Our teamwork shone through in what was a long week in Almere for the Allianz World Cup Event, in Holland. It wasn’t our usual preparation, but we put our best performance down and achieved our first world cup podium together.
We knew we would be flying in with just a day or two to train at the venue, but it was a week that threw everything at us, including long-growing seaweed spread across the race course. So the night before the event, the regatta organisers shifted the race courses further away from shore and toward the IJsselmeer - just a short 30-40 minute tow…
After a long wait onshore and no racing for the 49erFX fleet on day one of the event, we finally got racing underway! The short chop in the shallow waters of Almere showed us a sea state we hadn’t seen before (we don’t see much of it on Sydney Harbour), however we made sure we had our priorities right in both our boat setup and starting techniques.
The starting practice we’d done at home put us in good stead for the regatta, and allowed us to have strategic options after the start on the 15 knot, shifty race course. We finished the day with 3, 8, 2, 2 which put us in the early overall lead of the regatta.
The following day produced a lighter and more stable seabreeze, and after a short postponement onshore, we sailed three races. It was a day of comebacks, as our starting execution wasn’t as sharp as the previous day. Why not? Well, we were giving higher priority to the less important starting factors and not picking the first shift, so we were always playing catch up. However our results of 8, 7 and 9 for the day still kept us within fighting distance of the podium.
The final day of series racing had a similar forecast, but much steeper chop on our race course. With a 20 in the first race of the day, our worst result of the regatta and our discard for the event, we had to reset and make use of the final three races. We simplified our starting strategy, and stuck to what we know to post 2, 3, 10 to round out the series.
Our first medal race together was an exciting one, where three Australian crews featured! Our training at home proved to keep everyone on their toes. Medal races have just the top 10 battling it out on a shorter race course, all for double points. Entering the day in third position we were five points behind the Dutch team and one point behind second-placed Belgium, who we knew were going to be tough to beat.
Our mentality was to race hard for the first lap while assessing our nearest competitors, and then manage points during the second lap if the opportunity came up. It seemed as though we had a similar strategy to those around us, as we all got off the start line and headed to the left side of course.
It became a bit of a survival race as we approached the top mark with gusty winds and steep chop making it difficult to manoeuvre. We followed the Belgian girls around the top mark, where we both surged toward the gybe point on the layline to the bottom gate marks. From there, it was going to be a similar course for the second lap, so we began the attack and tacked off earlier to open our options up. We finished the race in third place, cementing our first medal together!
Our consistency paid off. With just one result outside the top 10, we proved to ourselves we can put all the pieces of a regatta together and race against the world's best. It was a great feeling to win a medal in a world cup, and it’s made us even hungrier for more. It was a great week to show what the Australian FX Squad can do.
And how did we celebrate? A team dinner in Amsterdam followed by another week of training!
Key Takeaways:
Starting strategies are key to bigger fleet races, so prioritising the right factors requires us to be mentally sharp.
A strength was our ability to reset when things weren't going our way
We refined our communication when it came to choosing what mode to sail to make our sailing more efficient.
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