Training vor der letzten Selektionsregatta in Workum.

Coole Photos von Jürg von Allmen.

Wir hatten in Estavayer eigentlich ganz guten Wind. Der hat aber dauernd gedreht und so waren dann Leute vorne die da sonst nicht so sind. Ich bin nur 22. von 130 geworden.
So ein blöder Winddreher hat mich auch meinen ersten Laufsieg gekostet. Da war ich Erster aber der bis dahin 10. wurde dann als Erster ins Ziel gespült. Im letzten Lauf hatte ich dann wieder einen Frühstart. Wird also nichts mehr mit einem Opti-Laufsieg :-(.
Egal, jetzt gehe ich nach Workum wo es nicht so blöde Dreher hat und wo ich mich für die EM qualifizieren werde ;-).
Danach segle ich dann 420er mit meinem Bruder Niklas.

In Spiez waren wir schon letztes Jahr. Auch dann war es sehr kalt. Immerhin hatte es guten Wind aber die Wettfahrtleitung hat trotzdem nur drei Läufe hinbekommen. Der Wind war dieses Jahr nicht so toll. Weil das meine vorletzte PM war und ich unbedingt wenigstens mal einen Lauf gewinnen wollte bin ich nach einem 6. im ersten Lauf im zweiten zu früh gestartet. Im dritten gab es einen 16. und am Ende war ich deshalb dann nur 54. Von 122.

Die erste Selektionsregatta in Cap d’Agde ist ganz gut gelungen. Ich bin in die Gold Fleet gekommen und habe mich da sogar verbessert. Der Wind war sehr verschieden. Am besten war ich als wir 30 Knoten hatten. Ich habe auch zwei Proteste bekommen von anderen Schweizer, einen habe ich gewonnen, den anderen verloren.
Im Augenblick hätte ich mich gerade noch für die EM qualifiziert. Aber es sind ganz viele andere Schweizer ganz dicht über und unter mir in der Selektionsrangliste. Das wird spannend in Workum. Hoffentlich hat es ganz viel Wind, dann bin ich am besten.
Am Ende bin ich 43. von 302 geworden. Oder 12. von 60 Schweizern.

Erster Tag:
Am ersten Tag der Regatta stellten wir unsere Boote richtig auf. Ich war stolz auf mein neues Rigg, mein neues Segel und Schwert. Danach mussten wir uns einschreiben. Weil ich zum Nachnamen Kaiser heisse hatte ich mein Geld vergessen. Ich habe es von einem Mädchen geliehen. Ich weiss nicht wie es heisst. Auf jeden Fall musste ich es zurückzahlen. Glücklicherweise waren noch die Eltern von Nik da. Die AP-Flagge (Startverschiebung) wurde gehisst. Währenddessen ging ich mir ein Eis Kaufen. Als der Wind kam gingen wir nach draussen. Ich ging wie immer die Seiten checken und liess mir mein Segel von Antonis (mein Trainer) trimmen. Es lief sehr gut. Im ersten Lauf startete ich rechts neben dem Pulk und nahm einen Linksdreher über die Fleet. Ich war zweiter an der Boje und das blieb ich auch bis ins Ziel. Weil ich jetzt keine Lust mehr habe zu schreiben mache ich es jetzt kurz: 2ter Lauf: 3., 3ter Lauf: 5.

Zweiter Tag:
Wir mussten sehr lange auf den Wind warten. Trotzdem gingen wir raus. Weil es keinen Wind hatte und es schon spät war, fingen die Trainer schon an, uns in den Hafen zu schleppen. Kurz vor der letzten Startmöglichkeit schien trotzdem Wind zu kommen. Und wir machten einne Lauf ich wurde neunter. Insgesamt bin ich vierter geworden und habe eine tolle Obstschüssel bekommen über die sich vor allem mein Vater gefreut hat - weil ich so viel Obst esse ;-).

Rangliste (am Start: 119 Kinder):

Tolles letztes Swiss Sailing Team Lager 2017 in Dongo. Vielen Dank an Carmen, Antonis und Zizi! Endlich haben wir am Comer See mal Wind gehabt :-). Carmen hat viele schöne Photos gemacht, deshalb muss ich nicht so viel schreiben.

Thanks, Club Beaufort, for the CHF 500 I lately received at our region's Seglerfest! It's much appreciated. And needed :-).

Photo credit: Christian Zedler

It's been a bit of a surprise as it turned out I'm the school holiday calendar poster boy 2017/2018. That means I'll be hanging on quite a few refridgerators in the region for a full year. Quite strange. I hope most people don't recognize me anyway.

