Epic Training at Hayling Island

The last two days of training have been nothing short of epic here in Hayling Island, England, the site of the 2010 Laser World Championship.  Yesterday we sailed in 25-28 knots with 12 foot waves.  The tide was running out of the inlet with the breeze coming the opposite way.  When you combine those two, you get some monster waves!  The wind by itself would have been manageable.  The waves by themselves would have been manageable.  But when you combine the two, it gets pretty scary!

Today, we had more wind, gusting up to 36 knots according to the anemometer at the yacht club, but the waves were only about 10 feet high and a little skewed today, which made it a little easier.

The training so far has been awesome, and I'm getting some great heavy air practice under my belt.  It's pretty cool to see all of the different techniques.  Vang-sheeting is a must, with some guys sheeting out up to four feet while sailing upwind.  Hiking hard is a given, and working the boat through the waves is important too.  The most imperative thing though is just getting through the chop and waves without slowing down and filling your cockpit up with water. 

Downwind has been nothing but survival mode.  If you round the windward mark in 20th place and don't flip over on the downwind leg, you will often find yourself in the top five or ten at the bottom mark!  One coach commented today that it looked like a graveyard out there!  On one reach, I found myself sitting so far back in the boat that my shoulders were PAST the stern of the boat!  The ability to see where you're going and where the waves are is also something I have to deal with since water is spraying at you from all angles.

Needless to say, the last couple of days have been exhausting but a ton of fun! 

Check out this video of a few clips my coach Kristian Kjaergaard took today:

Training continues this week with the first race scheduled for Monday!