2006 Laser Worlds underway!

Europeans Final Report - Day Six A Beauty (Campbell Sailing)

Waking up to bright sunshine and dew on our gear hanging on the balcony was a welcomed change from the five days of drizzle, haze, and less than ideal breeze. The last day of the Europeans in Hyeres was one of those days that you know will shape up to be a great day of [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 10 June 2007 - Pressing Reset (Campbell Sailing)

Plenty often in sports we hear the phrase: “We’re taking it one game at a time.†What does that even mean? Of course you’re playing one game at a time, there aren’t enough players for two games simultaneously, and you can’t save up runs or points or time around the racecourse for future races. Taking [...]

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Re: Monday Morning Tactician: 10 June 2007 - Pressing Reset (Campbell Sailing)

It's a good post:

"...Take it easy and be thankful for the fact that you’re getting literally a fresh start in the next race...

Everyone needs to take advangtage of that fresh start. Don't beat yourself up. :cool:
 
Monday Morning Tactician: 18 June 07 - Basketball? (Campbell Sailing)

From what my teammates and classmates at Georgetown can tell you, I was a much better fan of Hoya basketball than a player on the court. In fact Coach Callahan had to make an anti-ball-sports rule during my career there, just so I couldn’t injure myself too badly. So, when Coach Bodie put sailing in [...]

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Cascais Brief (Campbell Sailing)

Briefly, the update from Cascais is a good one. Sailing in big waves, as high as 2.5 meters (I mean big waves) and decent breeze has been a welcomed change in sailing conditions after so little breeze at the Europeans last week. There are about eight boats training here out of a marina east of [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 25 June 2007 - A Hard Luff? (Campbell Sailing)

Running races in training always seems to produce plenty of incidents worth analysis. However, it is rare that you get a situation that stumps six full-time Laser sailors as well as a coach, even with the rule book in hand. We had exactly that this week while sailing out of the Oeiras Marina some 10 [...]

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Olympic Sports Interview (Campbell Sailing)

Please link to: olympicsports.org.uk*for a spotlight this week with an Olympic Sports site in Britain.

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Monday Morning Tactician: 2 June 2007 - Cover or Split? (Campbell Sailing)

The training days here in Cascais can drain you. The sun is relentless, not too hot, but burns your skin without too much trouble when you miss a spot on your cheek or have your shirt off in the boatpark for just a few minutes too long while doing boatwork (who am I fooling, “Laser [...]

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Where are we?? (Campbell Sailing)

The Laser’s course assignment today was Course #3 starting at 1400. Well, we were on Course 3 at 2 o’clock, but the breeze was not. The temperature neared 80 degrees and a thick layer of fog hovered over the mountains to the north. The potential for breeze was there, but it looked as though Course [...]

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Gold Fleet Racing Starts Today for Laser Fleet (Campbell Sailing)

Off we go again to Course #3 for the Laser World’s first day of racing after the Gold/Silver/Bronze Fleet split and a layday yesterday. I suppose that our course assignment really has no bearing over where we actually go because our PRO has no qualms with taking us under code-flag “Lima” (Follow Me) to any [...]

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Relatively Moderate Day for Lasers on Course 3 (Campbell Sailing)

Today’s racing was on the moderate side, between 12 and 18 knots on Course 3. The current made a larger impact on the sailing area closest to the Rio Tejo near Lisbon. Both sides of the racecourse showed promise throughout the sailing, but there was no sure thing. The right was good as many times [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 9 July 2007 - The Side Scramble (Campbell Sailing)

How often does conservative sailing get you into trouble? It shouldn’t, that is why its labeled “conservative,” because it rarely places you in a position of high risk. Sailing over the last five days in shifty offshore??breeze in Cascais’ ISAF World Championships has been??a bit of a lesson in risk. It has been a test [...]

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Hold Everything! (Campbell Sailing)

If you didn’t hold onto everything today in the boatpark, it may have lifted off and blown halfway across the Atlantic south to Morocco.I woke up to the wind blowing so hard through the slot of my window that it was hard to get the door open to get into the kitchen of our humble [...]

