2008 Worlds — Winner’s Perspective
Saturday, December 20th, 2008
On paper we felt we had a team capable of winning, with Roger Gilbert as tactician backing up Geoff with myself and Roz Allen at the front. However, translating that into a win in a highly competitive competition is another thing.
Craig Burlton, had been sailing extremely well all year and demonstrated his dominance in lighter winds in 2006 when he won the Europeans and winning the Irish Nationals 2008. Mike Budd with the support of Nick Craig was back to have a crack at the new tile. Then there were a few new faces in the fleet including, David Lenz a professional sailor and Peter O’Leary fresh back from the Olympics. With a forecast of light winds combined with the tricky conditions of Dublin Bay we knew we had our work cut out.
Our game plan was to try to sail a consistent regatta, keep out of trouble and avoid high scores. Roger’s tactical view was to start conservatively but with a clean lane, play the shifts, aiming to arrive at the top mark at least in the top ten and work forward. However, with the moderate conditions and virtually identical boat speed we found through out the event that it was exceptionally hard to pull through the fleet.
Read More (pdf file)
On paper we felt we had a team capable of winning, with Roger Gilbert as tactician backing up Geoff with myself and Roz Allen at the front. However, translating that into a win in a highly competitive competition is another thing.
Craig Burlton, had been sailing extremely well all year and demonstrated his dominance in lighter winds in 2006 when he won the Europeans and winning the Irish Nationals 2008. Mike Budd with the support of Nick Craig was back to have a crack at the new tile. Then there were a few new faces in the fleet including, David Lenz a professional sailor and Peter O’Leary fresh back from the Olympics. With a forecast of light winds combined with the tricky conditions of Dublin Bay we knew we had our work cut out.
Our game plan was to try to sail a consistent regatta, keep out of trouble and avoid high scores. Roger’s tactical view was to start conservatively but with a clean lane, play the shifts, aiming to arrive at the top mark at least in the top ten and work forward. However, with the moderate conditions and virtually identical boat speed we found through out the event that it was exceptionally hard to pull through the fleet.
Read More (pdf file)
