These are the hardest reports to write: the ones when you have to give “bad news.” There is no worse feeling than when you look back at an event, and know you simply underperformed- especially when the regatta was an important one. We ended up 38th overall, by far our worst performance in a while.
So what the heck happened? Tactics? Fitness? Equipment?
Luckily, it was not one facet of our campaign that brought us down. And I say luckily because in our minds if it were one thing that got the best of us, it would mean that we were unprepared: an Olympic Trials worst nightmare.
Our final series was plagued with a bit of everything- but mainly our execution and consolidation killed our races. We were good about positioning ourselves well after bad and good starts in order to stick to our game plan- however often times it was our game plan that was actually wrong. We would play the left, and the right would come in huge, or we would play right and then the left would get the cross. We just did not understand the racing area, and our boat speed and tactics were not sharp enough to make up for the deficit.
In sailing there are ups and downs and in the end Sail for Gold was certainly a down. We know soon we will once again be on the up swing. As you probably know, the podium does not stand thirty-eight steps high. We have a lot of work to do, but are more fired-up than ever to get our hands dirty and continue to make the statement that we are a force to be reckoned with!
Regardless of the finish at Sail for Gold, there is good news. The field of American teams has been narrowed to only two boats- and guess what: we are one of them! Our next trials event is the World Championships in Perth, Australia this upcoming December.
The next stop is the European Championships in Helsinki, Finland. Racing starts July 9th, and runs through the 15th.
Thank you so much to Stetson, US Sailing Team Alphagraphics and all of our personal donors. We could absolutely never do this without you!
Adam and Nick