News

August 1, 2007

The Pan American Sailing Team returned to Bermuda on Monday evening. While disappointed about receiving no medals, the team had a successful trip and regatta. The weather in Rio didn’t cooperate so the sailors spent a significant amount of time waiting for the wind to appear. There were no races on two of the days and the reserve day was needed to get some racing in before the medal rounds. None of our sailors made it to the medal rounds, which were postponed for nearly 4 hours due to lack of wind. Once the wind filled the race committee was able to get all fleets, except the Sunfish, off for a short 30 minute race.

The Snipe team of Stevie Dickinson and Leatrice Roman finished 8th, but it’s important to note that the 7 top teams all brought their own boats. The Snipe is a highly technical boat and the advantage to having your own boat made a big difference. So, the good news is the Bermuda Snipe Team can boast 1st in the Charter Boat Fleet!

Katrina had a great first experience at a world event in the Radial. She had some wonderful finishes and some disappointing races with yellow flags.

Brett struggled a bit in the Laser fleet. It’s obvious that height is a much needed advantage to do well in this fleet. He did have a few races where he was in the top part of the fleet at mark roundings.

Malcolm is probably the most disappointed of all our sailors, as he was only a few points out of 5th to qualify for the medal round on a day when no racing was able to happen, due to a lack of wind.

For the full results: http://www.rio2007.org.br/data/pages/8CA3C78713B9BC7F0113BA4693F13C69.htm

Below is the daily log, reported by Deb Gravelle, Team Manager:

Day 1 – Tuesday, July 17th
Finally arrived in Rio, after a nine hour flight and very little sleep – except of course Brett who upgraded to first class. He has made sure to say something every time someone complains about being tired.
We were greeted by Pan Am officials and taken through immigration and customs as VIPs – nice.
After a 30 minute bus ride we arrived at the Athlete Village to finish accreditation. Then we needed to find “Bermuda House”. This is where an interpreter would have been very nice. A 20 minute walk around the village turned up no Bermuda, but eventually we found them, right next to the accreditation center on the top floor! What a beautiful view.
Upon arrival, the 10th floor, Stanley greeted us with our “kit”. What an impressive amount of clothing and bags! How we get it home is still to be decided.
After a quick lunch in the village we managed to get all of our bags into three cars for a trip to the Hotel Gloria. The 45 minute drive sure gave us a feel for Rio and a true appreciation for what we have in Bermuda.
We checked in and went to the sailing venue to find boats and get a feel for where we were and the logistics. The walk is short and really quite perfect, but of course there are a few obstacles along the way – two 3-lane “highways” to cross before the footbridges over the 4-lane highways.
We found the Lasers for Katrina and Brett as well as Malcolm already sailing his Sunfish. The boat park was relatively quiet and not completely ready for the athletes. We spoke with others to find our coach boat and the Snipe – saving this for tomorrow.

Day 2 – Wednesday, July 18th
After a great night’s sleep and wonderful buffet breakfast with eggs, excellent breads, abundant fruit, cereal, fresh juice and coffee I set out again for the sailing venue to await delivery of our coach boat. Had a frightening experience with a Bermuda teenager that wanted my money, but managed to get away without any problems. Only had to wait and hour and a half for it to arrive! The boat doesn’t look all that pretty, but it’s a good solid inflatable and will serve our purposed just fine. Stevie and Leatrice took a cab to the Rio De Janeiro Yacht Club to pick up their Snipe. Brett and Katrina worked to get their Lasers rigged and Malcolm went to get a new fish for his sail. I was then off to find groceries, with the assistance of Brett and Katrina we got lunches and fluids – then back to the venue. Luckily Katrina had put her tiller and extension in the Snipe sail bag, so that we knew they would arrive in Rio. Unfortunately they were still in the bag with Stevie and Leatrice. So Katrina and I had to go, via boat, to find them. As it turns out they had sent the tiller with someone else, via car, back to the venue! At least we were able to get them some food and find out that the boat we originally chartered was not in such good shape – bent mast and crusty rudder. Stevie and Lettuce were just about to fret, when someone walks by and says “would you like to use my new boat?” After a bit more set up, they were finally on their way in a beautiful boat.

Later I went with our coach, Jay Kehoe, to the mall to figure out cell phones. What an adventure. I must say that Jay has tremendous patience. After no sleep he managed to deal nicely with the frustrations of communication and technology in a foreign country. It was a difficult 3 hours. We went to four different shops – and now have phones, we just have to change the language so we can use them. We’ll save that for tomorrow.

Day 3 – Thursday, July 19th
First team meeting at breakfast. Jay was more successful in getting weather printed – we now know who has the charm and it isn’t me! He was also able to talk someone into getting English on his phone.

Another day of boat set up and practice. We have all the boats and now just some minor details and logistics to work out. Finally acquired an ice chest and found a rental container to keep our stuff.

Still trying to register, as the deadline was yesterday, but they didn’t have any forms! Out on the water for Stevie, Lettuce, Malcolm and Brett. Lots of wind for a while. Jay did some video on the Snipe and they need to work a bit more on their rig settings. Malcolm is going fast and Brett is feeling good about his boat set-up. Katina didn’t get out today. She has decided to go to the village with Paige for the night, we just hope she doesn’t stay up too late!

