Laser Halloween Training 2009

We had a great weekend of training, with sunshine and breeze both days!

A total of about 15 sailors came out at least one of the days.

Were onto our winter training season for the next few months and this was likely the last of the sunny mild weather!

Al

Pumkin Bowl 2009

The Pumpkin regatta took place October 17-18th at West Van YC.

A real fall regatta with heavy rain, wind and even some sun shine. Over 200 sailors came from across BC, Alberta and Washington to participate. The most amazing fleet was the Opti fleet with over 70 racers competing!

It was quite a sight seeing all of them leave the docks!
Royal Van faired really well in the regatta.

In the light green fleet (first regatta ever) there were 24 racers. Tara Yuen won the whole fleet, followed by Nicholas Donaldson in 3rd, Max Cameron in 8th and Jamie Bennett in 12th.

This fleet sailed different reaching courses and had a great time. In the dark green fleet, Katrina McCallum was 2nd,Mikaela Frame was 10th, Dim Dimitrov 13th and Julia Ho 23rd. It was so much fun seeing these sailors race to the far away windward mark in the wind and the rain.

In the championship fleet, Alex Fritz won the entire event just like last year. In second was Lloyd Lyall who won the blue fleet. In second in the blue fleet was Andrew Moreno. Third in red was Graham Harney followed by Ellie Shaw in 7th, Jake Cullen in 8th and Hailey Linton in 9th. In the blue fleet was Eric Lyall 4th and Jim Donaldson 7th. In the white fleet ( 10 and under), Henrik Moberg-Parker was 3rd followed closely by Michael Mastracci in 5th and Dylan Cochran in 6th.

In the 420 class, Royal Van did great with Joren Jackson/Leif Pederson finishing second, Emma Toone/Alana Tacy in 3rd and Kia Meiklejohn/Elizabeth Hardy in 5th.

In the 29’er class, Sam Gustin with crew Ian Woodbury were 2nd.

In the Laser full rig class, Chris Tulip was 5th, Thomas Roehrl 6th, Sebastian Fritz 8th and John Tulip 12th.

The Radial class was big with 31 racers. Natalia Montemayor was 4th, Cameron Ho 5th, Joanna Moore 8th and Tony Henderson 11th.

A lot of fun and a great event for all our sailors.

Results:

http://www.wvyc.bc.ca/racing/pumpkinbowl/opti_results2009.html

http://www.wvyc.bc.ca/racing/pumpkinbowl/alpharesults_2009.htm

Pictures:

http://s899.photobucket.com/albums/ac199/WVYCsaildir/


Tine

National Qualifying Regatta 2009

The NQR (Sport Carding from the CYA, read money) was held in Victoria October 1-4 for the Lasers and Radials (Men and Women).

We had a big group over for the event, with a number of sailors well in line for these Cards,(this was also a qulaifier for the youth worlds too).

The event started out a little slow on the Thursday with light wind and 2 races , the Friday saw even lighter wind and one race sailed.

Luke Ramsay (Lasers) and Jen Spalding (Radials) took the lead early in the event, and both never relinquished it.

The Saturday we say good breeze out of the north and we sailed 5 races, a very full day.

Abe Torchinsky in Lasers was now in a solid second and in Radials Isabella and Alanna vitery were well in the hunt, with Keamia Rasa just a hair off the pace.

The final day of racing saw again a good northerly with 3 races sailed and a 2nd drop coming into play.

In the end Royal Van was 1st, 2nd, 6th , 7th and 9th (5 in the top 10!) in the Lasers.

Alex Heinzman was 7th and earned another spot to the youth worlds next year in Turkey, (he competed in Brazil this past year).

In the Radials we had 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 6th

Results are @http://www.rvyc.bc.ca/results/1254704219.htm

Well done team!

We will have as many members of the National team as ever this coming year.

Names include- Mike Leigh, Luke Ramsay, Abe Torchinsky in Laser, Jen Spalding, Isabella Bertold, Alanna Vittery in Radial, John Romanko, in Finn, Zak Plasvic and Nicola Girke in boards.

An end to a successful year of competing for the Race Team, we head into the winter training season with our next trip in Miami in January.

