Kiel, Germany
June 29, 2008

I finished a week of ups and downs on a great note, winning the last race of the series for Laser Radials at the Kieler Woche Regatta. The top ten boats sailed in the Medal Race, while the rest of us competed in a full-length normal race.

Leading the fleet into the leeward mark

We had another very pin-end favored start line and I was a little hesitant while starting in order not to get another black flag. However I made an OK start on the hip of New Zealand’s Jo Aleh. I held my lane until I had an opportunity to tack out, duck about six boats, and head to the right. I had great speed up the course, and was in sixth place at the top mark.

I took the low road on the top reach, but after I dove low, all the boats behind me chose to follow. Because of this, my plan to sail below everyone didn’t work out quite as planned, although it looked good at first. I was still in sixth when I rounded the next mark but on the downwind leg, the top ten boats split directions, with seven boats choosing the right side of the run and three of us going left.

Two big puffs came rolling down the leg, one on each side, but neither ended up hitting us. Eventually a nice puff came down the middle and my side sailed into it first which moved us up to second, third and fourth places behind Jo who held the lead at that stage. I was second around the leeward mark and tacked off about a minute later to defend the right side of the course. The right side proved favored, and I moved into the first spot. On the next downwind leg, I extended on the fleet and sailed to a comfortable win. Still a little worried about whether I was black-flagged, I asked Mitch immediately after finishing. It was good to hear I was safe.

My performance today pulled me up to 14th overall. The regatta was won by Sophie de Turckheim from France, with Finland’s Sari Multala second, and China’s Lijia Xu third. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the regatta. Yes, I did have a couple issues on the start line but, my actual racing was good. I finished the last three Gold Fleet races with a 1 (BFD)-2-1 record which was a good confidence booster for my speed in breeze. You can follow the full Kiel Week Laser Radial Results here.

Now I’m heading home for a couple of weeks before I go to Houston for a week of training with Luther Carpenter in final preparation for the Olympic Games. The main focus for the next couple of weeks is to get stronger at a lighter weight, practice in light choppy conditions, and get acclimatised again to humidity.

I’ll write a report in a couple of weeks to update you on how training is going. Meanwhile, in China the seaweed situation seems going from bad to worse. British newspapers now report that 1,000 boats and 10,000 workers have already cleaned up 100,000 tons of algae. Some of the photos are just amazing. The authorities expect to get it under control in the next two weeks so hopefully it will be gone by the time we get there.  

As always I want to acknowledge my sponsors Carmeuse and K-Swiss for supporting my campaign for Olympic Gold in Qingdao.

Sail hard
Anna