Training in the woods & the european Championships
Part 1: Training in the Woods
At just over 202 thousand kilometers Canada has the most coastline of any country in the world by a substantial margin. One would think that this means we have an endless number of training venues to sail out of. With that much coastline we should have a different venue for every specific condition we wanted to work on, we should be spoiled for choice. And yet as Canadian laser sailors we are always falling into the trap of training in the same four locations year in year out. Kingston, St. Margaret’s Bay, Victoria, and Vancouver are the hotspots, and while they can all be good venues for racing, they all lack one important piece, open ocean swell.
The thing about the four main Canadian venues is that they are all in bays. Geographical features play a big part in how a sailing venue behaves and the effects of being in a bay are that the waves become very short and close together, we call this chop. In contrast when you are out on the open ocean the period of the waves becomes much larger and as a result the waves are much smoother and faster moving, they may be twice as tall but because they are so far apart you notice them much less, we call this swell. The two wave states are venue dependant and require entirely different techniques to navigate. In order to perform in all conditions, we must go out of our way to seek them in our training. Venues like Malta, and Porto Portugal are great examples of venues with consistently epic swell, but we have so much domestic coastline in Canada why shouldn’t we have to fly across the ocean to get conditions we are looking for. With this in mind, we set out at the beginning of October to test a new Canadian sailing location that would hopefully deliver what we were looking for.
The destination we decided on was Port Renfrew British Columbia. Though only 90 minutes outside of Victoria on Vancouver Island, Port Renfrew is by far and away the most isolated place I have ever sailed. With no cell service, and a population of 110 on a good day, the village exists almost solely for fishing. A quick google search will bring up an article titled “10 things to do while visiting Port Renfrew” now you may be surprised, as I was, that there are as many as 10 things to do in the little town. Though upon a closer inspection you will realize that 8 of the activities are individual fishing charter companies and the other two are particularly interesting trees that have become local landmarks. Nevertheless, we were excited because we were about to add an 11th thing to do… Sailing!
Geographically PR was exactly what we were looking for. A small welcoming marina in a small bay facing straight out into the Pacific Ocean. After a short tow out to the mouth of the bay we were able to get some big swell just as we had been looking for, and as an added bonus there was a large amount of tidal current which provides an extra dimension to the racecourse, we rarely get to train in.
As for the town it was very isolated. This on one hand provided a very focused training environment with few distractions from the outside world though it also caused some logistical challenges. We stayed as a team in a fishing lodge which was very well equipped however the closest grocery story was about 100km away and so before we left Victoria, we had to do our shopping for our entire 11 night stay. This was fine and we even immersed ourselves in the local culture, buying some salmon off a fisherman one night for dinner. Another challenge was the fact that there was no cell service anywhere in the town. Though this may seem like a serious 21st century problem it is funny how strange it is to be without the ability to communicate when you are used to it. Everyone had to be 100% sure they knew where they were going when they left the house. Though in fairness with one road in and one road out it would be quite challenging to get lost. In the small-town, news of the strange sailing newcomers spread quick. Everywhere we went we would get strange looks but as news spread everyone was very welcoming.
On one of the last days that we were in town we were greeted at our door by a friendly lady who introduced herself as one of the local schoolteachers. She talked to us about how she was an avid wind surfer in her youth and was very excited that we were out here discovering the hidden gem that is Port Renfrew. She asked us if we would be interested in coming by the school the following morning to talk to some of the kids and maybe inspire them to take up sailing. Of course, we said we would be happy to and so the next morning we stopped by. Upon arrival we were informed that it was a slow day and only 8 kids most of whom were from the nearby first nations reserve had shown up (a good day was 12 kids). We played basketball with them and talked to them about what we do and how they can try it out in the summer If they like. For us, all coming from very urban upbringings, it was slightly shocking to experience what life is like for children growing up in these small Canadian villages. It certainly makes me very grateful for all the opportunities and the education I received growing up in Oakville and Burlington. There is no doubt that much of my success is a result of that environment.
All in all, our Port Renfrew experiment was very successful. Though due to an unusual high pressure system which was passing through we had more light wind days than expected, our interest was certainly peaked by the potential of the venue. The isolated environment provides a unique training atmosphere that if implemented properly I think could be very effective. And according to the local people we talk to there is a very strong thermal breeze that comes in the summer which is a very enticing prospect to explore.
Beyond just Port Renfrew, our experiment also highlights the sense of exploration that Canadian sailors have been lacking. With so much coastline, though it may be remote, we have a duty I feel to ourselves and future Canadian sailors to get out of our comfort zone and search for new venues. To use our unique Canadian geography as a competitive advantage against the rest of the world.
Part 2: Hyeres, European Championships 2022
After our training camp out west, we were headed back to Europe for our last major competition of 2022. The European championships is the second most competitive regatta every year after the worlds, and this year they were being held in Hyères. In between Marseille and Nice in the south of France Hyères is a big town for dinghy sailing. Every spring they host a very popular Olympic classes regatta and so the waters are well known to many sailors who have been around the circuit. The Europeans though, were being held in the third week of November and so the weather was a bit of an unknown. Originally, we were expecting it to be very cold but to our surprise when we arrived it seemed summer had forgotten to check out.