Al

Fall Dingys Regatta 09

The team went over to Victoria for the annual fall dingy regatta September 26th and 27th. We had a big group this year with the Double Handed 420 team coming out in force.
Mark Patacky has a keen group that are training regularly on weekends and thursday evenings.

We also have a active 29er campaigning on the circuit, Sam Gusin and Ian Woobury, they've been busy getting good results in the Youth Champs and at CORK this past summer.

The Laser Team also had a big group, (14), with a number of sailors keen on using the regatta as a practice run for the upcoming NQR's regatta the following weekend.

The regattas had one light air race on the Saturday and then 5 good medium breeze races on the Sunday.

We won all the classes we entered and had top finishes as well in all the classes!

Joren Jackson and Dylan Sanderson 1st in the 420 class

Sam Gustin, Ian Woodbury 1st in the 29er Class

Luke Ramsay was 1st in the Laser Class,

Isabella Bertold 1st in the Radial Class,



Results are @ http://rvyc.bc.ca/results/1254100495.htm

Well done team!

Fall Training

The summer season has come to a close and after one of the busiest ever the team is ready to into some solid blocks of training leading up to the National Qualifying Regatta for Lasers and Radials Oct 1 thru 4 in Victoria.

We have had decent weather for the first few weekend as well as the evening sessions.

The new team members meeting on Thursday September 10th went well and quite a number of new sailors came aboard in the Opti's , Double Handed (420's) and the Lasers.

Chris Cowan has taken over for Rob Douglas in the Optis and has some big shoes to fill as Rob had done an fantastic job raising the participation of the team to new heights!

Thank you Rob for all your efforts , you will be missed.

We look forward to great sucess with Chris doing his best to follow in Robs footsteps.

Of course Tine stays on working specifically with the highest performance sailors and the wet feet program she initiated.

Another note is that the double handed team seems to have reached critical mass and is going great guns with Mark Patacky at the helm.

The team took part in the Canadian Youth Championships this summer and is off to Victoria this coming weekend as well as a few more events of over the coming year .

Thanks Royal Van for all the support
Al

Optimist Canadian Championships 2009

Report from Canadian Optimist Championship 2009 in Victoria

The 2009 Canadian Optimist Championship was held in Victoria the last week of August. With excellent conditons for those who love light air, the sailors raced for 5 days straight right outside the yacht club. The parents had excellent views of their sailors from shore as well as from all the parents who brought over their boats for housing.

It was really fun for our team to have 24 racers competing in the fleet of 95 sailors. We were over 25% of the entire event! Most of our sailors attended their first ever Canadian Championship and it was an exceptional experience.


CHAMPIONSHIP FLEET
Our top sailor was Lloyd Lyall in this his first Championship. He sailed an excellent regatta and despite a very unfortunate finish in a race where 50 boats all crossed the line on a reach within 15 seconds, Lloyd used his brilliant tactics to stay in clean air throughout the regatta.

Veteran sailor and retiring after the event, Laura Konitzer, finished 15th and made the national Optimist team. She was hoping for a bit more wind as she just returned from the worlds with the same light air conditions. Laura was an excellent role model for all our Optimist sailors and will stay involved volunteering for the race team program in the fall.

Eric Lyall finished 30th and as one of the youngest in the blue fleet, Eric was impressively fast being able to concentrate throughout the entire regatta. Alex Fritz finished 31st, a bit disappointing as he was hoping for wind to use his strength. Ernesto Rengifo also sailed his last Optimist event as he aged out and is now sailing Laser Radial and had some excellent finishes. Ernesto was outstanding selecting the correct side to go upwind in the current ridden bay.

Sam Atkins and Graham Harney sailed better and better as the event went on. Both put a lot of pressure on themselves, but the learning which came out of this event was so worth while and will take both of them in a great direction in the future. Sam and Graham were 39th and 41st respectively.

Andrew Moreno finished in 48th and sailed some excellent races throughout the series. It is a very long event with 6 days including one day for measurement for our young sailors. It was a great event for growth though.

