Auckland, NZ
February 14, 2008

Following my recent trip to Australia, I’m back Down Under again, but this time for an extended stay here in Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand. I’ll be competing in the 2008 Singapore Airlines Sail Auckland regatta on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour this coming weekend. After that I’ll be moving to the North Shore of the city to Takapuna Beach, the site for the 2008 Laser Radial World Championships.

New sail, new sponsor logos

I left Fort Lauderdale on February 10th after a week of training. After flying across the States and then across the Pacific, I arrived in Auckland on February 12th at 6:10 am. When I wheeled my road bike and other luggage out of customs just after dawn, my PR guy Keith Taylor was waiting to meet me and drive me to my motel. We did a quick tour along the waterfront, before we ate a great breakfast at a waterfront café. Then I cashed up with local dollars at an ATM and hit the Vodaphone store for a local mobile phone chip.

For Sail Auckland we’ll be sailing out of the Kohimarama Yacht Club which is renowned as a local youth training club. The yacht club building is built right on the harborfront beach with no space for storing boats or parking cars. Launching is off the beach. Cars park on the side of the busy main road. There’s a small temporary storage area on a grassy patch under the trees on the opposite side of the street but otherwise we’re just leaving boats right on the beach. The system works, but it could get a little crowded when the regatta starts with everyone trying to get down the one ramp that leads to the beach.

Later that day, I went back to the yacht club to meet the people I was chartering a boat from and, because I didn’t have a car, I decided to run there. The club is only about three kilometers away from our motel, so it’s not far. The only problem is the two kilometer hill in between. The downhill run to the club was very pleasant. It was the run home that hurt, but it’s good for the muscles right! For the balance of the day I rested up from the week of training and the 30 hours of flying and watched really bad movies on TV. That night Debbie Hanna from Ireland and Tania Calles from Mexico and I ventured back down the hill for dinner. Tania was leaving the next morning to go home to recover from an injury she got about a week ago. Please all send out good intentions so that she has a fast recovery and we can get her back on the water soon.

The next morning I woke early and decided that it was a good time to go for a run before it got too hot. I battled the hill again and took some time to run along the waters edge too. Later that day we went for a sail. Debbie and I went out on the water with Australia’s Gabrielle King and were then met up later by Sarah Blanck, also from Australia and a third Aussie sailor. We trained for about an hour and a half before the wind decided that it didn’t want to play anymore and called it a day.

We begin racing the Sail Auckland event on Saturday. The event runs from February 16-19. Brad Funk, who just finished 9th at the 2008 Laser World Championship (Congrats Brad!), will be coaching me for Sail Auckland.

You can find full results from this regatta at Singapore Airlines Sail Auckland 2008. Click on results on the top menu, then choose Laser Radials. I would like to thank my sponsors Carmeuse and K-Swiss for  their continued support of my campaign for the Olympic Gold Medal in Beijing 2008.

Sail hard,
Anna