Salinas, Ecuador, South America

 For RESULTS (and more) link to official Worlds web site http://www.salinasyachtclub.org/optiworlds

Introducing the NZ team left to right: Frankie Lardies, Glendowie • Carl Evans, Kohimaramara • Daniel Willcox, Murrays Bay • Paul Snow-Hansen, Wakatere • Susannah Pyatt, Murrays Bay

 

There's a lot interest in when the team are returning to NZ. Unfortunately this is a staggered process: Dan, Susannah and Carl arrive this Friday morning - 30th July, at 4.25am; Paul arrives on Monday August 2nd at 4.25am; Frankie arrives a week later on Monday August 9th at 4.25am.

REPORT 11: 26-07-04

In an historic moment for NZ Optimist sailing, the prizegiving at the Worlds saw for the first time the NZ flag raised and the national anthem played as the 5 NZ sailors stood atop the dias. NZ received the MIAMI HERALD TROPHY as the top nation at the worlds, just passing Poland on the last day.

This was followed by Daniel Willcox and Susannah Pyatt receiving trophies for 4th overall and 5th girl respectively.

Paul Snow-Hansen was then awarded the trophy for 2nd overall. There was a long wait on the dias as the wrong Chinese anthem was played and then an announcement was made that they could not find the correct one. The Chinese team then proceeded to sing their anthem unaccompanied by music. I can only say that it was to everybody´s advantage that the NZ anthem wasn´t lost.

At the beginning of racing on the last day, Dan was placed 3rd with Paul 4th equal on 77 points, and the NZ team 2nd. Both sailors were assured of a placing between 2nd and 6th. The start was delayed due to a lack of wind and a drive past by a huge flotilla of fishing boats celebrating a festival. When racing finally got underway, conditions were lighter than previously experienced.

Both Dan & Paul, racing in the 2nd and 3rd flights respectively got away to good starts and looked in strong positions midway up the first beat. Conditions were very difficult and the wind shifted slipping both sailors down their fleets. The Spanish sailor who had an outside chance of placing 2nd had a significant lead in Dan´s race, throwing down the gauntlet to the NZers.

Paul rounded the last mark within the top 10 and gradually overtook the boats ahead of him to finish with a victory. Meanwhile, Dan was engaged in a fight with the Polish sailor previously placed 2nd overall and Dan finished 22nd. The Pole turned out to have been OCS´d which helped NZ´s cause in the teams racing.

Both Frankie and Susannah had drop races but Carl Evans sailed through the fleet on the last beat to finish 11th and help NZ secure the Miami Herald Trophy. Susannah was given an OCS meaning that she dropped from 3rd girl to 5th. It is almost certain that this was a case of mistaken identity but the jury did not accept the evidence to the contrary.

In summary, the NZ team impressed everybody with their speed - especially Paul & Dan. Prior to this regatta, NZ had won 1 race at the Worlds (Dan last year). This year they won 7. Most other countries think there must be something special we are doing but it is difficult to see what that might be. The standard of racing in NZ has been steadily increasing and the regular diet of top class racing in big fleets seems to have paid dividends. The sailors were also dedicated and showed a responsible attitude in Ecuador - being particularly careful with eating and drinking to avoid stomach problems (although Dan did have one day where he was affected, showing remarkable resolve to win one of his races that day).

The Ecuadorians put on a really good regatta - well organised on the and off the water (thanks in part to the hundreds of yacht club staff). The winds, although on the light side were nearly always present.

For the technically minded, the top ten ranged from 33kg to 53kg and 1.4m to 1.68m in height. Most were born in 1990. 6 came from non-sailing backgrounds. The sails were in order: Toni Tio, North NZ, Toni Tio, North NZ, Jusczak, Jusczak, Toni Tio, Olimpic, Olimpic, Olimpic.

