• 29er Pre-North American Clinic
  • 29er North Americanxs kick off with highly successful clinic

    Two days prior to the Championship a large number of the registered fleet of 48 boats signed up for the two clinics being offered to the competitors. 14 took part in the massive CORK Youthfest and 21 in an advanced clinic, sponsored by PS2000 the NA builder. Youthfest is traditionally an introduction to large fleet racing for youth aged competitors but a second clinic was set up with three of North Americaxs best 29er sailors providing the coaching.

    Performance Clinic
    Heading up the performance clinic was Jen Morgan Glass, a former Collegiate All-American who was 3rd in the US 470 Olympic trials and who finished 7th in the San Francisco heavy weather 2005 World Championship. Assisting her was Cameron Biehl who finished 3rd in this yearxs 29er Worlds and who has had a steady progression up through the international ranks having finished 19th and 12th , respectively, in the two previous events. Rounding out the team was Marc Farmer, twice Canadian National Champion, Canada Games Gold Medallist and 15th in San Francisco.

    Youthfest Clinic
    This was headed up by Veronique and Genevieve Bougie-Bastien, 29er Gold Medallists at the Canada Games.


    Above, left to right, Marc Farmer, Cameron Biehl, Jen Morgan Glass, Veronique and Genevieve Bougie-Bastien

    Below: Each morning, competitors were on-site as early as 7:30 rigging and prepping their boats.



    The clinic started out with a complete briefing by Jen and Cameron on the proper set-up of the boats and the Youthfest competitors were invited to this session as well. After this, the sessions split with the Youthfest group joining the other Youthfest Classes. The performance clinic then spent the rest of the day on the water in practice starts, short windward/leeward sessions with the outside boat on each side being forced to tack back into the fleet, a continuous tack-bearaway-set-gybe-takedown-hardenup-tack exercise and other exercises.

    One of the exercises on which the improvement was most noticeable was the downwind leapfrog by the coach boats. With two coach boats serving as gybe marks, as soon as the last boat has gybed around, that coach boat moves downwind to become the gybe mark for the next leg and the boats tack downwind continuously under spinnaker.



    Above, Judge Ryan, and Hans Henken on the wire, were clearly the class of the fleet in this exercise. Note the coach boat between the boats 2nd and 3rd from the left, just starting to head downwind to become the next mark after the impending gybe. Below, Hans starts in as Judge starts to free up for the gybe.



    There were some newcomers to the fleet making their first outing in the Class and among them, two from the same family. Below, Emily Dellenbaugh with crew Briana Provancha who represented the US in the 2006 ISAF Youth Worldxs in the Int. 420 and, in the picture below that, Crew Leigh Hammel on the wire for Becca Dellenbaugh. The first dayxs performance of these two crews was exceptional.





    Another exercise that proved popular was the Mystery Start. The fleet gets a 2 minute whistle, then a one minute then a 30 second and, any time after that, the start whistle is blown which means you have to be in place and set up at least 30 seconds ahead of time but with the possibility you will have to hold it for another 30 seconds! Below, the clinic fleet lines up for a Mystery Start.



    The format in Youthfest is more concentrated on actual racing with coaching taking place during the races at the back of the fleet in an effort to move the slower boats up into the pack. As a result, there is a Youthfest Series and it was won by Alanna Foscarini and Alison Claire Ludzki with 4 firsts and a fifth. This team was fourth in the Canadian Youth Nationals the previous week and should, by rights, have been in the performance clinic. There was no organized racing in the performance clinic but at the end of the second day, with the wind a little stronger in the 8-10 knot range, there were two informal races run and they were won by Judge Ryan and Emily Dellenbaugh. With the clinic over, Britton Winslow Hague heads home in the end-of-the-day race to the harbour mouth.



    Now the serious stuff begins!