship was a huge success!

Yellow

photo by emmett mcdonald
From Scuttlebutt:
Bryan McDonald has taken the "yellow jersey" theme to the extreme! (Scuttlebutts 2600 plus)

Bryan serves as Chair of the recently created US SAILING Windsurfing Task Force (WTF).  The WTF's  long-term goal...to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in Olympic Windsurfing...means building a broad base of competitive junior windsurfers. To that end WTF's immediate goal is to ensure the success of the upcoming Junior Windsurfing Racing Camp to be held immediately preceding the East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championships.

The Championship is being held as part of US SAILING's USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival (JO) on July 16 in Vineyard Haven, MA.       http://www.vhyc.org/Windsurfing%20Championship%20Page.html .
Bryan's yellow suit (appropriate size, of course) would look great on the E. Coast Junior Windsurfing Champion and might start an even more colorful new tradition!

Rounding out the WTF are Nevin Sayre, Dan Weiss, and Susan Epstein.

Susan (for the WTF)

Cal Cup supports youth Windsurfing development

The June 21 Cal Cup (a northern California windsurfing regatta series) featured a combination of the St. FYC's techno windsurfers and interested youth racers. Bryan McDonald and Paul Heineken presented on youth windsurfing to a variety of kids who are interested in Windsurfing and were in town preparing for the upcoming US Sailing youth championship at SFYC. One of the youth was Cody Shevitz, who qualified to represent the US in the ISAF Youth World Championship.

St. Francis YC buys a new fleet of Windsurfers

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=3949
* From Paul Heineken, Chair, StFYC Junior Program: (edited to the 250-word limit) The St. FYC recently purchased a new fleet of Techno 293 windsurfers for our junior sailing program. So far kids have been thrilled with the boards. Due to recent advances in windsurfing that promotes teaching on wide boards and small sails, our juniors are all learning how to windsurf as part of our learn to sail camps. Even experienced dinghy sailors are gaining a new feel for the wind and the water due to windsurfing’s direct access and feel for the elements. The fact that windsurfers are so close to the water also removes much of the fear of capsizing. This has the added benefit of relaxing juniors in boats when a boat capsize occurs--a regular event on the Bay. Our club is working to have the first ever 2010 combined junior world windsurfing championship for both the Techno 293 (for the younger kids) and the Olympic RSX.

Southern California was the birth place of windsurfing and the site of the first Olympic games that included windsurfing (1984 LA games where the American Scott Steele won the Silver Medal). While many believe the hottest junior sailors come from Southern California, it’s unfortunate that this region trails the rest of the nation (if not the world) in developing windsurfers. It would be tremendous if we could encourage some of the greats from the sport of windsurfing (Olympian Peter Wells, John Jackman, Annie Nelson, Eric Krebs) to rally and create a CISA junior clinic similar to what Pete Melvin has done with multihulls.

The origins of the Windsurfing Task Force

Over a year ago, US Sailing created a slate of sailing vessels that it recommended to ISAF for future Olympic events. Windsurfing and multihulls did not make the cut. This surprised many people, including Nevin Sayre (who was at the US Sailing meeting when this sudden announcement was made). While I was not at the US Sailing meeting, the announcement prompted me to write Jim Capron, the president of US Sailing, in this regard (Jim and I used to work together on the US Sailing Appeals Committee before Jim left the committee to become the president of US Sailing).

On March 25, 2007, Jim Capron asked "How can we make Olympic Windsurfing a USA strength?"

In March of 2008, Nevin Sayre, Dan Weiss and I presented to the Board of Directors (BOD) of US Sailing. Our presentation was on how Windsurfing can help US Sailing and how US Sailing can help Windsurfing. We provided a thorough background of the state of windsurfing in the US and the world as well as the many advantages to supporting youth development and windsurfing in general in yacht clubs. Jumping to the punch line (if you are interested in the full preso, you are welcome to drop me a line) and conclusion of the presentation: We requested US Sailing support the creation of a Windsurfing Task Force that focused, basically, answering Jim's question above. Our strategy was simple: focus on developing youth windsurfing that included:
- the formation of the Windsurfing Task Force to include key BOD and OSC members
- a budget to send juniors and coach to 2009 and 2010 junior events
- task US Sailing staff to eliminate road blocks for JSPs to include windsurfing (insurance & outdated certification)

The presentation was very well received, US Sailing approved the formation of the task force and a key BOD member, Susan Epstein joined our the initial task force.