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING SUPPORTERS:

• NZ International Yachting Trust
• Southern Trust
• Lion Foundation
• NZ Community Trust
• NZIODA

Families and friends

Matt Davies for coaching the team in NZ

Hamish Willcox for coaching the team in Ecuador

For the official final results: www.salinasyachtclub.org/optiworlds/results.htm

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REPORT 10: 24-07-04

14 races have been completed with 1 race left tomorrow. The new OP world champion for 2004 has been decided, with 1 race spare China Wei Ni has won. Poland has moved from 8th into 2nd and Dan and Paul are tied for 3rd.

Conditions presented a new challenge for competitors today with the wind direction further to the right and lighter. The coach from Ecuador described today as very unusual, interesting statement as the wind direction (course axis) was only 10 degrees different from other days. I guess that tells you just how similar every day is here! The pattern was quite different and sailors reported the need to play the shifts rather than bang the left at the top, as we have seen for most of the event. NZ sailors were quick to recognize this and Dan responded with devastating form scoring a 2,4 and 7 for his best days performance. Paul was next with a 5, 12, 17th. All the team are in the top 52 overall, those sailors further back have the chance to gain 10 places tomorrow with a good final race.

Susannah is 3rd girl overall and about 30 points ahead which is looking great for a podium finish! The NZ team looks certain to finish as 2nd overall nation out of the 52 nations represented here in Ecuador. There is a reasonable chance to be first overall. This is got to be the most amazing team NZ has ever sent to the OP worlds. FANTASTIC! They have all sailed to their goals and we are pall here so proud of them.

REPORT 9: 23-07-04

Racing has been completed to race 11 out of possible 15. Paul Snow-Hansen is now 2nd overall and Dan Willcox is 6th. Paul is 12 points from 1st and Dan is 12 points from 3rd overall, these are achievable objectives with 4 races to go. Susannah is 38th and Frankie 41st, with Carl 52nd. There will be 3 more races tomorrow and 1 on the final day, Saturday July 24th (NZ time Sunday 25th).

Conditions were the familiar tricky winds blowing off the shore from the SW. Wind speeds started between 8 - 12 and dropped slowly throughout the afternoon. The pattern for the first beat, which all the kiwis recognised early in this event, was there again today. There is an ïmpact¨ zone on the left side at the top left of the first beat. This zone of stronger wind does not move down onto the course. The top left of the first beat is a MUST HAVE. Getting there involves getting a clean start, playing the shifts and avoiding the holes for the bottom half....then making sure you ARE left of the fleet at the top.

This is a hard act as most top sailors will instinctively not take a loss and wait for the wind to shift back in their favour. Of course this works well for the bottom half, but you will be punished in the top half of the beat if you get right of anyone in the fleet, except those overstood. Many really great sailors here have been failing to take their medicine by excepting a loss and getting left at the half way point. They are getting hung out to dry on the right, and rounding in the back half of the pack!

The 2nd beat is also challenging in another way. Here we have long persistant shifts often lasting for most of the beat! With this beat you have to be on the long tack and have the patience to know it will come back! Often 10 or 15 places can be gained with this program.

The good thing is that most of us, well me and the sailors at least, are well again! Like they say in the Lonely Planet book, it is inevitable that you will get a dodgy stomach here in Ecuador! Sooooo, the team is in good spirits and plans to finish the event with a bang. Let's all hope for a little more wind tomorrow, 8 knots or more would suit us fine.

A good day tomorrow will have 2 kiwis on the podium with medals round their necks, and the potential for the whole team to finish in the top 40 overall. We are also very close to be the top scoring nation. This prize is awarded to the country with the top 4 sailors in all 15 races, with no discards.

More tomorrow, Hamish

 

REPORT 8: 21-04-07

TEAMS RACING

POLAND 1st • ITALY 2nd • ECUADOR 3rd • NZ 7th=

NZ was drawn to race the 15th ranked Danes in the first race. The Danes treat teams racing seriously and that was immediately apparent when they aggressively attacked our sailors in the prestart. After initially trailing their opponents (a trend to be repeated throughout the day), NZ worked themselves into a reasonable position. Unfortunately the scores were tied at the end of the race with NZ losing on countback.