We had a couple of recommendations for dinner and finally chose a place called Mariu’s – adjacent to Copacabana Beach. What a terrific Brazilian experience! I’ll send pictures later.

Day 4 – Friday, July 20th
We are starting to get into our routine of 7:45 breakfast, with weather and plans for the day. It’s beautiful and sunny, not much breeze but it is expected to fill in for the afternoon.

More logistics to deal with especially in the area of measurement. A last minute deal was finally made for large country letters. This meant that a few team members had to remove letters from their sails and replace with the extra large letters. In addition the Snipe class decided to do an “inertia” test. They began testing around 5 PM and the Bermuda boat was the first to pass. Only three boats passed, the others will be spending a good deal of Saturday morning distributing their weight to pass this test.

Jay and I went to the Athlete’s Village for our technical meeting. It took us nearly 2 hours to get there – the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. Luckily the competition manager was on the bus with us. He is a wonderfully calm and accommodating man, who has helped me tremendously – Abraham Lincoln Rosemberg. The meeting was held in Portuguese, so we all had to wear headphones for translation – it was great. Wish I could have that thing and the three translators behind me for the remainder of the trip. I’m getting really good at Pictionary and Charades.

Our Chef de Mission, Philip Guishard, arranged a car for our return to the hotel. After an hour we asked the driver if we were still in Rio? It was after 10 in the evening and there was little traffic, so it should have taken only 45 minutes. Turns out he took the scenic route – another half an hour and we arrived at the hotel where we finally ate dinner!

Tomorrow we have practice races and Sunday racing begins.

Day 5 – Saturday, July 21

Practice Race Day finally arrived. We woke to hazy skies and glassy water. Never fear the sea breeze filled to around 10 knots and everyone was happy.

The haze made it difficult to see the boats from shore. Luckily Jay took me out to help with some video. Stevie and Lettuce had a decent start, but after over-standing the weather mark dropped back a fair amount. Have I told you how great the bread is here? Well, Malcolm might have had too much! Actually he sailed perfectly upwind, rounding in the top 5 boats. Unfortunately he felt a bit heavy going downwind and lost a few. As we all know, no one ever finishes the practice race – bad luck – so it’s hard to say who won?

Tomorrow we have two races, beginning at 1 PM. A cold front is supposed to arrive and I’ve heard everything from light wind to 15 knots. Everyone is in their rooms before 8, so we should all be rested for Race 1!
Day 6 – First Day of Racing

I’m pleased to announce that all Bermuda Sailors are still in the medal hunt!

Due to light, shifty winds the race commttee was unable to complete and races. They did start the Sunfish and we are all pretty happy that the race was abandoned. They also tried a Laser start which ended in a general recall.

They finally decided to call it a day at 4 PM.
Day 7 – Monday, July 23rd

Finally some wind and some racing! We woke to a nice breeze, probably 15 knots. Went to breakfast feeling like this would be a great Bermuda day. At the boat park everyone was gearing up for some breeze, excitement was definitely in the air. This is what we’ve been waiting for all summer!

Everyone left the dock around noon, went out to the race course and did some up-wind tuning to get a feel for the course and the breeze. As soon as they turned to go back to the starting line, the breeze dropped. Time to re-think the settings and get ready for a bit lighter breeze, probably 6 with some gusts to 8 or so.

The first start was the Lasers. Brett got off the line toward the pin end. I understand it was pretty shifty at the top mark. The jury is still out on how much a factor the current was? Next off the line was Katrina, she had great speed and played the left side of the course. Everyone was pleasantly surprised to see that she rounded the weather mark 1st!!!! Katrina is still pinching herself. She was third most the rest of the way around the course and eventually came in 5th. Paige Railey picked her off at the end. I wish I had a video of her face when she came over to the coach boat – I think she was still in shock. Sunfish started next – we won’t talk about Malcolm’s start. He also found some pretty shifty conditions and eventually made it around the course finishing 7th, not the way he wanted to start this regatta.

The Snipes were on the other course, so after replenishing the troups we took off north. We arrived minutes before the 2nd start and I was able to throw them some food. They reported an 8th place finish in the first race, but no details. We stayed for their second race, where they chose to start on the pin end – Stevie wanted to go left. Boy did he go left too! Not such a great first weather leg, the lefty really never arrived. Luckily he didn’t give up and tried again on the next weather leg and it did pay off, however we think it might have been current. Either way he made up a lot of boats and got back in the mix, around 5th place. He and Leatrice were working their way to the finish when we spotted the orange Jury boat and heard the awful whistle – they’d been flagged for rule 42, propulsion. After three circles, Stevie didn’t take the call to well, they ended up in the bottom three boats. Good news is that after spending a few days tinkering with the rigging they appear to be very fast.

Back to the single-handed race course. We missed the Laser finish, but arrived in time to see Katrina finish 3rd in the Laser Radials and then in the next finish was Malcolm, also placing 3rd. So a pretty good day for Bermuda, with room to get even better!

