From the Dock

Tony Rey – Provezza

How do you feel today’s race went?

“It played out about like we thought, with the left being favoured early. The plan was always to try to be strong on the left and be able to hold on starboard off the line. Pete did a great job at the start, sailed the boat well, we managed to keep a faster boat behind us the first lap.It was a question of being patient with a close race. The guys would keep coming into us, then we’d extend, the tricky part was always going to be that island, being the first ones in, and not knowing how to transition out of it. We had some miscommunication onboard, probably dropped our kite a little early and then did our best to try to stay forward out of it. The problem was that we didn’t have the momentum. So that got us close with Quantum, and then we had a few speed issues on the upwind on that long beat to the Rolex mark, and honestly, we did our best to stay close and not lose anybody else because we weren’t going that well. In one sense we’ve worked out some issues we’ve had on the starts and we’re really pleased with that, on the other sense we uncovered a little speed issue we have in that chop and 9 knots of wind. But at the end of the day in that coastal race with this fleet if you said we were going to get a 4th, we’d take it. So I can’t be unhappy with it.

When you compare your week here against Miami, what’s happening?

You see it with baseball, you see it with basketball, the shots aren’t falling, and you can’t quite figure out how to get out of it. When the team’s in a bit of a slump, it’s one of the hardest things in sport to identify what it is and not just swing harder and not just turn on each other but figure out how to reset things and get a bit of good mojo back. It’s going to be hard to do out here, you make the smallest mistake and you pay for it. So we’re patient on the season, we look at it as a 60 race regatta, so it’s as simple as that we’re just trying to identify the small things.

One of the biggest advantages we have is bringing Peter Holmberg on the team because he’s really methodical, thorough, his work ethic is motivating for all of us. There’s no taking and our debriefs are higher level now, these are speed bumps that we’ll work our way through.

Jordi Calafat – Platoon

What was your strategy for today’s race?

I think everyone knew what happened last year, going toward the rock in Punta Ala we got lifted, lifted, lifted, and the boats with the clear lane underneath managed to get in front so we were 3rd or 4th at the gate and was pretty hard for us to find a lane on starboard and so we had to hip up to get clear air, and that put us to race inside on port, so our only option was trying that again like the Russians did last year. It almost worked, but it was different this year from last year because it was windier this year, so there was less advantage for the leeward boats. The boats to weather could foot and gain quite a bit of speed but we managed to overtake Alegre there, and was pretty good from there.

You’re having a great week so far!

JK is very good especially when there’s traffic with his tactics, and I think that’s the key. He keeps Harm nice and cool so Harm is focused on sailing the boat fast all the time, so we can not complain.

What’s your input onboard?

A little bit of everything: about the sails, about the rig, about the wind, it’s a little of everything. I enjoy it quite a lot. I’ve never sailed with some of these guys before and it’s always good to sail with and learn from the best sailors and I think that’s the case.

What’s your fastest point of sail for Platoon?

Since the early days that I joined Platoon, downwind is our strongest point. We’ve improved the boat upwind especially in breeze I think in breeze upwind we feel comfortable but downwind in light medium conditions we’re very strong.

Andy Horton – Alegre

How’s your week going?

This is my first time with the boat this week. So I’m just getting to know everybody and meeting them all and learning the boat that we have, and Andy the owner. I’m really impressed with all of them it’s a great group. So it’s pretty cool to meet a fresh group that’s really excited to go sailing and do everything right. Andy spends the time, he’s been here practicing we some little boat sailing before the 52 for two days, working out starting, hooking, pushing, all the moves that we do, and working on our vocabulary. It was awesome, it was very fun. That got us rolling as a team too for me to meet everybody. Dog – Andrew Palfrey – planned that out it was well thought out. We’re just chipping away and learning different styles of doing things and getting on the same page about it.

Tactically, are you guys playing conservatively?

I know all the tacticians here and they probably know me better than I know myself… Kelvin Harrop is strategist for us, so he’s really helping out a lot. It’s great because then I can work with Andy and the trimmers and that side of the sailing, without getting my head too in the boat. I wouldn’t say we’re very loose, I’d say we’re pretty conservative. We’ve had good upwind speed, we’re still working on our downwind speed, so just trying to balance out those things with where we go and how we do it. We’ve been pretty decent on the starts, we had a really good one today.

And today’s race?

Best race of the regatta for us. But a long day. We didn’t actually want to win the pin, we thought it would be too much of a nightmare down there, but someone kind of fouled us and pushed us down a little extra and there were two boats to the left of us and then it just opened up and we just happened to get a good one and get out. That put us in the top four no matter what at that point. There was only one way to go on the first beat so everyone who was deep after the start was pretty far back. We’d identified earlier in the day that that would be the case. Then getting up to Punta Ala there was one really good opportunity, we knew the breeze would be left so we knew we wanted to work up the left and blaze out, then be early out and get lifted and lay. But Platoon hit us one time right when we wanted to hold, perfect for them, so we had to go back out one more time but actually at the top we were still bow to stern. It was perfect as the pack in front of us we passed a couple boats because they had gone inside too far. After that it was kind of a parade I guess, but it was fun.

We’re halfway through the regatta and have some breezy races coming up tomorrow, so it’ll be changing gears tonight and thinking about how do we race in breeze now. As a group I’ve never been with these guys in waves and breeze so it’ll be fun.