Race 2 saw NZ up against the Japanese who beat us last year. The Japanese were characteristically not aggressive and the racing was once again close with NZ winning to progress onto the next round where they came up against the defending World Champs, Peru.

The NZ sailors showed their speed in this race to finish 1, 2, 3 and 8 to easily eliminate their opponents.

This meant NZ was drawn to race against Denmark again. The Danes were once again aggressive and started off in a dominant position. NZ slowly worked themselves back into the race and coming up to the finish held a winning position with Denmark holding the last 2 places. Unfortunately a misjudgement as to the favoured end of the finish line allowed one of the Danes to sneak into 6th place meaning NZ were eliminated at the same stage as last year - a commendable 7th equal.

Poland won the final from Italy with the local Ecuador team securing 3rd. This was a surprise as Ecuador only qualified by virtue of being the hosts, eliminating highly ranked Croatia in the first round.

The NZ team put up a good performance but in the end their lack of teams racing experience told against them. Over the course of the 4 races they did not manage to force any penalties against the opposition whereas most of our sailors were penalised more than once.

Tomorrow is a lay day with the team travelling to a yacht club further up the coast where hopefully we will see some sun. There was a glimmer of blue sky on the horizon today - the first of any significance we´ve seen in the 2 weeks we´ve been here.

Derek

 

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REPORT 7: 20-07-04

Another great day in the office for the NZ Optimist team! My guess is that Paul is now 2nd overall and Dan 5th after 8 races and about half way through.

The most impressive thing about this team is that they have shown the world that they are the best 5 sailors from any of the 52 countries represented here at the 42nd world championships! When we look at the results of all 5 sailors, NZ is well and truely at the top of the leader board as the best overall country to this point.

I think this is very impressive considering Dan, Carl, Paul, Sussannah and Frankie have come from their winter, while most of the teams here are at the top of their game being mid way through their sailing season. All credit to the great training and dedication they displayed over the last few months!

There was much frustration out there for all the sailors today. The race course was a mine field of holes and shifts and puffs. There were times when our team (Dan and Frankie) lead half way up only to be caught short of a slow moving puff near the top mark and drop 30 boats, who had just crossed behind them!! They all took it in their stride and Paul put together the best day with a 3,5,9 &endash; followed by Dan with a 1,4,15. &endash; Susannah, Carl and Frankie all put together top 10 finishes as well. Dan had to dig very deep today (along with me!) because we had been sitting on the toilet since 5am! No food for us for 24 hours, going to starve it out! Luckily for Dan, he has 2 rest days (if you call the team racing a rest?). Racing for the world champs continues on the 22nd.

We have been treating each day like a new event for motivation and focus. The first day we called the "City of sails" regatta, day 2 we called the "Dirty Dog" regatta and today was the "Auckland champs". Effectively it will all begin again in 3 days time and all the NZérs are poised to make NZ optimist history, no pressure? Actually they are all in fine form mentally and seem to be sailing better and better. These are our indiviudual goals for this event: 1, to achieve our personal best performance and: 2, to improve our performance right till the end!

NZ have qualified 2nd in the world for the teams racing which means we will sail our first race against Denmark tomorrow. If we win our first 2 team races, we will be straight into the semi final along the "high" road. If we lose one of these races we get a second chance along the "low " road......just like the Americas Cup.

More on this tomorrow, Thanks for all your good wishes to the team, these are much appreciated by everyone. Regards Hamish

UP TO DATE RESULTS AVAILABLE ON www.salinasyachtclub.org/optiworlds/results.htm

Today was another amazing day for the Kiwi OP sailors. Some of our teams results are as follows: 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 6th ,7th, 7th, 8th, 8th. That is the combined results from all the team.....now that looks good!