The 66th youth class regatta in Palma de Mallorca has been my best international regatta ever. It’s still been a bit of a disappointment since I started very well, ranking 15th after three races. The conditions were quite difficult with quite shifty winds. I really screwed up at the last day of the regatta when I sailed a 54th, got a black flag and finally a 30th. I ended 69th out of 285.
Ranking: http://www.trofeociutatdepalma.com/resultados/resultados2016/optimist.htm.

We've had a great first Talent Pool camp training camp on Mallorca. Great wind on day 1, good wind on day 2, some wind on day 3 (and a regatta) and no wind on day 4 (and no regatta).
It's a very nice team :-). Looking forward to more trainings :-) :-) :-).

I am looking back on an intensive week of training with the world’s best coaches on Lake Garda during my fall school holidays. We had fantastic wind and spend a lot of time on the water. We also had quite a lot of physical exercises and I was really tired afterwards. I also spend the second week of my holidays on Lake Garda, this time with my family, and I spend a lot of time sleeping… We did, however, also do some hiking and my dad and I ran up Santa Barbara one morning. My little sister and I also did some climbing on the rocks of Monte Baldo. I need to admit that my much younger sister is much better at climbing than I am. She’s definitely less fearful when it comes to altitude.

Coming up next is a training camp with Swiss Sailing’s Talent Pool on Mallorca.

I’ve again be selected to Swiss Sailing’s Talent Pool. I’ll be in the “silver” team. It’s not exactly what I was hoping for. Anyway, I'll just turn silver it into gold.
http://www.swiss-sailing-team.ch/nachwuchsteam/?lang=de

We've sailed this year’s second national regatta right here in Stäfa. My home club welcomed 128 optimists. It was a very well organized event, arguably my best organized national regatta ever. We even had pretty good wind!
The only problem was that I really did not sail well, at least not on day one. I did not have a plan the first day and sailed two poor and one good race, 17/14/6. On day two I did have a plan and sailed a 11th (with a bit of bad luck) and a 4th. I ended up 18th overall – my worst ranking since the beginning of the new season.
Coming up next is Swiss Sailing’s Talent Scout Camp where I hopefully be selected into the Talent Pool. My brother Niklas and his helm Jonas who now sail the 420 are nominated, too! I will travel to Riva for one week right after the camp.
Jürg von Allmen again shot some very nice pics.
 
Ranking Stäfa: http://scstaefa.ch/swissCMS/uploadedFiles/events/files/878239_PMStae16Final.pdf

We were supposed to have the International Swiss Championships in Arbon, Lake Constance, last Thu.-Sun. Due to the lack of wind we managed to sail two races in four days only. The two races we had were wind lotteries, especially the second one where a quarter of the fleet got a black flag and another quarter did not finish in time.
I got lucky draws sailing a 9th and a 6th which meant I ended up 10th overall of 109 participants from seven nations.
To have a proper Swiss Championship we would have needed four races. This in turn means that there either is no Swiss Championship this year or one of the two regattas left this year will be turned into three days Swiss Championship .

Coming up next is a regional regatta on Greifensee at the end of the month.

Ranking: http://www.optimist.ch/Archive/Saison16_17/ResSMArbon16.pdf.

We have sailed the first national regatta of the season in Estavayer last weekend. We did not have any wind the first day. Sunday was much better and, thanks to the efficiency of the regatta committee we were able to sail for races. My first race was not that great, a 15th. But I improved a lot since a 5th, a 4th and a 2nd followed. That put me in 9th position overall :-), second in my age. Nice start into the season.
 
My brother Niklas sailed his first national regatta in the 420. Even though the sailed on Bielersee, just a few kilometers away they only sailed two races. The had one OCS unfortunately and couln't get down the spinakker in the first race.

Ranking: http://www.optimist.ch/Aktuell/ResEsta16final.pdf?-db=OnlineCVE2016&-loadframes.

Coming up next is the Swiss championship in Arbon starting Thursday. I've never felt more ready than this time :-) :-) :-).

The pics below were shot by Marion Landon, www.marionlandon.com.

My dad sailed the 470 World Masters Cup in Bracciano (a regatta for the really old ones) the first week of August and dragged me and the rest of the family along. We took my opti on the car roof and I indeed used it quite a bit. It's a nice lake, very shifty thermal winds that kick in at around 2pm. The last day was the best, I had never seen so big waves on such a small lake before. Sailing was great fun. Even my big brother Niklas took a tour on my opti - to find out that he now really grown out of it.

