Asian Optimist Championships - Race reports from NZL Team

by Peter Dawson on 13 Jul 2007 Pre-Regatta Report

It's Saturday night and tomorrow is the practice race and the Opening Ceremony. Today has been a shopping day for the kids and Pauline and the rest of us sort of tagged along waiting for it all to finish. The highlight for the kids had to be the beautiful aromas coming out of the Little India meat and fish markets. (not)

Now the sailors want to describe it for themselves:

Erica Dawson: The fish juice was squeezing thru my jandals
Henry Wilkinson: The chickens looked like they were waiting to make someone sick
Felicity Ellis: The eels had their guts oozing out
Trent Rippey: I didn’t like anything about it

Measuring was all completed yesterday. We were first cab off the rank thankfully and in the usual Kiwi way some sails weren’t perfect and Felicity’s boom was too long.

We had two great days training in our brand new Extremes and had a nice 10knot breeze each day.

Last night we did the night safari. The kids favourite animal had to be the bearded pig followed by the babarusi which looks like a giant guinea pig.

Everyone has settled in very well in a beautiful hotel and friendships are starting to develop with the other teams. The early arrival was essential for acclimatizing to these 30+ degree heats.

Will be back in touch after Race Day 1.

Race Day 1 Report


An apparently very unusual day today in Singapore where the wind blew reasonably consistently around 7-10 knots all day. The Race Committee was able to get one race ahead of themselves by running 4 races which everyone is very pleased about.

The Kiwis had a mixed bag of Results:

Race 1 Erica-36 Trent-48 Felicity-50 Henry-53

Race 2 Trent-12 Erica-15 Henry-22 Felicity-35

Race 3 Trent-36 Erica-38 Henry-47 Felicity-49

Race 4 Trent-37 Henry-59 Erica-63 Felicity-74

Overall Trent-33 Erica-36 Henry-47 Felicity-56

There are 83 sailors in the fleet and they all start together.

We have identified a couple of things for the sailors to work on to help improve their performance and this mostly relates to nutrition and hydration.

It appears the fleet is pretty strong with all countries except NZ having their strongest sailors here. One member of the Singapore Worlds Team is 43rd.

Our downwind sailing seemed to be pretty good with all of them gaining some places but the biggest gains and losses were being made on the beats.

The organization here is excellent and the website is updated very quickly. If you are looking at the photos on the website our sailors are easy to spot with white caps and white long sleeve rashtops.

All sailors are tired and heading to bed very early tonight.

Race Day 2 Report


Unbelievably Singers has turned it on again. We have again had 4 races for the second day in a row with a gentle breeze fluctuating from 5-10knots. The most interesting comment of the day was made by Happy the Singapore Coach who said that anyone who stands up and gives a weather forecast in Singapore is a liar. The weather cannot be predicted here.

After Day 2 we are two-thirds of the way through the regatta. The results again are a mixed bag with overall positions not changing greatly from the first day. The Power Play of the day came from Henry who nailed the Race 6 start and probably led the fleet halfway up the first leg. Trent is showing some really fast speed especially on his upwinds often making comebacks of 20-30 places on the last beat. Erica has had another solid day showing some excellent consistency. Felicity had her best race in Race 7 being the first Kiwi around the top mark before unfortunately her mainsheet clip let go and she had to make her own running repairs.

Each day finishes with the kids meeting all the other sailors from the other countries in the pool.


Race 5 Erica-18 Trent-34 Henry-46 Felicity-55

Race 6 Henry-38 Erica-47 Felicity-56 Trent-58

Race 7 Trent-28 Erica-35 Henry-36 Felicity-42

Race 8 Erica-28 Trent-46 Henry-50 Felicity-76

Overall Erica-36 Trent-40 Henry-48 Felicity-57


Race Day 3 Report

Today the Race Officer only sailed 3 races wanting to keep one for tomorrow. The breeze fluctuated between 3 and 6 knots.

The first race had Erica away to a good start 12th at the top mark pulling in another 4 on the reach, held her downwind position and then dropped back to 13th by the finish as the breeze dropped. The others all finished in the 40’s which we feel are respectable results at this regatta.

Race 2 was not a flash result for our team. We were all out one side while all the Singaporeans were out the other, so nothing more really to say.

Race 3 had Erica 6th at the top mark 4th at the reach mark and with some nice boat positioning she slipped through to 3rd at the gate. An exciting last beat saw her finishing in 3rd place one boat length behind 2nd and 2 boat lengths behind first. This was a fantastic race for Trent as well who is continuing to show the boatspeed of a rocket. He has so much more he can improve on tactically and as he is only 10 at the moment this is very exciting.

Tomorrow there will only be one race to finish a very well run regatta.



Race 9 Erica-13 Trent-42 Felicity-43 Henry-47

Race 10 Erica-40 Trent-53 Henry-72 Felicity-74

Race 11 Erica-3 Trent-17 Henry-42 Felicity-76

Overall Erica-28 Trent-41 Henry-47 Felicity-66