Issue date
I have just returned home from Oman, where I have been training and competing in the 2013 Laser World Championships for the past three weeks. Having been to Oman earlier in the year we knew what to expect on arrival as far as the accommodation, layout and sailing conditions at the venue… so we thought.
As always thought it was the classic saying “it’s never like this” during the three weeks that we were there and we had a range of conditions besides the 6-12 knot sea breezes that we experienced back in March. We experienced our first rain in Oman during our couple of weeks building up to the Worlds, and then had a couple evenings of serious thunder, lightning, torrential rain and strong winds during the event itself. It was pretty crazy to see a climate that could change from 30 degrees, sunny and nice wind during the day time, into a full on storm within a couple of hours. There is a great video of the storm rolling in one night after racing, and the carnage it caused on site! Click here
Even with the unusual weather we experienced during our stay, we still had some great sailing conditions in our build up to the event and during the competition itself. We started the relentless seven-day battle that the Laser Worlds is with a few nice 14-18 knot onshore days. Even though the relatively strong wind strength was a shock to the entire fleet on day one with intense, physically demanding hour-long races, we couldn’t have asked for better conditions! The wind eased off over the week and we had more typical breeze for the rest of the racing, with the odd thunder storm reeking havoc on the afternoon racing every once in a while limiting us to 12 out of a scheduled 14 races over the competition.
The Laser Worlds is truly like no other event I compete in. With such a high level of competition and sailing in big fleets of 60+ boats on a start line, even the smallest mistake gets punished and you will pay dearly! I began the series solidly but with a few missed opportunities left out on the racecourse from race one. Still upbeat with how I was sailing and just needing to minimise a few mistakes going into gold fleet, I knew a good result was still there for the taking and I was determined to finish the series strongly. Unfortunately after fixing a few areas that I was struggling to perfect early in the regatta, I lacked perfection in a couple other aspects of my race and couldn’t quite put together the flawless races that I was after, making for some mediocre results. I continued to give it my all though and battled through the fleet in a couple tough races towards the end of the series and finished up 11th overall, which is still a respectable result at such a tough competition.
Congratulations to Robert Scheidt who won the Laser Worlds, to extend his incredible record to nine Laser World titles which is just unbelievable. This guy is impressive at 40 years old??? And still competing at the top level. Check out this video, it’s a must watch on the legend of Laser sailing.
Even though my 11th place at the World Championships wasn’t the end to the 2013 season that I was after, it has still been a great year with a bunch of good results achieved and lessons learned along the way. Winning the Palma World Cup, winning my first NZ Laser Nationals, standing on the podium at three other international Laser events and being crowned the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup champions all stand out as highlights of the year. Starting the season back in January and ending now at the end of November, it has definitely been longer than the average season but awesome non the less. I’m looking forward to debriefing the year, learning some key lessons and then planning for 2014. I’m already pumped and excited for next year and after a good holiday over Christmas I’ll be raring to go come January!
Thanks to all of my supporters, my campaign for gold in Rio wouldn’t be possible without the generous help that I receive. Bring on next year.
Cheers,
Andy