The 5th and final race today saw all the NZ'ers finishing in the top 15! The breeze was up to 11 -14 knots and we were all flying!´So many of the foreign teams are wondering what we are doing down under?

My optimism about us all being in the top 20 yesterday did not correctly consider that there is 3 fleets, anyway we were all in the top 35 yesterday and most of the team improved their performance today. My guess is we are definitely one of the 5 best nations after 5 races, we may even be first! This means we have qualified well for the team racing and with the structure of this event will mean that if we win our first race we go straight into the semi final. This event starts on the 20th and our goal will be to better last years 7th place finish.

Dan and Paul both had race wins today and Frankie scored another 2nd. If we average the 3 races sailed today then Paul got 8th, Dan 12th, Carl 14th, Frankie 17th and Susannah 23rd. Lets all pray for similar wind speeds tomorrow as we got for the last race today!!!!!

Regards Hamish

End of day 1 worlds racing and all 5 NZ team members will be in the top 20 overall, this is a fantastic achievement remembering that there are 225 sailors here!

The big event of the day was Paul Snow-Hansen´s win in the first race and Frankie's 2nd in race 2! Sussanah sailed the most consistantly of the team with a 7th and 8th which should put her in the top 5 overall and definitely top girl!

The conditions were very tricky with the breeze dying for race 1 down to 5 or 6 knots. This made the first beat over 20 mins long! There was a nasty chop all day. Our team felt more comfortable with their boat speed in the 2nd race with the breeze up to 8 knots at times.

Hard to work out a strategy for this place with a mixture of short shifts and also long persistant shifts as well. The team felt it worked best to start near the sides of the fleet and get on the lifted tack. Dan got nailed in the middle of the line and fleet in race 1 rounding the first mark 60th and working back into the top 20 with amazing speed on the 2nd beat. Carl was more consistant starting near an end and finishing well in both races.

It is going to be a long regatta with 3 races scheduled for tomorrow and the next day. This will result in 7 hour days on the water.

Hamish

Day off and out to see the humpback whales. For 3 months a year Ecuador is famous for whale which congregate here for mating. We were lucky to have a marine biologist as guide and learnt a lot about Ecuador's fishery. There were 4 whales within 100 meters of the boat. Mostly these were pretty tame with a lot of action about 2 km to north, BUT we did get 1 whale ¨¨breaching¨¨ right beside our boat, and our guide managed to get this on camera, she promised to email this to - I'll put it on the web when it arrives.

We were luckly as many teams have been out and not seen a whale! After this we had the opening ceremony. NZ paraded into the Navy base proudly behind our flag. A pole was improvised by the sailors from a tree branch nearby. The ceremony was the usual long speaches about it being the 42nd OP World champoinships and that there are over 50 nations represented with a total of over 200 sailors here. The military performance with rifles was was the highlight.

Today was the practice race and was our first opportunity to sail against all the sailors here. They divided the total fleet into 2 using even and odd numbers. 3 of the kiwis started with the first race and as is typical this fleet went about 3 minutes early! Dan, Paul and Frankie were happy with their speed against the teams round them. Sussannah and Carl started with the 2nd start and also came ashore feeling happy with their speed. This start got away 4 minutes early and very spread out. So going to bed tonight the team all feels confidient in the 10 knots experienced today. They are all excited and ready to start racing for real tomorrow!

Here in Salinas the winds will be as follows: 15% 2- 6 knots 60% 7 - 12 knots and 15% 13-16 knots. All the winds blow from the SW.

The sailors are happy and confidient with their speed in the catagories 7 - 16 which is 75 % of the time, but it will be tough when the wind speed is below 6 knots. This is when it is puffy and shifty often paying to take sterns and get further into the puff.

More tomorrow after they have done their first 2 races.