Here is a press release:
http://www.ussailing.org/News/2008/windsurfingtaskforce.asp

Windsurfing Magazine has done a terrific job following the WIndsurfing Task Force:
http://forums.windsurfingmag.com/showthread.php?t=357

Scuttlebutt has published some cool Windsurfing Task Force updates too:
http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=3942
* US SAILING's newly formed Windsurfing Task Force has just announced new grant funding received from the United States Sailing Foundation (USSF). The Windsurfing Task Force was established at US SAILING's Spring Meeting last March to foster youth development in windsurfing with long term goals of the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. The grants will be used to organize a clinic at the East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championships (held July 17-18 at Vineyard Haven Yacht Club (MA). In addition, the grants will help to create a video to promote competitive junior windsurfing. -- Read on: http://www.ussailing.org/News/2008/windsurfingtaskforce.asp

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=3946
* From Bryan McDonald: Regarding the Bic Techno 293 Windsurfer,
1) The Techno 293 One Design is affordable, durable and sailable windsurfer
for ages 5 to 77.
2) In almost every country now, the Techno 293 One Design is the designated
Youth Development board for ages 5-17.
3) In the last three years, over 40 U.S. Junior Sailing Programs have
included fleets of Techno 293s into their programs with popular success.
4) For the price of 3 Optimists (or 1.5 420s), a junior program can have a fleet of 8 T293 windsurfers and 14 complete rigs that cover all size sailors and all age groups.
5) The East Coast Junior Windsurfing Championships (July 16-18 at Vineyard Haven YC (http://www.vhyc.org) will have junior windsurfers from as far as California racing on the Techno 293.
6) The St. Francis YC in San Francisco, CA recently purchased a new fleet of Techno 293's for their junior sailing program.

The U.S. is behind the rest of the World's continents in the area of competitive Windsurfing infrastructure (for example, over 300 kids under 17 competed in the 2007 Techno 293 Windsurfing Championship in France), though the recent formation of US SAILING's Windsurfing Task Force (affectionately, known as WTF) plans to narrow the gap.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xirq4uZ5Z6A
More info at http://www.BicSportNA.com/Techno293

From the RS:X class website:
http://rsxclass.com/blog/?p=165

faith breakthrough

Above clip from Sam Ireland's "Pro Secrets" video"

there are breakthrough periods for any athlete. for windsurfing, sailing away without falling is a breakthrough. planing for the first time is a breakthrough. full planing gybes are another...

when one first learns to windsurf, there comes a time where one needs to take a leap of faith and lean over the water in order to apply enough leverage to accelerate and plane away. i remember in the early 80's reading a wonderful book on how to windsurf that had pictures of ken winner windsurfing throughout. there was a particular passage in the book where it instructed you to de-power the sail in order to fall towards the water, then sheet in and have the sail act as a parachute to catch you before falling in. it was a non-intuitive move that took faith that the sail really would act as a parachute and save you from getting wet. i remember reading the passage over and over again thinking that this was a very cool concept and totally foreign from other dinghy or multihull sailing i'd done earlier in my life. i remember doing it for the first time on a windsurfer and fearing that i'd plop right into the water. the first time i pulled off this move, i giggled and felt a surge of achievement that i'd done something special, something important, something unique...a breakthrough.

my last session i gybed 180 times...170 gybes were full planing gybes...relaxed full planing gybes...this was a breakthrough. i've always seen the pro's gybe effortlessly and wished i could gybe that way too...but i lacked faith...faith that i would fall into the water. faith that the sail and wind would not prevent me from falling in. the exact same faith i lacked when i was first learning to windsurf.

wojtek, in sam ireland's pro-secrets DVD, says it takes more energy to do a slow gybe than it does to do an aggressive fast full planing gybe. wojtek is an amazing sailor so i did not really know how to interpret what he said. was this really for real? or does this only apply to sailors at the same level as wojtek? does it really take less energy to do a fast gybe than a slow gybe? that, on many levels, makes no sense. no sense until you actually do it.

i usually sail for about an hour...and get pretty pooped after about 20 mins and then need to take a break...full planing gybes actually allowed me to sail for 90 mins flat out, gybing every thirty seconds...that's a break through...

perceived as a weapon

So I'm at a mexican restaraunt about to eat dinner. I have my clubs tucked in my back belt and some kids see them. They say 'Hey juggleman, can you juggle for us?'. I say sure and start juggling in a mellow very controlled pattern respectful that I'm in a restaurant and there are people around. The kids are loving it and a very attractive woman blurts out 'Ooooooh, check it out!...he's juggling!'. The head waitress comes by and says I have to stop immediately since I'm doing something 'extremely dangerous'!

Extremely dangerous? Say what? Last time I checked, NONE of the hijackers on 9/11 had a juggling club. Juggling clubs are NOT used by any police force in the world to help keep law and order. Neither the cripts nor the bloods carry juggling clubs to street fights. Not a single martial art uses juggling clubs as a weapon in their combat techiques. The CIA, KGB nor any terrorist cell teach agents anything about juggling clubs for good reason...they are NOT dangerous. In fact, with their soft rubber knobs and flexible plastic shells, they are actually quite forgiving...even if they hit you by accident. In our super tight security check points of our post 9/11 era, one can even carry on juggling clubs to an airport...yep, it's true...done it many times...PX3's fly through without even a flinch by TSA agents...and juggling clubs are NOT listed on the TSA's official prohibited items list.