Jake Cullen and Jim Donaldson who just started on the race team in September finished right beside each other as best friends often do. These two boys have come so far and having been to the training and regatta in San Francisco in June with our team, both Jim and Jake have taken huge steps in their sailing abilities in less than a year.

Ben MacVicar with his excellent attitude and leadership skills came in the 50s. Ben was also hoping for more wind, but the event went better and better for him as the week went by, showing strength in his sailing and personal skills.

Hayley Linton finished 60th in this her first big regatta. She also started last year and has brought a lot of enthusiasm to our team. Connor Black had an excellent regatta and sailed so well. He is a delight on and off the water. Ellie Shaw had a tough time getting of the starting line and getting out to a side. The ping-pong sailing in the middle of a big fleet with very light air was a hard lesson to learn, but nonetheless, an important one she will benefit from later having done at the Canadians.

In 65th place with the same score were Dylan Cochrane and Henrik Moberg-Parker. Dylan is 9 and Henrik is 8 years old. Both boys had raced where they were in top 10 around the first marks and in 3 of the cancelled raced (as the wind died) the boys were often in the top 15. Both loved being part of our huge team and learnt so much from all the older role models on our team.

Michael Mastracci and Robert Tulip were excellent representatives from Royal Van, bringing a fighting attitude and willing to soak in the new skills throughout the entire week.

With only 2 of our sailors retiring this year, we have 22 sailors returning for another year plus a whole new gang starting out! We are hoping to get up to close to 40 sailors on the Optimist team.

GREEN FLEET
The green fleet is for sailors who are new to our sport and where coaching is allowed while racing. Katrina McCallum finished in an impressive 2nd place overall. There were 20 racers. This is her first year and she brought along Julia Ho who finished in 10th place.

Cody and Fraser Buck raced in their first ever regatta and we have two budding stars coming up. Nick Donaldson was the biggest winner of all, he raced his hardest and spent the entire time loving the time on and off the water.

Graham Harney also took home the biggest prize of all, the SPORTSMANSHIP trophy. Graham was the most outstanding role-model for all the younger sailors, including and caring for every new sailor on and off the water. Graham was rewarded with a beautiful trophy and a spray-top. We are very proud that our sailors win on and off the water.

On a different note, after the awards were finished, Rob Douglas who has been coaching these sailors for the past 8 years and has been instrumental in the successes of the Optimist race team members, told all the sailors and their parents that he had decided to move to Comox to pursue his teaching and coaching future. We are so grateful for all the time Rob dedicated to the Royal Van Optimist race team and we will for ever feel the positive impact Rob has had on all the sailors, parents and co-coaches lives. We wish him and his wife Katrina the very best and we are sure he will come back to race of do training camps with us again.


A huge thank you to all the parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles who helped with the event. We were a great team, the biggest ever!

From the 4 coaches, Rob Douglas, Chris Cowan, Cameron Ho and Tine Moberg-Parker

Laser Worlds 2009

A strong team of Royal Van sailors qualified for the mens Senior Worlds Championships.

Mike Leigh, Luke Ramsay, Abe Torchinsky, Andy Wong, Ricardo Montemayor and Alex Heinzman.

The regatta was preluded by ten days of training , with upward of a hundred competitors doing "rabbit" starts. fantastic training, especially for the Jr members of the group.

The event was started in perfect sunshine and a eighteen knot sea breeze. Two races were sailed and the results were good for Mike and a few of the others.

The second day dawned with a dense fog, we went out and tried racing thruout the day but in the end one race was held that remained and the other was tossed in a protest , all in all the day was a near loss for most.

The Saturday morning we saw a solid 18 plus knots of breeze and a schedule of three races.
All the money was on the line on this day. The fleet was to be split into Gold , Silver and Bronze.

Mike sailed very well and entered the gold fleet portion of the event in 7th, Luke and Abe had touger days and were in the middle of silver fleet, Andy, Alex and Rick were at their first worlds and were in the bronze fleet.

After the final qualifying day we had to store the boats away indoors in anticipation of a hurricane, (that never amounted to much). Three 75 minute qualifying races with a few hours of putting boats away made for some very tired sailors by days end.

