In Valencia

Hi all,
Here is a couple of photos from spectactular Calpe. Currently Phil, Garth, and Jimmy are staying in Valencia being put up generously by Mike Drummond and Caz Kelly. On Thursday we fly to Milan then catch a train to Rimini to catch up with the 4th member of the team, Sam Bell. Sam is already in Rimini after being part of the succesful NZ Team that won the Wolrd BMW Sailing Cup on Lake Garda. Our regatta starts on Saturday.

Open de Espana

After 28hours flying and over 16 hours waiting in airports we arrived in the beautiful town of Calpe, just over an hour drive south of Valencia, for our first event on the WAKA RACING calendar, the Open de Espana
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Day 1 was a good day. Winning 3 and losing 2 the team was happy with the result. The day started great with a close victory over top ranked skipper and world number 3 Mathieu Richard. It continued with solid victories over Damien Iehl and Eugeny Neugodnikov. Losing the last race to Bjorn Hansen was stupid as we had a comfortable lead around the bottom mark and gave it away by tacking round first towards the right.

Day 2 started against fellow kiwi Adam Minoprio. We lost the start and ended up getting bounced past the lay line on both beats, not being able to quite gain enough to attack him downwind. The second race was against an all girls team from Germany. We won the right at the start and had a handy lead which we held though out the race. Our third was against Morvan of France. Once again not pushing hard enough at the start we didn’t win the right and couldn’t get back at him.
With damage to a few boats we sat out the next race and sailed it at the end of the day. After a long break we raced the local Spanish sailor. Having a good start we sailed him to the right hand side of the course and held a small lead for the duration of the race to take a much needed win. Next we raced Lindberg (Fin), our start lacked confidence again, proving costly as we started to leeward a couple of seconds late and he was on the gun. After this silly mistake we got pushed to the left hand side of the course, making it imposable to get back into the race and the favoured right hand side. Our last race of the day was the decider. We win we make the quarter final. We got the start we wanted and forced a penalty on him. With good pace up the first beat we had a two length lead at the top mark. With pressure on us down the run a gear failure on the pole didn’t help. A quick fix meant he was able to roll us but we were still in control. The bottom mark was messy and we rounded 1st but not tidy. The Jib got rapped round the forestay making us slow and low. He passed us slowly and then the very important boom vang broke. This made it impossible to sail fast upwind. He gained enough of a lead after all this to do his penalty and race over.
A disappointing result and end to the regatta as we showed a lot of promise and some good speed. A lack of experience at top level was key as we made a couple of costly and preventable mistakes which would have qualified us 3rd for the quarter finals. The team has taken many positives out of it and some great lessons. With 9 of the 12 sailors ranked in the top 15 in the world we cant be to dissapointed with our first grade 1 event.Having Andrew Taylor on the boat was invaluable and the 3 of us have learnt a ton.

As a team we would firstly like to thank Stefan Goldwater of Widex, the Pacific Sport Community Trust, RNZYS and Line 7 for the great gear. Also to the Waka Racing Supporters Club for their much needed contribution to the team, and Simon Dickey for the great logo. Finally big thanks to Andrew Taylor for giving up his time to Sail with us.

Next stop for WAKA RACING is Valencia then onto Rimini, Italy for another qualifying regatta 2nd and 3rd of May.

1st Day, Open de Espania

Day one was a great success for the team. We had 5 races today,ending with 3wins and 2 losses. The 1st was against world number 3 Mathieu Richard from France.We got a penalty on him in the dial up and managed to keep the game close enough and stopped him from wiping the penalty down wind. Race 2 against Neugodnikov (RUS) went well. We won the start and had pace on him throughout the race. Winning confortably. The next was much the same holding a nice lead for the whole race against D. Iehl (FRA). In the 4th race we lost the start which was costly as we couldn't get to the favoured side and trailed the rest of the race. Our last race of the day was a tad dissapointing as we had a comfortable lead against B. Hansen and threw it away by not covering close enough in the last beat. He got a good left hand shift and crossed us at the top mark by a good 2 legnths.

A great start to the regatta and now we have to back it up with a solid second day to try and make the top 8.

Waka Racing

NEW NAME!...NEW WEBSITE!

Hi everyone we leave for europe in four days! with our first event starting on the 22nd April in Calpe, Spain. Before that however we have the hugely competitive Young 88 Nationals on the 18-19th of April.

The Crew for the Nationals:

Stefan Goldwater (Helm)

James Williamson (Trim)

Garth Ellingham (Main)

Jono Spurdle (Pit)

Andrew Cooke aka "Cookie" (Bow/Floater)

Phil Robertson (Bow/Tactician)

TBA (Floater)

Also we now have a new name that is 'WAKA Racing', therefore we have to get a new website. The new address in http://www.wakaracing.blogspot.com/ . Like the old website we will be updating our progress and uploading reports on our events on the new website. We hope you all continue to follow us with a big year planned in europe.

Cheers,
The Boys from WAKA Racing!