As I was leaving the mexican food restaraunt, I was juggling by a pack of hot babes standing outside the door. They were giggling at each other and started to talk juggling. Generally it's entertaining to listen to hot babes talk about pretty much anything but juggling is definitely a special treat. As I was walking past with my decorated renegades glittering as they spun against the street lights, the babes said "You know what would be really cool? If he lit those on fire, that would be really cool". I thought to myself that technically they'd be hot, not cool. And even if I could light my renegade clubs on fire, they'd probably stink of burning plastic...yuck! The babes continued "swords would be cool too". I was tempted to get my torches and machetes out of my car and put on a show but the babes were smoking...I hate cigarettes!

so i'm walking into disneyland with my kids. we've packed our camera, water and of course some px3 juggling clubs to make the long lines more entertaining for others as well as sliding in some quality practice time for ourselves (some of those lines are LONG). at the gate the disney security people are going through people's personal items to make sure another 9-11 terrorist attack does not occur at the happiest place in the world.

at the entrance, one of the security people pulls out a juggling club as asks why I'm carrying around juggling 'pins'. I tell them the truth, that I'm a juggler, my kids are aspiring jugglers and we wanted an entertaining way to kill the time (ok, maybe 'kill' was not a good word to use here). the security agent says she'll have to ask her supervisor if the 'pins' can come in with mickey. the supervisor looks at the club, studies it closely, waves it around a bit and in all seriousness says I won't be able to bring it in since the club could be 'perceived as a weapon'.

give me a break! disneyland sells a veritable cornucopia of things that not only can be 'perceived as weapons', they ARE weapons!!! from star wars blasters of all sizes and shapes to pirates of the Caribbean swords, daggers, to frontier land rifles to maces available by the haunted mansion to antique murderers (that's what old seamen called hand guns, for obvious reasons (this term's etymology stems from what pirates would do with these little weapons if boarded by surprise by hostiles (i.e. they would be used to murder the invaders))). the national rifle association imposes no waiting period for the purchase of any of these weapons to the public.

i wanted to juggle at a neil young concert in mountain view california. my wife assured me this should be no problem since it was in an outside amphitheater, there was plenty of space and people would probably be doing all sorts of activities. she said if a security person had an issue with my clubs, just pull them out and juggle for them and they should be swayed to let me in. as my wife, baby daughter and I were walking into the event, the security people were going through people's bags. again the guard said i was not able to bring my clubs in. i asked to see the 'head' guard. the 'head' guard looked at the clubs and said that someone could get hurt if the club was thrown.

there is a bit of an inconsistency here. the same security people would let in my nikon 10x70 binouculars which weigh close to 10 lbs and are made of steel and glass. concert goers had glass bottles of beer and the vendors were selling beer and bottled water to the masses. if one were to throw one of those objects, people could get hurt 5000 times more easily than if i dropped a club on someone. here is why:

the NRA and UL measure how much energy a projectile has (be it a toy or bullet) by kinetic energy. kinetic energy is usually expressed as 1/2mv^2. but juggling clubs usually have a bit more energy since we spin them when we throw them. this spinning component adds to the total kinetic energy of the club (to a small degree). so if we assume a normal juggler throws a club, say three feet, and one spin occurs with the club, that means the club is spinning roughly 10 radians/second. the kinetic energy of the spin = Iw^2 where w = radians/sec. what is I? that is a great philosophical question that i could expound on for hours but for this conversation it's the moment of inertia. for a club spinning around it's center, it's roughly ml^2/12 where m is the mass of the club and l is the length (and I'm sure some people are going to get all technical on me and insist i integrate the profile of the club in question but I'm just approximating things here at the moment). the mass of a px3 = 0.22Kg = m. l = 0.514 meters. thus if you do the math, mgh + Iw^2 = 1.97 + 0.48. for my nikon binoculars, mass = 4.54Kg, l = 0.2m. now if the guard is concerned about someone throwing something, i'm guessing if someone wanted to take out neil young on stage, they are probably not going to be able to get closer than 10 meters before security tags him. thus mgh for the binoculars at 10 meters would be 1162 and the rotational kinetic energy will be 1.5 (compare that with 1.97 and 0.48 for the px3). if you compare these two figures, you get that the nikons are going to be able to impart about 4750 times more kinetic energy than a px3.

in other words, if you are concerned about someone getting hurt if something is thrown, leave the jugglers alone!