Tornado To Beijing Team News - McIntosh & Kendall

by Aaron McIntosh & Bruce Kendall on 2 Jan 2006 As 2005 comes to an end the Tornado To Beijing Team of Aaron McIntosh and Bruce Kendall has only really just begun. New masts on boats, 80 hours on the water and a regatta under our belt, our Campaign is well underway.

The last month has been simply, 'full on'. With both Aaron and Bruce managing work, family commitments and fitting in as much Tornado Time as possible.

Carbon Masts.
After the ship with the new masts being a week late things got very tight as they prepared to ship NZL 83 to Australia for the Sydney International Regatta (Dec) and Sail Melbourne (Jan) events. It was a case of unloading one container and loading another with no time spare to miss the ship. With huge effort from all parties they managed to get one of the two masts in to the AUS bound container with about 10 mins to spare.

Last year the Tornado class changed the rules to allow a one-design carbon mast for racing. Weighing a shade under 15kg for the carbon mast compared to the 23kg of the alloy mast, the boat has a new feel. More acceleration, less pitching, more power and simply faster.

With the carbon mast being a lot stiffer than the alloy mast the sails have had to be redesigned to suit, this is already in hand, having two main sails up to date. Aaron used a carbon mast in the 2005 Worlds so the set up and tuning was easy to achieve.

Competition
Having lined up every boat in Auckland harbour, they have struggled to find a good match, as you can imagine they have been itching to get racing with other boats. First up is SIRs in Sydney

With Bruce away coaching, Aaron arrived in Sydney early to unload container and get the boat ready for the water. Three long days preparing the boat for racing we were ready to line up in Sydney. A small but talented fleet assembled in Sydney including Australian Darren Bundock, multiple World Champion, the English team that finished 2nd in this years WC and the Greek team that finished 7th in this years WC also. Along with the Belgium team, local team of Andrew McPherson as well as another six boats from around Australia.

Their first line up in training went better than expected. They were hanging in there exceptionally well, a little higher at times with very good VMG. A little slower downwind but a little tricky with the changing conditions. A fraction off the pace, but the pace set is high. Over all happy.

Racing.
With Sydney Harbour during summer being busy at the best of times, bring a regatta to town it gets really busy. Throw in a fleet of 18 foot skiffs, fast ferries, every Tom, Dick and Barry in a boat, a fleet of 12 Tornados, over lap a few courses, add 10-15 knots from the NE in there as well and let the action begin. There were more than a few tight situations to negotiate at Tornado speed. A few crashes, (not with Aaron and Bruce) that ended in tears and broken gear. Racing short courses with heaps on. Exciting to say the least.

The pecking order was set after the first two days of racing. Darren Bundock and the Poms battling for the lead, the Greeks mixing it up and keeping it interesting, Aaron and Bruce just a tad off the top 3s pace but close enough to lead 2 races.

“We couldn’t quite mix it enough to with the top three but seemed to handle it better than the Belgium and other Aussie team. We seemed to fit in to 4th more often than not, with a 3rd as our best race. We had a range of conditions between 6- 25 knots mostly with wind above 10 knots”.

'A little frustrating, but hey its our first regatta as a team. Finishing 4th is a good result for where we are at for now.' Bruce stepped up to the Tornado racing game exceptionally well and they came away with a lot of areas that they need to work on, which is exactly what they wanted to know. Mostly simple things that just good hours training will fix. They are happy with their equipment and development progress so far, they have a long way to go but are a little closer than they initially expected at this time.

Next up.
Having been back in NZ for Christmas they are staying close to the water on the other boat [NZL 87] training. They head to Melbourne on the 5th January for Sail Melbourne.

They will ship NZL83 back to NZ with a few other Tornados for Sail Auckland and the Tornado Nationals.

NZL87 will then be shipped to Europe mid Feb in time for their First European regattas in April.

A big thanks to the team in behind the team.

Aaron McIntosh & Bruce Kendall

For more information see the following websites:
www.aaronmcintosh.co.nz
www.brucekendall.co.nz

Tornado to Beijing Team is supported by: Line 7; Southern Spars; Rip Curl; FSE Robline; Once Sunscreen and Gul