The Sunday was alot of waiting for the hurracane to blow thru then monday was more waiting on the water for wind that never appeared.

Finnally we were back to racing on the Tuesday with 3 good races, (10-14 kts) and then 2 races on the final day in 14 to 18 kts.
Both of these days we sailed out thru the fog to find our race course.

The final scores showed the top sailors being at the top and the rest falling in line. This is , in my opinion, the tougest sailing regatta on the planet and the sailor that wins it must be skilled and fit in every possible way.

Mike Leigh had a very solid event finishing 10th, Luke finished 6th and Abe 10th in silver , Rick, Alex and Andy gained valuable experience for their next wortlds.

A sucessful event that was tough because we had plenty of delays and our share of fog, but not unusual.

next year the worlds are in the UK and the team is off to more events to try and qualify.

Al

Canada Games 2009

Day 1

The first day of racing took place in light to no wind in PEI. We started the first race with a solid 6 knots which lasted for one race for the double and single handed sailors. Both the fleets races a second race, the double handed finished the race, the single handed did not finish, it was cancelled half way through.

In the 29'er, Jonathan Scott and Mark Pataky had a great day, finishing in 2nd and 3rd after having led in both races.
In the single handed classes, both Kevin Grierson and Isabella Bertold won their races. Kevin won by only a few inches over Nova Scotia while ISabella was far ahead despite being last at the start.

Day 2

The wind stayed longer today and we got 3 races in for the single handed sailors and 4 races for the double handed sailors. The light breeze which blew 4-7.5 knots and shifted left throughout the day gave for some good light air racing.

In the single handed class female class, Isabella Bertold continues to dominate and sits 1st overall with 3 first and one second place. She was over early in a start and went back with 3 other boats and sailed herself back to a close second race. In all the other races she as dominated from start to finish.

In the single handed men's class, Kevin Grierson sailed a solid 3 races and finished with a 3, 1 and a 4th. .

Jonathan Scott and Mark Pataky had a rougher day and are sitting 4th overall.

So far, Isabella is 1st overall, Kevin is 3rd with another 3 days of racing to go.

Day 3 at the Canada Games

The single handed sailors raced 3 excellent races with hiking conditions in all of them.

Isabella Bertold was over early in the first race, but went back and came back to win the race. She also won the next 2 races easily. She is sitting first with 6 points after having won 6 races and one second. There are 3 races to go.

Kevin Grierson finished second twice and won the last race. HE is also first overall, but tied in that spot with Nova Scotia.

Mark Pataky and Jonathan Scott got a 2,3,4 and are tied in third. One more race for them to sail today.
We have two more days to sail. We have a great team spirit and feel great about the way we are sailing.

Final Report

Canada Games 2009 is over with a complete series of races finished a day early.

Thursday gave us excellent breeze and our sailors worked hard to either extend their leads or hold on to a medal.

In the Laser Radial class, Isabella Bertold easily won the first 2 races and went in.

Kevin Grierson won all 3 races today with great distance and claimed the gold medal so Royal Van swiped the single handed gold medals.

In the 29er class Mark Pataky and Jonathan Scott got a 3-3-4-4 and got the bronze medal, well done!

The regatta was run by excellent race committees and our sailors and coaches are looking forward to 2 days with taking part in the games and watch other events.

For pictures and complete results, please go to www.teambc.org

Tine

Opti North Americans 2009

Event report by Alexander Fritz
North American Optimist Dinghy Championships, Boca Chica, Dominican Republic
June 26th to July 9th

After travel by bus to Seattle, flying overnight to Newark, NJ to meet up with some of the other Canadian team members, the final flight took us to Santo Domingo, DR. Boca Chica is just 15 minutes away from the Las Americana’s Airport, in the South West of the Island.

Arriving at the airport, it was hot and very humid. We arrived at the hotel Hoteur, which was accommodations as well as event site in one for all competitors, coaches and parents. While the hotel was older, rooms were ok and more importantly food was good and plenty. We were told not to leave the hotel grounds and in fact it had armed security guards all around, even at the beach where all the equipment and boats were stored. The people we met everywhere were very friendly though.