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2007 ISAF World Championships, (Campbell Sailing)

The World Championships turned out to be an overall success on many fronts. With any regatta come the pros and cons of the racing areas, race management, city hospitality,*boatpark life, accommodation, and competition. Cascais came out well ahead of many cities and locations to host any regatta, much less one that attracts a reported 1,600 [...]

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Pan Am Games Well Under Way in Rio (Campbell Sailing)

We’re almost a week into the Pan American Games here in Brazil, and some of the sports are already packed up and flown home. Sailing, as well as a number of other sports like Basketball and Athletics are still awaiting the starting gun. We have two full days allocated for measurement before a practice day [...]

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Racing to Start in Rio (Campbell Sailing)

After a few days of training and learning the ins and outs of Athlete’s Village life here in Rio, the sailors finally start racing tomorrow. We had a practice race today, and the southerly filled in on schedule and with beautiful conditions. Hopefully the weather can hold on for a few more days. Please keep [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: Brazil Edition - 23 July 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

Not really sure how to best describe the sailing here in Rio. The surrounding geography is beyond imagination. Towering rocky peaks, dynamic urban skyline and curvy beach-lined bays dominate the sailing areas. The place is quite beauitful when you take it in at first glance. The only trouble is the widespread poverty and pollution in [...]

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PanAm Games Day 1: A Drifter (Campbell Sailing)

After almost a week of training in great breeze, Murphy’s Law finally caught up to us and the first day of racing was a bust. That law of course states that the ‘breeze during the event will always be different than the breeze during training.’ We sailed out to the racecourse in the morning’s dying [...]

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Day Two in Rio… Worth the Wait (Campbell Sailing)

* Drizzle*was*the dominant theme of today’s weather. We had drizzle all night so that all of our gear was plenty damp dripping from the clothesline. We had drizzle on the way down to the sailing center so that traffic was sufficiently backed up for most of the hour-long bus ride. We had drizzle while we were [...]

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Third Day of Racing in Rio: Almost Exciting (Campbell Sailing)

I say it was almost exciting today because things almost went as forecast and almost turned into a fantastic day of racing. We were scheduled for a twelve o’clock start, an hour earlier than normal, and we still couldn’t get out there in time for the best breeze of the day.Right on cue, the wind [...]

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Web Site Outage (Campbell Sailing)

As you may have noticed, the sites been down for just over 24 hours.* Back up now, but will take some time to bring back all the content and links.Sorry for the downtime!

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Day Two in Rio… Worth the Wait (Campbell Sailing)

Drizzle*was*the dominant theme of today’s weather. We had drizzle all night so that all of our gear was plenty damp dripping from the clothesline. We had drizzle on the way down to the sailing center so that traffic was sufficiently backed up for most of the hour-long bus ride. We had drizzle while we were [...]

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Monnday Morning Tactician: Brazil Edition - 23 July 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

Not really sure how to best describe the sailing here in Rio. The surrounding geography is beyond imagination. Towering rocky peaks, dynamic urban skyline and curvy beach-lined bays dominate the sailing areas. The place is quite beauitful when you take it in at first glance. The only trouble is the widespread poverty and pollution in [...]

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Medal Race Tomorrow (Campbell Sailing)

After a major website crash yesterday, we’re still racing here in Rio. We had a 12-16 knot southerly yesterday and sailed three races to get back on schedule. I managed a 1, 2, 4 to Robert Scheidt’s 5, 1, 1, so hold a three point lead going into the medal race. Only the top five [...]

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Pan Am Games Gold! (Campbell Sailing)

After three hours of sitting around in drizzle and 60 degree temperatures, we sailed a 30 minute-long, double-points medal race this afternoon for all the marbles and the Pan Am Games title. Fifteen knots filled in from the southwest and a race went off without much hesitation before our four o’clock time limit. I had [...]

