Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club has formed a team called the Wellington Spirit. My involvement in this is to be the helmsman of the Match Racing Team. Our Goal is to win the 2010 New Zealand Match Racing Nationals.

What an intense half of the year. It has been tough and long. My trip to Europe was good, I went there with the mission to work out what the next step was going to be, what was it that I needed to do to do well at worlds. One big thing was sailing in 5 to 7 knots and also massively improve my fitness.

On my return to Wellington I got right back to it, training harder than I ever had before, really pushing the fitness, and utilising the time I spent on the water better. I travelled up to Auckland 3 times, and continued to give it my all, and while I sowed brilliance at times, and a big improvement in the light, I was not going as good as I would have liked. On my last trip to Auckland I was at the point of getting fed up with it, but I was still pushing really hard. But after that trip I had had enough, and went on holiday down south for a week.

I retuned to Wellington, excited and hungry for sailing, I put in 2 more hard weeks of training, and then was off, and I had ticked all the boxes in New Zealand that I had planned to work. (and although I it wasn’t showing in training I believed it would come though at some stage) the one thing I had left to work on was the head game, the ability to sail though the fleet and stay focused and to always believe. During sail for Gold I felt I made major gains in these areas. And my hard work in New Zealand was starting to show, with some fantastic performances, but with 2 really bad races I was pushed back to 14th. But I was happier.

It just got better and better from there with everything coming together just before worlds. I was ready and excited. I sailed amazingly well with an ability to sail though the fleet with some extra ordinary speed downwind. I finished the Laser World Championships in 6th place. And to cap it all off I came home and won the New Zealand Youth Match Racing Nationals with the Wellington Spirit team.

Mission successful....

So now the big build up begins, again...

With just over 6 month until the next World Championships my preparation has just began. I have got 3 weeks until I head over to compete in two European Regattas, Palma and Hyeres. In the next 3 weeks I will be trying to spend as much time in the boat. I will be trying to get as comfortable as I can in the boat, working mainly on boat handling and speed. 

On 23 March I head over to Europe. At these to big European regattas, I want to continue to work on controlling the start and nailing the first beat. These two regattas will also be a good chance to re-assess and work out what needs to happen in the following months leading up to the world championships.

I will then return home in early May to put in the hard yards back at Worser Bay. I will spend a little over 2 months in Wellington before I head back over to England. In early August we will have a training camp in Hayling Island (which is where the worlds are to be held). We then head down to Weymouth (which is where the Olympics are to be held) we will have a week training there before we compete in Sail For Gold (also sailed out of Weymouth) after which we head back across to Hayling island for pre worlds training, before the Laser Men's World Championships start in early September. 

Keep an eye on the 'updates' and 'comments' sections to see how I get on.

Key Dates to watch out for:

27 March-2nd April, Princess Sofia Regatta, Spain, fleet racing
23rd-30th April, Hyeres, France, fleet racing
9th-14th August, Weymouth, fleet racing
27th Aught-5th September,  World Laser Championships, Hayling Island, fleet racing

Match Racing: The New Zealand summer has been very successful for our team. Our goal leading into summer was to get our ranking back in to the top 40.  We have scored three 1st places at the New Zealand Keel Boat Nationals, the Musto Cup and the National Bank Cup. We also placed second in the Hardy Cup. In addition Matthew Steven took the helm at the CetntrePort Champs and won to back up his third place at the Harken Cup. It has been a great summer and I personally am very happy with how things have gone.

Laser: I have had a massive focus on the laser over summer. Determined to make the worlds I trained hard and I felt I improved the whole way throughout SIRS and Sail Melbourne, I trained with he rest of the New Zealand team after Christmas and brought a new boat. I felt ready for the nationals. Andrew Murdoch showed his class in the stronger wind, while I was consistently finishing in the top 3. After a solid regatta I finished 2nd equal. with only 3 spots available for worlds, the sailing was intense. Sail Auckland was our second qualifying event. I sailed well, and after a second in the medal race I managed to finish 3rd overall, After these two events I am ranked 2nd best New Zealander

I have achieved everything I set out to achieve this summer, 

Mission successful....

Part one of year two of the 2PEAKS project is one big build up for the 2009 Laser Men's World Championship in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The aim is to improve as quickly as I can, get stronger, fitter, faster, smarter.

The ultimate goal in the laser class this year is to pick up a top 16 place at the World Championships. I am planning on doing two World Sailing Cup regattas in Europe in April, hopefully gaining more experience to move forward with, and to give me more direction leading into the worlds. The first regatta is Princess Sofia in Palma Spain. The second regatta is Hyeres in France.

I return to New Zealand for May where I will doing some training in both lasers and Match Racing. In June I head over to Houston Texas for nine weeks of coaching and training before heading up to Canada in August for the World Championships.

Keep an eye on the 'updates' and 'comments' sections to see how I get on.

Key Dates to watch out for:

April:
4th-10th Princess Sofia Regatta, Spain, fleet racing
18th-24th Hyeres, France, fleet racing

August:
17th-26th World Laser Championships, Canada, fleet racing
 

During the second half of year one of the 2PEAKS project there was a big focus on match racing, and we got some great results. Our ranking has now moved into the top 50 in the world. Our goal was to get into the top 35, and we should be close when the next rankings come out on 4 March.

