Styles and May update

News from Team GBR's Tornado aces

Following our US Nationals win we had a bit of a break over Christmas and then came out to Miami for a week of training with our Dutch tuning partners, Sven and Mischa, and then we did the US Mid Winters Regatta.

Just a training regatta for us, and trying out a few new things, we got confused with the shifty conditions on the first day to have two poor results and an OCS. The second day we got out early, checked out the course and sailed a text book race to win by a nice margin. It was quite satisfying to get another race win against top competition, especially as we won the Nationals without winning a race. We had a mix of results on the last day to leave us 10th overall, but we were happy that we'd learnt a load more about how to race these boats in the light and shifty conditions.

I think we are actually learning something new about these boats or how to race them every single time we sail at the moment, which is amazing really. This is why it is so tough. We've improved a massive amount since Sydney but the World fleet has also improved, and it is all about who is ahead at the key regattas. If only we could go back and do Sydney again with what we know now!.....

Our Dutch friends won the event though, to make it two events in a row for our little tuning team. They got it right - winning overall gave them $200 prize money, while we won the last event without winning a race when the prize money was only for race wins! Oops!

The Miami Olympic Classes regatta was the next event, or rather the OCR, as the organisers are not actually allowed to use the word 'Olympic'! This is seen as the first major event of the year for most Olympic classes, and we were fortunate to have an impressive line-up in the Tornado fleet, for an incredibly strong 28 boat fleet, with probably 16 of the top twenty teams in the World attending.

Day one was sailed in shifty easterly breezes near the Biscayne Bay bridge. (One of the 4 bridges we have to sail under to get to the race course area!) and we slowly got a handle on the conditions to post a 12,9,2 scoreline to leave us 5th after three races. We were struggling for pace a little bit and stayed out for another hour to do a bit more two boat tuning, and finished happy that we'd learnt a better set-up to try if the same conditions prevailed again.

Day two started very light and we sat around on the race course for quite a while before the wind filled in, well to about 5 knots anyway! Two 12ths doesn't quite match with how well we felt we sailed. It was a tricky day, and we called most of the beats right but seemed to struggle for speed at some critical moments. A lot of that was due to the huge amount of seaweed drifting around the course area, and everyone was rushing back to check rudders and centreboards all the way round the course.

Day three was a similar light wind affair, but with less of a wait for wind. We liked the left of the course and won the port end of the start line to lead out to that side. Unfortunately, the breeze filled in from the right, and we rounded the top mark in about 10th. A good first run, and some solid sailing pulled us through to 7th. The breeze increased slightly for the next race of the day, which was the first to see everyone consistently twin wiring. With the right hand side now favoured, we won the committee boat end and headed right early.

We rounded the first mark in 3rd, and overtook the guy in 2nd early in the run. We then spent the rest of the race slowly closing up on Roman Hagara who was leading, and holding off Mitch Booth behind us, to finish in 2nd. The third race was held in a similar 10 knot North Easterly, but we had a problem with a spinnaker hoist, and got caught up with the bunch at the top mark, and ended up fighting it out in 10th place for most of the race. So going into the last day we were 8th overall, but with the lowest discard of anyone, which was nice given the light and shifty nature of the races.

Unfortunately the last race didn't go too well for us. We were the first into a patch of pressure on the right of the course, and lead the fleet for much of the beat, but it got very shifty near the top mark, and we had a few guys sail round either side of us to put us 4th. On the second spinnaker hoist of the race though, our spinnaker halyard cleat self destructed, and I was forced to tie up the halyard (not an easy job & it makes dropping again slightly tricky!). With this problem costing us considerably places and the breeze shifty bigger and bigger angles as the race progressed, we finished a disappointing 24th.

Enough to keep us in 8th overall though due to the consistency of our previous results.

The Austrian team of Hagara and Steinacher won, but the light regatta caused many upsets to the form book. European Champion and runner up at the Worlds, Olivier Backes finished in 14th.