It's came as a big surprise to me, too when I won the national opti training camp in the first week of my summer vacation. I somehow managed to sail four good races and was lucky enough to win Optilager 2016.
Apart from this win, I really enjoyed my stay in Davos. We could have had more wind but the other kids and I had a very good time together.

Coming up next is a training camp with my regional team SSTR5 at Reschensee.

No, I did not sail well last weekend. I tend to be super nervous when I participate in a regional regatta. I hear the other kids, parents and coaches say "Oh, Simon is here. No chance of winning". That puts a bit of pressure on me...
And in fact, I did not sail well. Many tactical mistakes. My brother Niklas, who was coaching again me and the other kids from my club, almost fell overboard his coach rib in anger.
Anyway, I spotted a wind shift just before the finishing line and luckily won ahead of Luis and Jerry-Mo who had been leading the entire race.
We only had one race on Saturday before a thunderstorm kicked in. No wind on Sunday but close soccer matches instead.

Coming up next is a training at Walensee the second weekend in July.

My team, the Swiss Sailing Team Region 5, was invited to participate in the International Swiss Teamrace Championships at Lake Aegeri, 30 minutes from home.
I learned that it really takes a team to do well at team races. Our expectations were high given that we did well last year and that some of us very much improved our sailing skills quite a bit. But we were not really prepared and we did not really sail as a team. We consequently ended up on the last place.
Interestingly, Regattaclub Oberhofen won – with INDIVIDUAL sailors who are not much better compared to us. But they were a team, up to the task and won the trophy – very, very well done!

The teamrace championships were my brother’s final opti regatta. It’s too bad that it ended on the last place. But I know he is looking forward to sailing the 420. I am sure that will become an excellent sail coach, too - he is coaching our club’s optis already and he is doing a great job.
 

Coming up next is a regional regatta with my club on Lake Zurich next weekend.

First regatta with my sailing club this year, a regional one on the Lake of Zurich. It was my first regatta in a very long time with my club mates. We arrived with nine kids and hence a third of the entire fleet!

We had lots of rain, occasionally quite a bit of wind and five races. My my SSTR5 teammate (and future 420 partner ;-)) Nik and I actually had five very lonely races so we ended up first (Nik) and second (I) with the same amount of points. Nik won a cool regatta watch and won… a book (a book!). It turned out, however, that it a very good and comprehensive and really good opti book. And I even started reading right away.

Nik and I also used to occasion to say thanks to the 1000 (I) and 500 (Nik) Swiss francs we got from Club Beaufort last February. I find the Club Beaufort sticker looks very good on my boat. Too bad I need to peel it off again to race the international Swiss teamrace championship on Lake Aegeri next weekend.

We just returned from the Dutch Youth Regatta in Workum where we sailed the second and final qualification for the European or World Championships. Competition was really tough. It was also quite windy, at least on some days.
 
The best news is that my teammate Jonas qualified for the European Championships. He even almost made it to the World Championships. He really sailed an amazing regatta in Workum, following up on his already excellent performance in Marseille where we held the first selection regatta.
 
This year I managed to finish all my races whereas I had as many as three DNSs last year at the same regatta. I also improved my ranking by 120 places. The catch is, however, that I had a very bad second day with four races (44/38/27/11) which meant I made it to Emerald fleet only. We only had two races the first day which went OK (32 and 12) so that didn’t really help a lot. The races in Emerald fleet were mixed (8/2/31/8/19/24/15). I got the 31 after I badly jammed my head on my dagger board. My final rank was 174 out of 391 participants, 29th benjamin out of 110 kids born after 2004 and 28th Swiss out of 63.
 
My brother Niklas sailed his last opti regatta and also ended up in Emerald fleet as well which I found was great fun. He finished just six places behind me.
 
Ranking: http://www.dutchyouthregatta.org/Results/Results-2016
 
Jürg von Allmen shot great photos of us training up for the regatta of which I upload a few below.
 
Coming up next is… a break after five very intense weeks of sailing… followed by either an Austrian selection regatta or a regional regatta early June.

Finally, here's a video of Niklas' and my regatta warmup: https://youtu.be/TsvrLXJbQ2g.

