This is the official blog of Andrew Campbell and Brad Nichol's Star Class Campaign for the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Regatta to be held in Weymouth, England in August 2012

CampbellSailing.com

Nichol Sailing

Friday, June 26, 2009

Medal Race Live-track from Kiel


Here's a shot of Brad and I trying to chase down Mark Mendelblatt and Mark Strube as we round mark 1 of the Medal Race 1, 2 and they go on to win the regatta. Congratulations guys!

There is some video from the 23rd and the Medal Race on this page: http://www.world-of-sailing.info/olympic-classes/star/. Look out for us, we're black numbers USA-8241

Here is the link to our GPS tracking from last week in Kiel. What a great a feature to be able to playback the entire race! The weather was so uniquely nice in Kiel, you might well have wanted to be there to see it.

Full results here: http://results.regatta-info.de/result_details.php?results=2009-06-24_Star_Wettfahrt_5_Extra.xml

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Kiel off to a slow start

One race in two days is not a pretty picture for any regatta. Kieler Woche especially is legendary for its windy, rainy and long days on the water. Today could not have had less in terms of breeze. Being the longest day of the year (sunrise was at 445am and sunset around 10pm), we were lucky to have been drifting around the boatpark instead of drifting around Delta course four miles offshore. We were postponed at 9am and again at 1130 before they called racing off at 3 due to spotty wind and unstable weather. Rain and storm cells have certainly been the dominant factor here so far.

Kieler Woche has lived up to its reputation as quite the scene however. Each day, especially this weekend, thousands of festival goers and local denizens have been enjoying the brat-sellers and temporary beer gardens set up overlooking the harbor and boatpark. Today about 800 sailors joined the crowd while waiting for breeze.

We still stand on our 13th place finish from day one waiting for our opportunity to fight up the leaderboard. Tomorrow should present 3 such opportunities. Keep your fingers crossed for breeze!

Friday, June 19, 2009

2009 Kieler Woche Set to Start

The 2009 Kieler Woche is set to begin tomorrow here in northern Germany. After a couple days of sailing, Brad and I are ready tuned up and ready to go for two races tomorrow on the outer "Delta" course some 4 miles north east of the Olympiazentrum in Shilksee. We've had a couple of days to recover from the jetlag and given the airlines a good chance to get our bags delivered after losing them in Heathrow. Usually the European trip does take a few days to get all those sorts of details sorted. We burned through the classically efficient german registration system here yesterday, weighed in 1.5 kilos light, stamped our sails, established our mooring at the bulkhead, and all the other star-class things that need doing. We've been lucky to that point that the weather had been cooperating. But, just as we were getting ready to go for a short sail today, the standard Kieler Woche Weather showed up in the form of a nasty black cloud, a significant drop in temperature, lightning all across the sky, heavy rain, and little flecks of hail. Alright! We huddled under our new set of Norths and waited for the weather to pass and actually got a couple of really nice hours sail testing.

Two races scheduled tomorrow. Check the results and see the scene that is Kiel Week at: www.KielerWoche.de

Stay tuned, more to come.

Also check out out our feeds at:
www.SperryTopsider.com
CampbellNichol2012.blogspot.com

Friday, June 5, 2009

Delta Lloyd Regatta 2009 Wrap-up

What a week it turned out to be in Holland! The sun was out and the breeze was on for the last four days of the regatta, a phenomenon that does not often happen in northern Europe. We were treated to some great racing from the Dutch organizers and race committees who are legendary for running on-time races and never letting a boat over early slip past them.

Sunday’s medal race was no different. We watched the Finn and Men’s 470 races from the coach boat, but the course was set up less than 100 yards from the shoreline, so a crowd of locals and sailors alike stood and watched the action. The courses were windward-leeward three times around the smaller than average track for a target time of around 30 minutes, instead of the regular hour and fifteen minute races we had been having all week. The intensity ramps up for these short sprints and you would be amazed at the stuff that happens. We were cheering on the radials during their race on Saturday night and Paige Railey flipped near the top mark after leading the first leg, then the local dutch girl behind her sailed to the finish after only two laps while the fleet rounded the marks to head upwind for the last lap. Ed Wright from England in the Finn class re-started after being over the line and even with the light air, he battled back to be second in the race. His competition Giles Scott was top 5 most of the way around the course and was given a rule 42 penalty near the finish.

Our race was no exception to the fact that wild things can happen. The breeze came up in a big way before our race building to 15 knots and paralleling the Medemblik shoreline only a few hundred feet to the left. Brad and I wanted to start to windward of the group and lined up a bit too early for the committee boat end. Hamish Pepper from New Zealand stuck us head-to-wind for the final thirty seconds or so and pushed us to where we thought we were probably over the line. When we got up to speed and the gun went, we heard the X-flag go up and immediately turned back to clear ourselves. We cleared and the flag still did not go down, meaning somebody else in the fleet was over. At the time we didn’t know it was our American cohorts Mark Mendelblatt and Mark Strube, but the photos don’t lie.

After clearing ourselves we had to fight to get back into the race. Luckily, there are enough mark roundings during these short races that boats ahead go slow quite often. We knew we had to finish right next to the Croatian boat to beat them overall, and Mark was winning the race so we couldn’t worry about him. We finally caught the fleet at the second leeward marks. The German team tied for the lead rounded just ahead of us on starboard. They didn’t see us so close behind and tacked to port fouling us and were forced to take a penalty after some coaxing from the jury. We were able to catch our New Zealander buddies from the start because Hamish and Craig had broken their jib downhaul and couldn’t get proper jib trim. That left only one boat between us and the Croatians. Regatta leaders Robert Schiedt and Bruno Prada were the only boat to the left, and would prove to be a tough boat to catch on the final run to the finish. Instead of putting out effort into catching Robert and Bruno, we hounded the Croatian team to ensure that the Brazilians passed them. By covering the breeze of the Croatians, Robert was able to sail right around them to take fourth in the race leaving us to take 6th right behind the Croatians and defend our position in the standings. When we crossed the finish line and saw Mark’s number on the board we knew that we had moved up the leaderboard to take 5th overall in the regatta! After clawing back from being on the course side of the line at the start, we couldn’t have been happier with the result and it just goes to show that you can never give up in tough situations. We really did create our own luck in this week’s medal race.

Next on the agenda for Brad and me is to plan out and go to Kiel regatta in the star boat. This transition into the new class has gone much better than either of us could have imagined. I had high expectations, and am very pleased with how the progress is going. We need to sort out some upwind boatspeed, our downwind speed is where we’re really making our gains. But without help from some continued and new sponsorships, we wouldn’t be able to continue. With support from US Sailing Team Alphagraphics and our continued relationships with Sperry Top-sider, Kaenon Polarized and now Z-blok, as well as a number of private donors, we have been able to make a strong push into a new realm in the sport.

Full results at: deltalloydregatta.org

You can follow the medal race track here taken from the GPS systems on board for the final day.

Photos and more from: deltalloydregatta.org/2009