The race committee decided to call it a day after two races, so it looks like we’ll have to sail on the lay day.

Day 8 – Tuesday, July 24th

Have I said that every day in Rio really is a new day? Today we woke to overcast and rainy skies. We all worked our way over to the venue, where we were greeted by John Hoskins, BOA President and the Honorable Randall Horton JP MP. Where we were able to catch them up on the Bermuda Sailing Team and get a few pictures.

Visability was low and the wind non-existent! We sure hoped they would postpone on shore.
No one likes sitting around on the water and not racing. We were blessed with an hour reprieve, but then sent out to wait for wind. The little breeze we saw was from the north, which wasn’t promising. Around 3 the wind clocked around and the sea breeze was finally kicking in!

When coach, Jay Kehoe, and I went up to check out the weather mark we noticed some huge rolling seas and realized that there was probably big wind to follow. Later we were told that it was still a couple of hours away. Oh well, we had 5 – 10 out of the south and we could now race.

At 3:30 they began starts on the single-handed course. Brett started first and looked good going up the left side, with the current going out – we just wanted him to tack a bit earlier. He had some nice upwind speed. Next off was Katrina, who had an okay start, also hitting the left side of the course. She got to the windward mark in seventh, but then made huge gains downwind to round the first leeward mark in third. Her next downwind leg she was even with the top boats, but with some shifts and being too far outside she was unable to maintain and finished 6th. Since Argentina and the USA were behind her, she is now in a three-way tie for second place!

During the Sunfish start Malcolm was a bit off the line and had to duck a few boats, going right. Unfortunately the left was still paying off, so he was a bit deep for the first mark rounding. Malcolm is a professional and kept sailing hard, which paid off at the finish where he ended up 7th and is now in fifth place.

On the Snipe course Stevie and Leatrice had a beautiful start holding the USA to windward and smoking the Bahamians. They rounded in the top 5 at the windward mark and maintained position for most of the race until the last downwind leg, where they lost two boats coming in seventh. They are now tied for seventh in the Snipe class.

Since the wind hasn’t been cooperative we are going to miss our lay-day, starting an hour early and hoping to get in three races.


Day 9 – Wednesday, July 25th
Today is supposed to be our reserve day, but with only three races not only are we racing, but starting an hour early. The race committee is hoping to catch up as we are three behind at this point.
Woke up to clouds again and the weather forcast is for rain and no wind.
Luckily the weather forcasters were a little wrong! The sun came out around 9 and the breeze came on in time for racing. The first races started in 10 – 12 knots. Brett had an awesome first leg, third at the weather mark. Katrina had a terrific start and was in the top five at the 1st mark. Malcolm’s start wasn’t wonderful, but he rounded in second. Unfortunately the wind wasn’t meant to stay and by the last leeward leg it had died down to 5 or so. Malcolm finished third, Katrina had some problems on the last weather beat and ended in 9th as did Brett.
Down on the Snipe course Stevie and Leatrice had terrific boat speed and spent a good portion of the race in 5th place, but by the end they took 7th.
In the second race of the day all single-handed boats had great starts, Katrina started to leeward of Cananda (she started the day in first place) and worked her into tacking away. She was third again at the first weather mark. The second race was very challenging for all classes, as the wind turned off, changed direction and there was quite a bit of current. Malcolm struggled to hang onto his position and still managed to finish fifth. Katrina was back into third again, but got caught with a pump and sent off to do circles. Somehow she managed to come back to seventh.
The wind really died on the Snipes, they ended up abandoning the race with Stevie and Leatrice sitting in third.


Day 10 – Thursday, July 26th
Another cloudy day with much cooler weather, but there is wind!

Since we still don’t have the number of races we were hoping for, we had to start an hour early again.

Wind for the first races was 12 -15 knots out of the southwest. The single-handed course was right against the beach, so much of the race was about playing the righties. In race 1 Brett managed to stay with the lead group and finish 7th. Katrina was doing a great job playing the shifts to the beach, but on the first reach she was nabbed again for rule 42! A second flag means she gets a DSQ for the race (disqualification). Malcolm was happy to see more wind he had a great first race, coming in third. On the Snipe course Stevie and Leatrice had a hard time with the increased wind. Their first race ended in a 10th, that will be their throwout. Yesterday while they were putting the boat away Letty managed to rip off her big toenail. It was a bloody mess and required some minor cutting and bandaging. After some legal painkillers and antibiotics she’s doing well, but we know it has to be affecting her hiking – especially with more wind.

The next race was more like 8 – 10. The course was very shifty and not so good for our sailors. Katrina finished 8th, as did Malcolm, Brett was 12th.

In the last race of the day we realized that Malcolm was in a three-way tie for 4th, he just needed to stay ahead of Guatemala and US Virgin Islands. That was not meant to be – ended 8th again and is just a few points from 4th and 5th. So he does still stand a chance of getting into the medal round. At 5 PM he is sitting as a witness on two protests which will most likely change the standings – maybe even in his favor.