The ISAF Sailing World Cup series is over for another year, with the completion of Kieler Woche, in Germany. With much of the countries contending to qualify for the Olympic Test Event at Sail for Gold, many teams including the Brits, French, New Zealanders and Spanish had spent the month prior to Sail for Gold sailing in the Olympic waters. The regatta had exceptional racing with all teams fired up from either training or backing up from the Delta Lloyd Regatta as each brought their ‘A’ games into racing.
The many variables on the Olympic course area, like the land, sea-state, cloud and tidal influence over the course made for very interesting and tricky racing. With such tight competition, in the trialing conditions I worked my way into the Gold fleet after a tough qualifying series The qualifying series was comprised of a long first day having to wait until 5pm before we even hit the water, only to race one race, so then consequently the second day proved long again with a third race in very strong winds to make up for the race lost on the previous day. Falling back into an old routine of not pushing for positions at the favourable end of the starting line, proved quite costly when many of the individual race leaders were coming off the best ends. However aware of this in the final series, on the last day of racing I placed a 4th in one of the races. Overall, after 10 races I placed 36th out of a 93 boat fleet.
Fletch and I then headed to Germany, firstly from Harwich in the UK on a ferry over to Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands and then drove the rest of the way to Kiel, Germany. In comparison to Weymouth, Kiel was much warmer, and we were even treated to a few mid-20 days which were rather pleasant, but regardless it was still a bit chilly on the water. During the Olympic week of racing in Kiel, it was definitely a cloud show, where it was critical to try and consider the way they would affect the racing. Sometimes the clouds would span for over kilometres of the immediate coastline. This and the high cliff off the coastline where the wind came from made it interesting when making strategic decisions. With more opportunities to make improvements to my racing and keep building from the other two regattas Kieler Woche was very enjoyable. I narrowly missed the medal race by only 2 points, which was a little disappointing, but in the end coming 11th overall in a fleet of 51 was great.
One day after racing I was interviewed by ISAF as a preview to the ISAF Youth Worlds, in Zadar, Croatia, you can view it through this link
I am now in Croatia, and the warmth is a welcomed change to the cold temperatures of Northern Europe. The Youth Worlds start on the 7th of July with boat allocation and training, and then racing begins on the 9th. The whole Australian Youth Team is currently training for the few days and just settling in!
Thank you to all my family, friends and supporters, I look forward to catching up with you after this regatta.
Kind Regards,
Ashley
Ashley Stoddart
Member of the Australian Sailing Squad
Laser Radial
Mobile: +61 (0) 404 296 426
Phone: +61 7 3204 4336
Email: ashley@stoddartelectrical.com.au
Skype: ashley.stoddart
Web: www.australiansailingteam.com.au
The Australian Sailing Squad is proudly supported by:
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