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US Sailors Bring Home Four Medals from Pan Am Games (Campbell Sailing)

U.S. SAILORS BRING HOME FOUR MEDALSFROM PAN AM GAMESMarni Lane, US SAILING, Kelley Coffman, U.S. Olympic Committee,*RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (July 29, 2007) – USA sailors will bring home a stash of medals — two gold, a silver and a bronze — from the XV Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which concluded [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: Don’t Ever Give Up - 30 July 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

My apologies for a belated edition of the Monday Morning Tactician column. I spend most of yesterday… actually, all of yesterday on planes, trains, automobiles and buses trying to get from the Athletes Village in Rio back to the United States.The last couple of days after the regatta ended were a bit of ‘organized chaos.’ [...]

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Re: Monday Morning Tactician: Don’t Ever Give Up - 30 July 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

hmm. I'm not a world class sailor so perhaps my point of view is not the best, but I never look to be catching boats. I regard everyone else on the course as obstacles between myself and the next mark. I always go as fast as I can, as easily as I can, and if I'm making a hash of it one day, then that's as fast as I can go.

For me, catching and passing boats is a by product of speed, not a goal of my boat speed. When I review every race, post race, I'm not looking for ideas that I beat someone. I'm looking for errors to correct and identifying things that worked and noticing situations where different techniques are suitable. The concept of never give up is too emotional for me. If I commit to boat speed made good at all times, "never give up" becomes a value attached by a spectator:

"wow look at him go, he's lost by a country mile but he's still working the boat like a demon..."
 
Article on Patagonia’s: TheCleanestLine.com (Campbell Sailing)

An article that I used a few months ago about the greener aspects of boat racing and the impacts of travel from our sport has been picked up by Patagonia’s TheCleanestLine.com. Have a look.

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Monday Morning Tactician: 6 August 2007 Gaining Local Knowledge (Campbell Sailing)

Here comes another Wednesday-edition of Monday Morning Tactician thanks to the travel schedule that comes with the territory of the Olympic campaign. I’ve finally made it back to San Diego for a bit of laundry and re-packing before heading back out in the green machine to sail in Kingston’s CORK regatta later this month.I had [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 13 August 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

Another late edition and another week of traveling. After spending a few nights at home in*San Diego, the CampbellSailing-mobile struck out on the road headed northeast for the final few months leading into the Olympic Team Trials in October. The little green pickup was heavily loaded with enough gear for the late summer heat and [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 27 August 2007 Canoeing Without a Paddle (Campbell Sailing)

After driving from the temperate north and upstate New York to the hot and muggy swamp of the Chesapeake bay, I had the pleasure of taking a step back in time and taking a role as main trimmer and tactician for the Log Canoe Silver Heel and its crew of rag-tag Georgetown sailors and friends. [...]

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CORK 2007 (Campbell Sailing)

Late summer vacation has come and gone for all most sailors of school-going age across the United States. The first cool northerlies are beginning to streak through the northern states, presenting a welcomed break from the oppressive August heat. Racing sailboats in the late summer is some of my favorite time on the water. Besides [...]

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Monday Morning Tactician: 3 September 2007 Back to School Special (Campbell Sailing)

The crisp air of autumn has begun its weekly sweep across the Northeast, and with it comes numerous side effects. Waters begin to cool off and the days get shorter. Trees full with leaves begin to dry up and turn color. Hazy, sunny seabreeze days are replaced by clean, clear northerlies. And, school buses clog [...]

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Coach Boat? (Campbell Sailing)

After arriving in Newport, we’ve had a few fantastic days of training to start the month of September, the final month before our Olympic Trials. Training partners are arriving and the details and routines are all falling into their respective places. All but one. I have a coach lined up for a number of days [...]

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Postcards From Newport: Life on Third Beach (Campbell Sailing)

After arriving in Newport during Labor Day weekend everything seems on a trend towards tranquility. The beach crowds have thinned and the traffic in the parking lots have eased even though the $10 charge has disappeared. The lifeguard stands have been hauled off the beach and the channel markers off of the Third Beach launching [...]

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