2007 ISAF World Championships report

by Nikola Girke

The 2007 ISAF World Championships are in Cascais, Portugal. This is the first Olympic Qualifying event; all 11 Olympic Sailing classes are here trying to qualify their Nation for 75% of the Olympic berths. RSX Women will have 28 spots available at the 2008 Beijing Olympics for 28 different Nations, of which 20 Nations will qualify themselves here. It is also the first Canadian Olympic selection event, so wish me luck!!

Cascais is a beautiful old town about a 20-minute drive from Lisbon. The town has a lot of character, great food, is clean and the
coastline is gorgeous. Ten minutes up the coast is the famous Guincho Beach, which hosts both World Surfing and Windsurfing (wave sailing) Championships. This is probably the nicest venue I have been to for a sailing championship…hopefully the wind will cooperate too!

I arrived in Cascais on the 18th of June, directly after the European Championships. I have had some great training and am looking forward to the start of the regatta. The wind is very tricky here, especially on the course areas that we have been allocated. The wind is offshore and littered with huge gusts, huge holes and big wind shifts. It is not uncommon to be sailing in 20knots and hit a lull of 4-5 knots, and this can happen several times in one leg. Needless to say, it'll be very important to connect the pressure dots! One day we also had an average of 29knots gusting to 37knots…not only was the ocean white, but it was sea of capsized boats…it was a hard day and I was happy to make it back to shore in one piece!

Today was the official first day of racing for some classes, however the RSX class starts racing on the 6th of July.  We will have 3 days of qualifying races followed by a rest day, then 3 days of finals.

I finished measurement today, have a bit more gear tinkering to do and then I am set to go. More news to come once the races start….

Thank you for your support!

Day 2 & 3

Yesterday we were supposed to start at 6pm. Due to the once again crazy and unstable winds; most fleets were postponed on the water, which delayed our start time as well. At 7:30pm we were finally sent out, with our first race starting at 8:30pm. The wind still had not settled but the Race Committee was eager to get a race in…so we raced in 4-5 knots with streaks of 15knots+ and washing machine type waves. I had a great position near the boat end of the starting line and at 40 seconds to go,  POL 8 (current regatta leader) ran into me from behind. I shouted protest, but she did nothing (should have done a penalty turn). About 20 seconds later, she came with some more speed straight into the back of my board again, this time lodging the nose of her board into my fin and took a chunk out of it. There was a big bang, then I lost balance and I fell into the water. She got my position at the start and had a great race. I started the race in the water. I was able to get up and get back into the race and ended up finishing 15th. I got to watch the sunset as I was on the final lap and when I was finishing the boats had to have lights on so we could see the finish line. I was finally on shore a bit past 10pm, de-rigged in the dark and had to file my protest. My protest started at 11:30pm and ended past midnight. The protest ended up being dismissed, which was quite disappointing as her story changed from when we arrived onshore to when we arrived in the protest room. All of a sudden she couldn't speak English and had an interpreter who was her team rules expert and I felt that they might have been some discretion in the translation. I finally had dinner at 1am.

Today racing started at 1pm. Once again the wind was absolutely crazy.

In the first race I sailed really well and was in 13th place until I got stuck in a hole and lost 6 places to finish 19th. In the second race of the day, I had a great start, tacked in the right places and was well in the top 10. I rounded the last reach mark one leg in front of my nearest competitor. I only had a downwind to go and then 50meters to the finish. Unfortunately, when you are on a run, the wind comes from behind you and when the wind does come, it takes the sailors that are behind closer to you. Then a huge field of wind came and so did the entire fleet from behind me. They came planing around me while I was unable to move forward. In the 50meters before the finish, I was passed by at least 10 boards in my fleet as well as others from the other fleet. I ended up finishing 17th.  This resulted in me not making Gold Fleet, as the qualifying ended today. I was 3 points from making the cut.

I am pretty disappointed as I was sailing very well tactically and technically and am in the best physical shape I've ever been in. These results have not reflected where I feel I am at in relation to the rest of the world. Although the regatta is not over, I now have to look forward to China Pre-Olympics in August and next years' Worlds in New Zealand to gain Olympic selection.

Results

We had five more races in the same crazy conditions. I finished 3rd in Silver Fleet and 40th overall. I qualified Canada for a spot at the Beijing Olympics, as I placed within the top 20 countries here. I fly home on the 15th for 3 weeks before I head to Quindao, China for the Pre-Olympics.

Thank you for all your support and emails!

Nikola

www.nikolagirke.com