The Canadian team consisted of 11 sailors, the biggest in recent North American Optimist Championships for Canada, since there was no 2009 Canadian Euro team this year. Our coach was Fran Bellocchio from the Nova Scotia based “COAST” and Rhode Island based “FAST” Optimist teams. Fran arranged a 4-day on-site race clinic to get us used to the sailing area, and conditions. It also allowed us to checkout our boats early and we were first to measure everything.

Some other countries had already arrived for training, some as much as 2 weeks earlier, including from Japan, Germany, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.

Where we initially thought we would sail inside the bay, behind a huge protective reef, we learned from the other teams quickly that in fact we would sail on the outside in open waters, which meant a long sail/tow as well as big 2+ meter swell and current. The swell was so bad that some sailors and later many parents on the spectator boats became seasick.

Winds during the training days were light – usually 8-10kn. With the steep swell it was tough to make the boat go fast, sometimes you couldn’t see the marks or other boats would come up on you last second. It was constantly steering up and down the waves.

It was also hot and humid, we all definitely had to hydrate and some of the sailors on many teams had trouble getting used to the conditions, having upset stomachs and trouble sleeping. During the event several sailors even ended up in the hospital for infusions.
The Opening Ceremonies were done on an old Military Base but very nice. Over 200 sailors attended the event from 26 different countries around the world. Overall everyone cared a lot for the sailors, they had even built huts for our gear and to provide shade at the beach and all kinds of food and fruits were plenty.

Racing days were long because of the daily tows out into deep water. Once the regatta started winds actually increased significantly, especially in the afternoon when on some days major local thunderstorms developed. The increased wind unfortunately also increased the short choppy waves developing white caps slapping into our Optimist from all directions and sail & bail was key.

Fran always setup a debrief after dinner with video footage of the day. We learned a lot from that and also laughed about some of our mistakes, its good to see yourself on TV doing things you don’t think you actually are doing, or doing good things you don’t realize. For example Fran had also taped one of my starts where all was going well except the last 5-8 seconds where I accelerated way faster then the boats around me and I got an OCS. Starts were very critical and many sailors were very aggressive.

On our lay-day the Canadian and Swiss teams together booked at trip on open trucks into the interior of the country, which is part rural, part jungle. We went to a big waterfall for swimming and a BBQ. Because it was Sunday it was crowded with local people.

While driving along the often gravel country roads, I was shocked about the poverty we saw and kids begging not for money but school supplies, simple pencils and paper, books. The Swiss team had anticipated that and came prepared. The truck would stop along the small villages and we all together handed out all kinds of things to kids often not even having shirts or shoes. It was certainly quite the contrast to us lucky kids sailing and being able to go to school at home.

Overall the event was very well organized and good facilities, going home I will miss the warm water and beautiful white sandy beach. I learned a lot, made a lot of new friends and certainly improved my sailing, especially the starts in a big fleet.

I also want to sincerely thank the RVYC Corinthian fund, which helps support my training and attending an international event like this. I hope I have the chance to go back to the Dominican Republic, and next time I will for sure bring lots of school supplies to hand out to the kids there.


Results @http://www.optinam2009.org/app/do/results_view.aspx?id=1123

Laser Europeans 2009

Mike Leigh , Abe Torchinsky and Ricardo Montemayer attended the Laser Europeans in Sweden from Aug 1 to 8th, with Kevin Black as their coach.

The group did a training camp in lake Garda the week prior with some world class sailors. All in preparation for the upcoming laser worlds in Halifax beginning Aug 20th.

It appeared to be generally a light air event that was hard fought with the best in the world in attendance. Mike ended up 20th with a few tough races and Abe 57th in the gold fleet.

Ricardo sailed in the youth europeans and ended up third in the under 19 portion of the regatta. A very good result! Way to go Rick!

Results are @ http://www.nordicweek.se/resultat_2009.asp

The boys fly direct to Nova Scotia for the build up to the Worlds.
We have a big team this year who have qualified: Mike, Abe , Rick, Luke Ramsay, Alex Heinzman and Andy Wong.

Kevin black will be coaching, Good Luck Guys !


Al