Training Weekend #2 Recap

Team Canada recently completed their second training weekend in Kingston, Ontario aboard an Abbott 33 and things are looking great.

The morning of day one had the team training under the instruction of former (several time) Shark world champion Don Ruddy aboard his Abbott 33. After the morning learning the boat with Don, the team had the afternoon of sailing alone in a dying shifty breeze. The focus of this practice was to familiarize the crew with operating a symmetrical spinnaker on a large keelboat together (as previous training weekend was aboard J105s, which have asymmetrical spinnakers). By 4pm the breeze was dead and the team called it a day. Julia Bailey won the award for ‘most mustard on sandwich’.

The second day of training gave the team an opportunity to sail on Don’s boat alone in ~15 knots of beautiful Kingston south-westerly breeze. This was a very VERY effective training day as these are conditions quite similar to the racing conditions that the team is expecting to race in while in La Rochelle. Nearly all day was spent sailing sausages courses around marks (imaginary ones too) and working out more kinks of ‘around the buoys’ boat handling including sets, gybe sets, ‘mexicans’ and more. The team also practised some starting manoeuvres and timing.

Big thanks to Don Ruddy for supporting our team by coaching us on the first day and generously lending us his boat!

The weather was warm, as shown by our lack of socks!

Coming up next: Several members of the team are looking forward to the Canadian Intercollegiate Sailing Championships in the SONAR class at RCYC this weekend. This presents another great opportunity for working together on communication, sail trim and tactics.