Recently, Noah and I competed in the 29er Open World Championships in El Balis, Spain. It was the biggest World Championships that the class had ever had with almost 250 teams competing from 26 countries. The racing was held on three different course areas about 30 minutes up the coast from Barcelona.
Day 1 started off with little to no wind and we were postponed on land for around 45 minutes before the race committee began to raise the D flags for the fleets to head out. We were in the second start on bravo course, so we were able to watch the first upwind of the fleet before us, which was helpful. We got into sequence and had a good start at the middle pin area of the line. The boats around us were going slightly faster than us and we eventually lost our lane and had to tack out. From there on, we were trying to catch as many boats as possible. After a hard first upwind in light wind conditions, we passed 7 boats during the rest of the race. We ended up 29th, which was not the best result. The next race, we won the pin end of the line and looked really good in a lefty off of the line. But shortly after, the wind began to go right very hard which basically hung us out to dry on the left side. We fought our way through the fleet to finish 25th. Even though that day was not the best day for us, we knew that it was a long regatta and that we were not out of it.
Day 2 of the regatta the wind started out even lighter than the previous days. That led to a delay on shore for many hours until about 2:15 pm when the D flags were raised. We quickly made our way out to the course because we only had 45 minutes until they could start the first race. By the time our start was taking place, the wind had built to around 10-12 knots. We also had a small amount of current on our course, which caused multiple general recalls. For each race we got off, we had around three general recalled starts. Our first race we got a clean start and got to the left edge and rounded the top mark in 4th. We lost a couple of boats on the downwind, but got back up to finish in the top five. The next start, we had two generals and on the second one we got a really good start one boat up from the pin end, but sadly it was too good. We ended up with a BFD and that was frustrating because we must have been over by only a little bit. It was the wrong race for us to get a BFD as it was the only day we would see a decent breeze on any of the courses. The last race, we had a bad start, but had a seam between two boats and were able to find passing lanes upwind and downwind and finished the race in 10th, which was a solid result.
After two days of the qualifying series, we were sitting in not the best position. We knew that we had to have a really good day to try and move up to gold or silver. We were prepared and ready to give it our all to move up as far as possible. Race one, we had a bad start, but got a lane going right very quickly. But the right side had less breeze than the left causing us to be behind the leaders. We had to play catch up. We finished the race in 20th, not the best result but we needed to just focus on the next race. The next race we were in the same situation but rounded the top mark slightly better. We were picking off boats left and right the first downwind. By the second top mark we were in the top 20. Then a block that pulls the spinnaker pole out blows up into several pieces as Noah is raising the spinnaker causing us to lose around 8-10 boats. The final race, we had a good start and were able to hold straight out to the right hand side but when we tacked onto port, we had a hard time holding our lane. We rounded the top mark just outside of the top ten. We picked a couple of boats off on the downwind but lost them on the upwind. Once we rounded the top mark for the second time we knew that we could pass at least two more boats. By the time we were almost at laylines for the final mark we had passed the two boats, but Noah looked over his shoulder and saw a judge boats flying in our direction. We ended up getting flagged and losing the two boats that we had passed. With those results and a BFD, we missed out on silver and bronze and ended up in emerald, which was very disappointing for us because we had high hopes for this regatta.
The next day was the first day of the finals series in emerald fleet. We were definitely disappointed to be sailing in emerald, but we had to change our mindset to try new things and learn as much as we could. It is not every day that you can start with forty other boats. We really focused on starting at the boat end of the line because we have struggled with it. Both races we had very good starts at the boat third of the line. The first race we were in the top three around the top mark and passed the boats in front of us on the downwind, and the second race we got really punched off the line and were winning the race after about 1 minute. We focused on learning more about the conditions and fleet management.
Day 5 of the regatta was an interesting one. We went out with around 4-5 knots of wind, just for the wind to die completely and then shift 180 degrees and slowly build because of a big front. Again, we had the goal of going out and learning something new and improving in areas that we struggle in. With the wind shift, the chop was very hard to get through. We really worked on the technique to keep the boat moving through the chop. Each of the two races we started near the boat. It was a short sail before we tacked out to go to the right side because there was always a right shift. We finished 2nd and 3rd in our two races, but more importantly felt like we improved through the steep chop.
Day 6 was similar to every other day, light winds in the morning and postponement on the very hot land. When we finally got on the water, we got to the race course and identified that all the pressure was on the left side of the course. With the pin being favored, we started at the pin every start and sent it left. You almost had to over stand the port laylines to get into the pressure. It was the same for each of the three races today. We finished 3rd, 1st, and 2nd in the final three races putting us in first place in the emerald fleet.
Even though this regatta did not go the way we wanted and more often than not, we felt like the wind/race gods weren’t sending us any favors, we learned many important lessons, which are going to make us better sailors in the long run.
A big thanks to San Diego Yacht Club, HPYS, our coaches, and our SDYC 29er squad for supporting us.