Posted By: Charlie ••••••DATE: February 08, 2011

The Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta has once again come and gone. Team Goldsberry/Smythe finished 11th overall, just 6 points away from making our goal of placing in the top 10. Twenty-nine boats participated from Great Britain, Croatia, Italy, Mexico, Greece and Canada to name a few. Some of these sailors are top in the world in the 49er class, and we felt very fortunate to have them here in “our backyard” sailing alongside with us.

At the start of the the New Year, we hired US Sailing Coach of the Year, Mark Ivey, to come in and pick apart our program. This “camp” really helped fuel the fire for us and made us aware of the things that we usually don’t consider going into a major event.

The biggest things that we took away from him was a clear concentration on time management and always practicing like you race. From the moment we wake up in the morning we are on a tight schedule and have certain duties to perform. This helps us work as a team from the moment the day starts.

We learned how important good communication is and how in order for our minds to be clear on the water we have to be constantly checking in with each other on land so that we can concentrate 100% on sailing while on the water.

We have also learned that it is ok to be selfish sometimes. We have many friends on the circuit and we generally will help with anything that someone may need or want to know about. But on a tightly scheduled program there is only so much time to spend in the boat park before it takes away from time on the water.

This is our most important year of sailing and we have to be selfish with our time and materials more. We want to thank Mark Ivey for working with us, there is not a more professional coach out there! (Check out the photos here)



Day One:

The forecast was for a small low pressure to be moving in and temperatures to drop a bit but bring in some good breezes the first couple days.

The first day of the regatta started off with a bang. We had cloudy skies with a perfect 10-14 knot breeze. It was a bit shifty and our racecourse was right thru the middle of the Biscayne Bay channel, but the race committee fired off 3 races to open up the series. We finished the day with a 7,5,11. Not a bad start to the event. We were sitting in 8th place only 3 points away from the other major competition.

Day Two:

Day 2 started off somewhat the same, but the breeze had shifted around the opposite direction to more out of the west. In the first race we saw the breeze increase to 25knots!! We had a ton of fun this day and had some amazing speed. Everyone in the boat park said we were the fastest boat on the water that day. We scored a 9,6,12. We actually made a couple mistakes.

The first race we were in 4th at the last windward mark and pitchpoled in our bear away causing us to capsize and ended up 9th. The last race we also flipped in a gybe and lost about 3 places here as well. A tough day on the water physically but we felt great about our speed and ability to sail through the fleet in many different occasions.

Day Three:

Day 3 brought a bit lighter airs but enough that we were still double trapping all day. We had a bit of trouble getting off the line in the first race placing 11th in the end. We came on strong in the second to place 5th in a tightly contested race. The final race of the day we pushed hard at the line and got pushed over the line OCS. We didn’t believe that we were over since the boat to leeward was super punched over and we fought a touch race to finish 6th, only to be told we were OCS at the start on the way in. Lucky for us 2 other boats from the US were called over as well. Using the OCS as our throw out race we moved into 7th place and 5 points ahead of our main competition.

Day Four:

Day 4 brought different conditions for us with a weakening low pressure moving out throughout the day and calling for dying breezes all day. The race committee worked hard to get our 3 races in even though the class minimum wind speed is 4 knots they stilled pushed all the races. These conditions have proven to be a problem for us in the past and things got tough for us and we struggled with finishes of 10,17,14. Unfortunately for us our competition did not have a bad day and dropped us from 7th to 10th and our competitors closer by the numbers.

Day Five:

The last day proved to be our toughest by far. Our course was moved because of the North Easterly breeze to the corner of the bay shadowed by the tall buildings in Downtown Miami. Our weather mark was literally on the beach and too many times we were being caught in the middle of the course even though we knew that the corners were the only places paying off. We were also over early in the second race and had to restart and never found our way back to the fleet. A very disheartening day for us and our finishes of 11,21,14 were not enough to finish in the top 10 to make the medal race.

Overall:

We know that we sailed the first 60% of the regatta in top form; where we could pick our lanes easier and use our boat handling to power us to the top. The second 40% we sailed a bit more frustrated and were caught in the middle too much and second guessing our pre race game plans. We were not able to find our own lanes and sail in clear air which is something of a must in these conditions to be sailing at top speed and angle. We have much to improve on over the next few months before our Europe trip begins and we are only stronger for having sailed such a mixed event.



We would like to thank all of our fans for following us at this event. Your support means so much to us and we appreciate it greatly. Also, we would like to make a special thank you to the Smythe family and Steve and Vickie Rhynne for coming out on the water and cheering us on.