We arrived at the beginning of the second week of November. We had all taken a few days to rest and get ourselves from Victoria to France but now about a week out from the competition we were in race prep mode. Over the next few days just shy of 300 ILCA 6 and ILCA 7 sailors descended on the town all looking to finish off their seasons on a high note.
My season to date had been all over the place. From the lows of injuring my knee and missing out on gold fleet at worlds to the highs of qualifying Canada for the Pan Am’s at North American’s and qualifying for my first three fleet gold fleet at Palma. I was looking to finish off my season with a statement, to mark my territory and show off the progress I have made in my first year on the national team.
As we got to the first day of racing, I felt very prepared, and though nerves were high I was honestly just really excited to get racing. In the first race I had a great start but missed an early shift and while waiting for the wind to come back my way I ended up getting pushed over the port lay line compromising my windward mark approach. I managed to climb back a few places but finished the first race in a disappointing 29th place. After that, over the next two days I sailed one of the most consistent series I have ever sailed scoring 17th, 15th, 17th, 17th. After 3 days of racing, I had finished off the qualifying series on the sharp end of the cut meaning I had qualified for my third ever gold fleet and second in a three-fleet split! I was especially proud of my consistency after receiving my first yellow flag on the last downwind of the last race and retaining my composure to carry out my penalty and limit the damage in a tight, high-pressure situation.
With Qualifying over there were still three days of racing left, and now racing in gold fleet I was up against the best of the best. On the fourth day of racing the wind shifted around to the north bringing cold air and very shifty winds as they fell over the mountains and bounced along the sea. Riding the highs of qualifying I was confident as ever and in a mindset to execute. After a solid start at the pin end and a well sailed first beat on the winning side I was in a solid position around 15 boats from the front. As we made our way along the top reach, I was struggling to keep my boat stable and my movements smooth as the flurry of wake from onlooking coaches wake hit us from the side. Just as we were reaching the mark that signaled the start of our downwind leg, I heard a Jury boat come flying over and before I knew it, I had received my second yellow flag of the regatta. After your first yellow flag all subsequent ones are penalized with a forced retirement from the race. This meant that my race was over, and I was mealy a spectator until the next start. I sailed over to my coach to grab my jacket and spent the next 45 min collecting my thoughts and preparing for the next race.
By the time the next start came around I was ready to go, I had been studying the course and knew that I still had plenty of fight left in me. As the race started, I executed another stellar start, this time at the boat end of the line and after catching a few shifts on the winning side of the course I was rounding the top mark in 4thposition, this time taking a much more conservative approach to the reach leg, I rounded onto the downwind leg in 5th place and was holding as we made our way down to the leeward mark. My nerves were high, but I held onto my composure as the wind started to die dramatically. I was about ¾ of the way down the course when all the sudden I heard the roar of an outboard motor and as I turned my head, I saw a jury boat speeding towards me with their yellow flag raised. I couldn’t believe it. I had been nearly as still as a statue and yet somehow the Jury deemed that I was moving in an illegal manner. My race was for the second time that day over.
The sport of sailing is often frustrating in the way it enforces anti pumping rules. Jury members are extremely inconsistent not only from regatta to regatta, but from day to day on what they consider to be illegal motion, and obviously at the peak of the game athletes are always trying to extract as much performance out of the boat as possible. For this it is generally recognised that you will receive a penalty every now and then and as a cost of doing business the mindset to them is one of acceptance and damage limitation. While there is a certain amount of luck involved in when and how many you receive “Jury awareness” is also a skill that the top sailors certainly have. Knowing when to push the rules and when to be conservative is a major part of the game that you will rarely hear anyone talk about except in hushed voices. And so, while the way things played out for me in gold fleet is extremely disappointing (especially considering the potential I showed) it is also a major lesson learned and experience that will serve me well in the future.
The rest of the regatta went poorly as I was admittedly sailing scared. I originally adopted a nothing to lose mindset which didn’t serve me well at all as I managed to pick up yet another flag, this time right at the start of the race. And from then on, I failed to get off the start line well as it seemed that everywhere I went there was a jury boat right behind me waiting to pounce. My string of letter scored dropped my down to 57th place out of 169 boats overall. While this is still percentage of the fleet wise my best Europeans to date, and I am certainly happy with plenty of the process goals which I achieved along the way, the end result has left me hungry for more.
We are now heading into our winter season and that means hunkering down for a few long training blocks before racing starts back up again in the spring. I am currently taking a week of rest after the Euros before I head over to Vilamoura Portugal for some training on my own and then a small but competitive coaches regatta from the 15th-18th of December. Then I will be heading home for 2 weeks of down time and gym work over Christmas and New Year’s before making my way back to Europe for a training camp in Malta in January! By then it will have been almost a year since the last time I was in Malta and so I am very much looking forward to not only seeing all my old friends but showing the Canadian group around the unique place I called home for almost two years.
And with that you are up to date on all my adventures of the past two months. I hope you have enjoyed following along and I look forward to writing again soon with all new stories. Check out the Fall 2022 section of my gallery if you are interested in all the pictures of my recent travels and as always if you would like to consider supporting my journey to represent Canada at the 2022 Olympics any donations through my website are extremely appreciated and go directly to covering campaign expenses.
Until next time,
James