Hamish Pepper reports on silver medal in Stars

by Hamish Pepper on 29 May 2006 Today Dave Giles and I finished Holland Regatta in second place. There were Stars from 11 countries, in a small but quality fleet. This is the best result of our campaign to date.

Sailing out of Medemblik, Holland in the cold and rain within an Olympic sized fleet. The regatta was won by the French bronze medalist’s team and the 2003 & 2005 Star World Champions, Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau by three points. Third place went to the Brazilian team of Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada. Robert is no stranger to medals with two gold, one silver and eight Laser world champion titles as well as a sixth in the 2005 Star worlds.

After a 20 hr drive from Valencia, Dave and I managed to get a few days on the water before the regatta, along with some boat work. Adding those extra goodies from Harken and making the boat even more reliable. We started the regatta well with a win and were always amongst the top six boats in all races. We seemed to have pretty good speed upwind but still had to work hard on our downwind performance to match Xavier and others.

Today was also another chance to race under the new regatta format. ISAF have introduced a medal race that counts for double points. This final 20-30 minute race is extremely stressful, as all your good work during the regatta could come down to a race that is run close to the shore in extremely shifty conditions dedicated to the press.

Today worked out well for us and we held on for second, but it could have easily worked against us in the shifty conditions. It certainly keeps one's chances alive. I’m always in favour of promoting our sport and making it more accessible to the media. This new format definitely allows the press to get up close with great action shots of the racing. Ideal if one has some sponsors to show off !

From here David takes the boat up to a German friend’s boat shed. Here he will fair the hull and foils, and do a little work on the boat in preparation for Kiel week and then its onto the Europeans. We are also thinking about some training mid July with Xavier Rohart after Kiel week, but this all costs money and campaign costs are already high. Still this would be extremely valuable.

Unfortunately the regatta was saddened by the loss of a German Laser Radial sailor's father, who is missing from his coach boat. I think this should be a reminder to us all about playing in boats and that we should always keep ourselves safe within our limits.

Regards

Hamish Pepper

For Top 10 results look up: www.hollandregatta.org/2006/results/output.asp?Top10=ON&Top10Class=RES2006_STAR

2006 Star results

8th Levin Memorial Miami USA

14th Biscayne Trophy Miami USA

5th Olympic Classes regatta Miami USA

3rd Expert Olympic Classes regatta Lake Garda Italy

9th Eastern Europeans Championship Naples Italy.

2nd Holland regatta



Star regattas and program

21st – 25th June Kiel week Germany

10th – 17th July training Lake Garda Italy

27th – 30th July German district Champs

7th – 12th August Star Europeans Germany

1st – 6th October Star Worlds San Francisco USA

14th – 19th November North Americas Miami USA