Pos	Skipper/Ctry	Crew	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	Total
1	Hagara/ AUT	Steinacher	1	6	[8]	1	3	8	1	8	7	35
2	Lange/ ARG	TBA	2	3	6	3	2	3	9	[14]	9	37
3	Revil/ FRA	GUILLEMETTE	9	2	12	2	7	10	[13]	4	2	48
4	Daniel/ USA	Jacobsen	17	1	1	9	11	1	5	7	[20]	52
5	Lovell/ USA	Ogletree	16	5	4	[17]	4	2	4	5	15	55
6	Booth/ NED	Dercksen	15	[16]	5	14	9	6	3	1	4	57
7	Guichard/ FRA	ESPAGNON	3	[13]	3	6	6	11	8	12	10	59
8	Styles/ GBR	May	12	9	2	12	12	7	2	10	[24]	66
9	Strandberg/ SWE	Mattsson	7	8	16	[21]	13	15	6	9	3	77
10	Landenberger/ GER	Polgar	[19]	12	10	7	1	9	14	13	12	78
11	Wallén/ SWE	Santén	13	17	[18]	5	5	5	11	11	13	80
12	Karsenbarg/ NED	Heemskerk	4	[29/OCS]	15	15	8	4	7	6	25	84
13	Hagara/ AUT	Seidl	11	11	7	11	16	13	10	[19]	14	93
14	BACKES/ FRA	VOIRON	5	20	11	8	19	14	17	3	[23]	97
15	Schreyer/ USA	Durdin	14	4	13	[25]	17	17	16	15	6	102
16	Guck/ USA	Farrar	10	14	14	23	23	[29/DNF]	15	2	5	106
17	Gabler/ GER	Struckmann	6	[29/OCS]	20	10	10	20	20	18	8	112
18	Holden/ CAN	Coakley	18	18	17	20	15	12	12	[22]	1	113
19	Johansson/ CAN	Curtis	8	7	9	19	20	[21]	19	20	16	118
20	Figueroa/ PUR	Hernandez	20	10	19	4	14	19	18	[21]	19	123

Although not quite the overall result we'd hoped for, we were happy with the regatta. We'd used it to try out a few new things, and we are happier with the style we are sailing the boat. We found it incredibly valuable to be able to race against such a World class fleet so early in the year.

We wait with interest to see how effective the other British teams training in Palma on their own has been, and the much discussed arrival of Ian Barker and Dan Newman into the class.

February is going to be spent getting our second boat ready for the European circuit, and Hugh will be going out to Athens to watch the small event there, as it is too hard to get our boat out there. But then we shall be competing in a test regatta in Cadiz in early March, the site of the 2003 Worlds to be sailed in Sept.

A few weeks after that event the European season starts in anger with Barcelona Regatta.

The World rankings as we go into the season are as follows. With more points awarded for major events, and counting your best 7 events it gives a good indication of the state of the fleet.

Pos	Helm	Crew	Country	Before	Points
1	Roman HAGARA	Hans-Peter STEINACHER	AUT	2	5100
2	Darren BUNDOCK	John FORBES	AUS	1	4890
3	Mitch BOOTH	Herbert DERECKSEN	NED	3	4866
4	Hugh STYLES	Adam MAY	GBR	4	4847
5	Olivier BACKES	Laurent VOIRON	FRA	5	4790
6	Xavier REVIL	Laurent GUILLEMETTE	FRA	8	4594
7	Sven KARSENBARG	Mischa HEEMSKERK	NED	10	4426
8	Leigh McMILLAN	Mark BULKELEY	GBR	6	4385
9	Santiago LANGE	Carlos ESPINOLA	ARG	12	4375
10	Fernando ECHAVARRI	Anton PAZ	ESP	7	4368
11	Yann GUICHARD	Christophe ESPAGNON	FRA	13	4327
12	Martin STRANDBERG	Kristian MATTSON	SWE	11	4322
13	Rob WILSON	Will HOWDEN	GBR	9	4264
14	Andrew LANDENBERGER	Johannes POLGAR	GER	16	4109
15	Andrey KIRILYUK	Valery USHKOW	RUS	14	3984
16	Helge SACH	Christian SACH	GER	15	3943
17	Andreas HAGARA	Michael SEIDL	AUT	21	3885
18	Steven LOVEGROVE	Martin SELLARS	GBR	17	3856
19	Enrique GARCIA DE SOTO	Fernando SALES	ESP	19	3829
20	Diogo CAYOLLA	Nuno BARRETO	POR	20	3795