Cameron Holland on the 2017 Orange Bowl Regatta
by Melissa Deveney 25 Jan 2018 15:09 GMT
Cameron, sail number 197054, winning the pin and port tacking the fleet at the start, during the 2017 Rocky Mountain Junior Olympic Regatta © Community Sailing of Colorado
Cameron had an incredible regatta at the Atlantic Coast Championships and finished 24th out of 93 boats with an eighth place finish in the mix.
Cameron sailed really well at ACC, with a best finish of eighth. The last race he hit someone on the start line and had to do turns before even starting so was last over the start by several boat lengths. According to his mother who was on the coach boat, "...we followed him up the first beat. It was amazing to watch as he just sailed past other people, right beside them but going faster." We're so proud of you Cameron. Photos in Gallery below are from ACCs.
I was excited to go to the Orange Bowl this year, the fourth time I have done it. This is the first time that I have had a partner to come with me-Kaan Johnson-from Boulder... Utah who sails with Park City Sailing. We had met at the 2017 Junior Olympics at Lake Dillon. Kaan and I went to Sarasota to practice with our coach, Jim Zellmer, and a third team member, Lars Oswell.
We had hoped to get three or four days of good sailing but the wind didn't hold so we ended up spending a lot of time together on shore and played minigolf and went to the beach. On Christmas day we opened some presents and headed to Miami for the regatta. We were excited to be in Miami as we could have breakfast at our favourite French cafe, Cafe Bonjour. What a yummy breakfast! But sadly it does not open until 9am so we were only able to eat there on the practice day.
We got to the orange bowl venue and could not find the launch place which had been changed from previous years because of the recent hurricane. We managed one practice day before the Orange Bowl started, which had nice wind, about 15 knots. This was the first opportunity where we really had a nice wind to hike in, so we were trying to improve our physical fitness. We went sailing for about four hours, which was good but I felt it afterwards!
There were 98 boats registered in the laser radial competition which is too many boats for a single start. It would make the start line too long and make it impossible to get clear air. To make it more fair the boats are split randomly into two fleets for the first day, and systematically for the second day based on the results from the first day with the aim of equalising the skill level in each fleet. The results from the two fleets are combined and on the third day the top half become the gold fleet and the bottom half becomes the silver fleet.
On the first day of the regatta we got our fleet assignments and unfortunately, I was in a different fleet from Kaan and Lars. It is more fun to race against people I know. I had a decent first start and decided to bang right as my pre-start manoeuvres had shown. I and a small cluster of boats sent it right and tacked two or three times for the top mark. When we got to the top mark I was first by miles! You can guess how I was feeling! The fleet slowly caught up to me during the race and I finished third which was still pretty cool, third in the first race!
The second race I did the exact same thing and it didn't work at all. I was pretty disappointed to finish 20th. After the first race I thought "I'm going to win this regatta!" and after the second race I realised "No I'm not!"
The third race I got a great start, top three start, and tried to tack to cross the fleet. Unfortunately one of the starboard boats just clipped the back of my boat and I had to do penalty turns. I worked my way back to finish 18th.
On the second day the wind was rather light again and I did not start out well. The forecast was for the wind to shift and it shifted at the start of the race so I thought it would continue to shift to the direction it was forecast. It didn't. I finished 33rd.
The second race was textbook, a nice clean race. I got a good start, went to the right side of the course on every leg, and sailed fast. I finished in 3rd which was a nice rebound from the previous race. A lot of the tactics for the whole regatta were just sailing towards the land, regardless of which side of the course the land was on, to get the best windshifts.
I finished the day with a 16th to leave me in 18th overall and comfortably in the gold fleet before the split. Kaan made the gold fleet as well which was really good for his first orange bowl regatta.
After the fleet is split it becomes much more difficult to do well in each race but the results still count the same as the pre-split races. I got a terrible start in the first race and went the wrong way upwind. It was bad and got worse and by the top mark there was only one boat behind me. I had a killer downwind and passed about 6 boats and kept on doing well for the rest of the race. I sailed really well and it was a great race. I was happy to finish 22nd.
It was a very windy day and I was very consistent. In high pressure the racing is about working really hard and not giving anything up. It is hard to pass on the upwind and easy to pass on the downwind which is the complete reversal of the way it is with light wind. I was able to sail well all day and got finishes of 17, 13, and 14 in the next three races. I picked up two places overall to finish the day 16th overall and was close to the group of boats ahead of me. I was hopeful of gaining a few more places on the final day.
The final day was extremely cold and it was difficult to see as it was so dark. It was also windy and I was exhausted from the previous day. I did not sail well and started the day with a second 33rd1 finish. I did better in the last race of the regatta and ended up 19th. It was a weird day, I did not understand the wind very well and was relieved to have to sail only two races that day. I was afraid I had fallen in the overall places but it turned out a lot of other sailors also had a tough day and I managed to stay in 16th overall.
It was a good regatta and I improved over the previous year. The wind was really nice for the whole regatta, and the regatta was well organised. I had a lot of fun.
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