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 the year was very successful for me. I finished third in the New Zealand Laser nationals, 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.

   Part 1   

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.