One Girls Ocean Challenge

July 5, 2010

This past weekend played host to a mini clinic in Kingston.  Special thanks go out to Nathan  Baron for organizing such a great event.

The first picture is Nathan in fine form.  Click on the picture and go check out his website.  He’s campaigning to do the 2011 Transat race!  There were 4 minis that came out to train this weekend.  Nathan of course, the team of Nick and Andrei from Port Credit, Phillippe and Jean with Pogo Loco, and myself on OGOC.  Yes for all of you wondering, Nick was my sailing partner from the Bermuda Ocean Race.  He and Andrei are the owners of Competition yachts and are significant sponsors of One Girl’s Ocean Challenge.  The event was supported by Collins Bay Marina and Ribcraft.  The first pic below has Hub standing on the dock chatting with the boys.  Hub and Collins Bay Marina were wonderful with launching OGOC, stepping the mast and of course supporting the event by giving us great digs for the week!  The second picture below shows some of the coach boat team in their fantastic RIB craft coach boat.  You should really check these boats out…..definately have the right stuff!

And of course, here’s yours truly!

The weekend was amazing.  Saturday saw 20plus knots of traditional Kingston breeze.  We went out of Collins Bay past Mellville shoal.  First exercise was some upwind speed testing.  Nathan’s boat and OGOC are almost identical.  There are a few rigging differences, but they were built by the same company and are both a Zero.  Nathan carries a smaller fat head main and you could really see the difference in the upwind performance.  Then with some downwind sailing, we were able to see Nathan’s years of training come shining through.  He carried his code five easily and felt underpowered, while OGOC had a little difficulty with managing the sprit pole!  Nothing training can’t fix!  Meanwhile the Dix and Pogo Loco did some upwind stuff and it was interesting to see the differences between the two designs.  The Dix was able to stay flatter and carry their main very much bladed out.   Their sheeting angles though means they can’t sail quite as hi upwind as the rest of us.  The Pogo also showed their skills and kite flying abilities!  The rest of the day saw some racing and reaching.  Sunday was a little lighter in the breeze and we actually had to get towed in a few different directions to find that breeze.  Eventually it filled in a little and we played some “follow the leader”, and also did some fast circles to help increase our skills handling at start lines and at turning marks etc.  One other interesting note of the weekend was that Nathan and I did the clinic single handed and the others were two up.  It was a good skills training opportunity for Nathan and I to try to keep up through the maneuvres with the double handed guys.  I think we certainly held our own! 

On Friday July 9th, the Pogo, Nathan and I will be doing a feeder race from Kingston to PCYC.  You will be able to follow my spot tracker to see the fun.  I think Nathan’s spot tracker will also be working.  I’ll keep you posted on that.  Then the following weekend we three are doing the Lake Ontario 300.  It will be great to actually be racing against other Minis, rather than 35foot plus boats!  I really need to close this off with a thanks to Tim Hill.  You will notice that there aren’t any fancy links or stuff in my blog.  Tim has been amazing at making these blogs engaging for you guys and easy to click on links.  I definately see a training session in my future with Tim to get better at the posts!  In the meantime, hopefully I can coerse him with a few beveees to keep the feeder race and the Lake Ontario 300 up and live for you guys!

Diane