We won the National Bank cup in Auckland, this is the first Trans Tasman match racing regatta we have won. We also placed 3rd in the New Zealand Keel Boat Nationals, which was awesome considering we were racing some of the biggest names in New Zealand Yachting. We also got smacked by Dean Barker in the New Zealand Match Racing Nationals which wasn't so enjoyable.

With such a big focus on match racing, my laser sailing ended up taking a back seat over this summer, and it showed when I went to compete in Australia. The amount of dumb thing I did, (capsizing, etc) was far too many, but I still managed some reasonable results. The "Go For Gold" regatta was my highlight in Australia. Although there where only really New Zealanders there, I sailed well to win this regatta, beating Michel Bullot.

I also managed to Qualify for the Laser World Championship, even though I had a shocker regatta at nationals finishing 11th, (two OCSs may have been the culprit). The Laser World Championship is to be held in Canada later in 2009, and this will be main focus for the first half of year 2.
 

I am really looking forward to the second half of the first year of the 2 PEAKS project. In both the laser and "Wellington Match" I am hopeful of gaining some great results.

Match Racing:

By the end of this summer our match racing team wants to be ranked inside the top 35  in the world. We will be competing in 4 Main regattas over the summer. We will be competing in Centreport (Wellington), Youth International (Auckland), Harken (Sydney), and also the New Zealand Match Racing Nationals held in Auckland in late November. We would like to win at least 2 of the youth match racing regattas as well as picking up a podium at the New Zealand match racing nationals. We are also going to send a team to the New Zealand Keelboat Nationals.

While I will be skipper in the above regattas, Matt has stepped up to take over the under 25 regattas to hopefully build on his recent success in the New Zealand Youth Match Racing Nationals. Matt will be taking a team to both the Warren Jones Regatta and the Hardy Cup, held in Perth and Sydney respectively.

Laser Sailing:

This summer I am competing in 6 key regattas. I am heading over to Australia to compete in  the Sydney International, Go For Gold (Melbourne), and Sail Melbourne regattas. It would be great to  pick up a few top 10 placings at these regattas. I then come back to New Zealand to continue training in the laser and for my first ever Triathlon on the 19th of January. After the Tri I head off to try and secure selection for the 2009 Laser World Championships. This will be selected off both Sail Auckland and the New Zealand laser nationals. I am aiming to pick up my third consecutive podium at the 2009 laser nationals in New Plymouth. But I would really love to finally win it.

Key Dates to watch out for:

November:
12-16 New Zealand Keelboat Nationals, Auckland, fleet racing
19-23 Harken Cup, Sydney,  match racing
26-30 New Zealand Match Racing Nationals, Auckland,  match racing

December:
7-10 Sydney International Regatta, laser
13-15 Go For Gold - Melbourne, laser
16-21 Sail Melbourne, laser

January:
23-27 New Zealand Laser Nationals, New Plymouth,  laser
26-30 Warren Jones Trophy, Perth,  match racing (Matt skippering)

February:
1-5 Hardy Cup, Sydney,  match racing (Matt skippering)
5-8 Sail Auckland,  laser
12-15 National Bank Cup, Auckland,  match racing
18-21 CentrePort Champs, Wellington,  match racing

March:
7-8 Auckland Laser Champs, laser
 

The first half of year 1 of the 2PEAKS project was very successful for me. I traveled to Europe and competed in 3 international laser regattas. If it were not for damages and forgetting things I would have finished in the top 10 at Kiel. I struggled my way through a windy Laser Europeans to finish 38th, but  I showed superb skills in the light weather. I was leading the Youth Euros at the half way stage but something went wrong and I lost a lot of places. This is something I need to work on and address.

I improved everything I wanted to achieve before I went to Europe and while I was in Europe. My starts were good, my tactics were good and my upwind speed had improved heaps, but I still have a long way to go in terms of my speed.

Our Wellington match team won the University World Match Racing Championships. This has been our biggest success so far and we are looking to continue our winning ways.

My website, jjsailing.com has been hugely successful. The amount of people following the website while I was overseas was phenomenal.  I am having so much fun with jjsailing and the 2 PEAKS project and I think we are well on the way to success.
 

2008 is an important year in terms of my 2 PEAKS project. I have high ambitions for success in Europe. I plan to start off by competing in Kiel week in Germany, followed by the Laser Europeans, which are to be held in Belgium. In the build up to this trip, I will be training hard in Wellington with Matthew and the other Wellington boys. Early on in the year my main focus will be on improving boat speed, then leading into the middle of the year I will be focusing more on boat handling including acceleration, explosive power, mark roundings, gybing and fine tuning.

To improve my boat speed I believe that I need to improve my fitness, so this will be another aspect I will be focusing on throughout the year.

I am not traveling to Europe just to get results, I also want to improve, I want to hone my big fleet tactics, my starting techniques, as well as continuing to improve my boat speed. Quote: The fastest sailor out there is generally a tactical genius, but it is hard to be a tactical genius if you are slow.

In the second half of the year I will have a similar programme building into the Australian and New Zealand summer. Over this period I will also incorporate match racing more heavily into my training programme as all the Australasian regattas are over the summer period.