Back in Nova Scotia

I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, yesterday after a much needed week off from sailing.  I spent the week between the Laser North Americans and my trip up to Halifax split between hanging out in Gloucester with my former training partner Ben Richardson, and in Quincy, MA, with my girlfriend and her family for the 4th of July.

Yesterday morning, I left Boston at 6 AM and drove the 13 hours to Halifax.  Today was the first day of our 10 day camp.  We arrived at the St. Margaret's Bay Sailing Center at about 10 AM to unload, do some boat work, and get organized before the camp began.  At 2 PM we launched and sailed the 30 minutes out of the cove and into St. Margaret's Bay.  We did some reaches and downwind drills on the way out and jumped into some short course drills.  At the end, we had one longer race before sailing upwind all the way in to the club.

The plan for the camp is shaping up pretty well.  One of our goals is to make sure that we optimize our training to prepare for the worlds.  With that, we're going to try to launch at 12:30 daily and start our drills at 1 PM because that's what time the first race is at the Worlds.  We're also going to try to sail as close to the race area as possible.  We're going to do a gym session in the morning followed by a light cool-down spin after sailing.

For the sailing, there will be one group comprised of the top six Canadians, Nick Thompson (GBR), Paul Goodison (GBR and Olympic Gold Medalist in Beijing) and myself.  Then there will be a second group comprised of about 6 other good Canadian sailors.  We'll do drills for the first half of the practice in our groups, and then we'll all come together for some longer races at the end of the day.  This will allow us to focus on specific goals and drills, yet also get some good racing in with a bigger fleet.  I'm excited to get going.

I took a few pictures of the club and the surrounding area, but have to wait until I get home to get my camera cord to upload the pictures.  The club is coming along nicely, but there is still a lot of work to do before the worlds starts.  There are many workers there every daily, chipping away at the lengthy to-do list before the event starts.  One concern that people are having is where all the boats will be stored.  The club is on a giant hill and it doesn't seem to be ideal for storing boats overnight.

The temperature was pretty cold today.  I'd say most of the day was in the high 50s and low 60s.  The water is still very cold, and doesn't seem like it's warmed up since June.  Today, the breeze was light and out of the Northeast, not a typical direction here, but will supposedly shift to the South (more of a seabreeze direction) later this week.