We’ve sailed this season’s final national regatta in Spiez. It’s an excessively beautiful place with a great infrastructure. We even had nice wind, between 5 and 20 knots. It was freezing cold. It even snowed on Sunday. The regatta committee somewhat managed to get two races sailed despite the good wind, one each day. Very strange.
Anyway, I came in 7th – my first top 10 ranking in a national regatta ever. My brother Niklas and my teammate Jonas sailed their last optimist national championship before they switch to the 420. They didn’t do particularly well, Jonas ending up 33th and Niklas 70th. Niklas again saw the black flag…
Jürg von Allmen shot very nice photos of which I post some below.
 
Ranking: http://www.optimist.ch/Archive/Saison15_16/ResYCSp16.pdf
Coming up next is the Dutch Youth Regatta in Workum :-) :-) :-).

We’ve sailed a fantastic first selection regatta in Marseille, the Coupe Internationale de Printemps des Optimist (http://www.ycpr.net/cip-optimist-du-9-au-15-avril-2016/presentation.html) last week. The weather was great, around 20 degrees Celsius all week and wind of between 10 and 30 knots. It was a bit of a rough start as it was the first day where it blew 30+ knots. Racing was abandoned after just one race. That race initially went unexpectedly well for me… before I capsized and did not even meet the time limit, my first DNF in a long time.
We sailed another eleven races during the five days of the regatta. I made it to silver fleet and became 108th out of 297 sailors (top 36 percent). My Swiss rank was 27th which means that I need to overtake at least ten Swiss Opti sailors at the next selection regatta in Workum in two weeks’ time. That’ll be pretty hard I guess :-(.
The good news rankingwise somehow is that I was 14th of 74 sailors of my age overall, and fourth among the Swiss Optis born 2004.
It’s my best overall ranking in an international regatta (well, except for the “Cadetti” last year in Riva but that doesn’t really count),  which is nice and I feel I improved myself on many dimensions – but I realized that there’s quite a distance between me and the best Opti sailors. I need more stability as it I had a wild mixture of pretty good races and really bad ones with DNF/29/27/10 in the qualifying races and 53/13/51/36/6/12/21 in silver fleet. And I need to improve onn my downwind sailing, especially in strong wind and big waves. I sense it is a matter of getting more sailing practice in these conditions...
The regatta was very well organized. I also again seized the opportunity to improve my French, especially at the starting line (see the photo below ;-)). I also listened to quite a bit of English since this time our coach was Przemek Struś, the Polish national Opti coach. He did a great job and I learned quite a bit from him which I hope to put into practice soon.
The whole trip was organized by Daniel, Maxime’s father. Maxime is the guy who is exactly my age but who has always been ahead of me. He came in 14th overall, 4th Swiss!! Very impressive indeed, and on track for a qualification to the World Championships at the age of eleven!!
My SSTR5 team mate Jonas did very well, too, ending at 38th place and as 12th Swiss. He has an excellent chance to qualify for the European Championships!!
Things did not do so well for my big brother Niklas since he got four black flags in a row and one DNF because he sailed to the wrong race area :-(. But anyway, he survived the 30 knots on the first day. And he won two races in Emerald fleet.
Big thanks go to the Thommen family for the organization and to Przemek for the excellent coaching.
 
Ranking: http://www.ycpr.net/upload/contenu/SNIM%20D%C3%A9riveurs/Final%20Minimes.pdf.

Cool videos: http://www.ycpr.net/cip-optimist-du-9-au-15-avril-2016/videos.html (spot me in clip 3 and 4 ;-)).

Photo credit: Gilles Martin-Raget, http://www.martin-raget.com.
 
Coming up next is a national championship in Spiez, Lake Thun. Followed by a trip to my grandparents and the Dutch Youth Regatta in Workum to which I am very much looking forward (I really like sailing the same regattas multiple times).

The photo below is courtesy We've had the second last national regatta of the season last weekend. We went to Geneva where I could again practice my French - but unfortunately not much more. There basically wasn't any wind but we sailed one single race on Saturday anyway. A second one was started as well but abondended.
Given there was no wind, many kids were a bit too pushy on the starting line. Including myself, actually. We've had 16 out of 100 who also started too early. And 36 DNFs, the time limit was 15 minutes.
There was no wind at all on Sunday but we were sent out anyway.
We spend about ten hours on the water and had a single no wind race. We, I sense sitting in a car for four hours, sailing a murky single race and returning home with a fever and a very bad cold simply is part of the game.
My teammates Jonas (21), Nik (23) and my brother Niklas (31.) did better.
Ranking: http://www.nautique.ch/depot/resultats2016/csp_otpi_sng_2016_s.htm
Coming up next is... my recovery from my infection and the selection regatta in Marseille.
The photo below is courtesy of SNG.