Hamish

NZ sailors are through measurement! There is much confusion and dispute in Salanis surrounding the new big top sail. The dispute centers round the shape of the leach above the top batten. At the North American event last month it was ruled that this curve must be symmetrical. Fortunately most of the NZ team we were able to modify their asymmetrical big top profiles before departure from NZ, but there are countries here that have had big problems. Italy had the "hot knife" out yesterday, while other countries like New Caledonia elected to purchase new sails here from Olympic and Tio reps. It is likely all these sails will be banned from March 2005, that decision will be made next week.

NZ sails are attracting much attention from other nations, the fact that they have the biggest leach curve and have been passed through measurement has tongues wagging! They did not need to know that I had to scramble round, and with the help of our Spanish speaking team member Frankie Lardies, find a sowing machine to remove 2 millimeters from the top of our team members' sails! Frankie managed to locate the local sail repair man. Me, Dan and Frankie followed the guy through the back streets and eventually the sails were sown by his wife in their kitchen, no loft in sight, no zig zag stitch either! Job done we were, thankfully, escorted back to the right side of town.

Hamish

We have been sailing 5 days here now. The winds have been very, very tricky! Mostly between 3 and 10 knots with conditions puffy and shifty. We all find the 3-6 knots and chop extremely difficult to sail well in, which makes me realize how little time we spend sailing in these conditions in NZ. On these days we find the puff is worth as much, or more than the shift. Often it pays to take sterns and dig deeper into a new puff.

Yesterday we had an 'easy' day and sailed just in the afternoon. We all went to the local shopping mall in the morning and discovered it was set up very similar to a low security prison! There was empty space for car parks right round the outside of the building, guards were posted every 10 meters up on posts with guns, they had the place covered! Otherwise it was just another shopping mall.

Today we sailed with many foreign teams, Germany, Argentina, Trinidad, Bermuda. Most countries have teams of 5 sailors, so with up to 25 boats on the course it was starting to feel like a real race. The wind speed was up on previous days at about 9 knots. The kiwi sailors did a great job with 2 or 3 boats in the top 5 in each race. In fact I believe we shocked the Argentinian team's coach so much he pulled his team out at the top mark for a briefing! They are historically one of the best countries at the OP worlds.

I think this is going to be a very difficult world champs for NZ sailors to do well at. The conditions, when in the 3-6 knots range, are unlike anything we are used to and there is no logical process to sailing well tactically. The wind is typical of very light sea breezes, but this one comes off the shore to make matters worse! If we get the 7-10 knot range, as we did today, then the NZ sailors looked very comfortable and were fast and smart.

We have 3 days more until the worlds begin; we will train again tomorrow, making 6 days of training, then a day off to see the whales which are right here off the coast, then the practice race on 16th and worlds from 17th to 19th and 22nd to 24th.

Hamish

We have all arrived safely into Salanis, Ecuador after 24 hours of flying and airport connections. Safety is a relative term, most NZ'ers would have classified the final stages by mini bus into Salamis as suicidal!! And I thought Greek drivers were bad? We are definitely in the 3rd world here with 70% of people living below the poverty line. There is a real risk of bandits who will drive out of hideouts in the mountains and rob small towns, car jacking is also common! When the average annual salary is just $2,000 NZD per year, even slim pickings would seem like a small fortune!

Anyway, our second day of training went very well for the Kiwi OP team. We had some practice races with Ecuador, Bermuda, Trinidad, Poland, about 24 boats in all. NZL sailors were many times to the front and proved we are fast and smart enough to win in a good standard fleet, even if we are coming out of our winter with a lot of warming up to do.

The weather conditions are 3 to 9 knots and the breeze is shifty and puffy coming off the land from the SW, some kind of trade wind which blows 98% of the time in this season. We are almost on the equator but the temperature is moderate, almost the same as Auckland in February. There is constant cloud cover which apparently occurs for some months during this season.

Hamish

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Thanks to:

• NZ International Yachting Trust
• Southern Trust
• Lion Foundation
• NZ Community Trust

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