Henken | Tobias Sailing

February 11, 2019

Paris and I may be the two that are sailing the boat, but it’s the team and community behind us that gets us to where we are going.  We are all one team, and this past weekend, our team grew!!

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone that made the AnnaParis2020 Fundraiser (www.annaparis2020.com) on Saturday night amazing!!  Paris and I cannot thank you all enough for all of your hard work for months and months behind the scenes to pull off such an incredible evening.

Back in October, I was approached by Joe Yost and Leah Roth about if I would be interested in doing a fundraiser for our Olympic campaign at T2 CrossFit!  I absolutely loved the idea and from there, Joe ran with it.  He and I found the dates that would work around our training schedule.  From there, Joe, Leah with the help of Lindsey Erisey took the lead.  They assembled teams to help set up, get sponsors, donations, etc. to allow us to continue training and getting better.

Paris flew into Pittsburgh on Saturday mid-day, I picked her up and then we headed to the gym a little later.  When we walked in, I hardly recognized the place.  It was truly beautiful and amazing.

 

The evening consisted of food, wine, raffles, auctions, photos, and an introduction from local TV sport anchor Andrew Stockey, and meeting so many new people along with hanging out with my amazing T2 CrossFit community.  The support we felt was surreal.

There are so many people and companies we would like to thank.  Every single bit helps towards getting us to Tokyo 2020.

Thank you to the companies that contributed, particularly the following:

Hazelnut catering  http://www.hazelnutcatering.com
Nothing Bundtcakes – Upper St. Clair. https://www.nothingbundtcakes.com/bakery/pa/upper-st-clair
Mindful Brewing  https://mindfulbrewing.com
Premier Granite  https://premiergranite.com
Berkshire Hathaway The Preferred Realty. https://www.thepreferredrealty.com
T2 CrossFit.  http://t2crossfit.com
Ticket Leap. https://www.ticketleap.com
Joe Yost, Yost Team YostTeam.com
PVS Title Insurance  https://www.pvstitleinsurance.com
Solid Painters https://www.solidpainters.com
Girl Friday Cooking Co.  https://girlfridaycookingco.com
Also a big thank you to Wild Rosemary (https://wildrosemary.com) for a donation of a $1000 auction gift.

And to the individuals who donated their time to help organize and run the event:

Joe Yost
Lindsey Erisey
Leah Roth
Michelle Garlitz
Ki Schultz
Teresa Ashley
Kedra Morris
Lara Mercollini
Paul Sebastian
Phil Henry
Annie Skiba
Dana T
Jen Larence
Beth Beck
Kurt Angles
Jo Tunnicliffe
Paul Tunnicliffe
Jessica Mcneely
Chris Mayhew
Megan Doyle (and girls)
Corinna Marshall
Dan Thomas
Danielle Yost
Jessie Hartman
Kelly Sasala
Mike Mercolini
Donnie Morris
Brendan Mckenzie
Melinda Boyd
Khush Kadwa
Amy Jo Bader
Stacy Jordanoff
Joe Hazy

(I apologize if I missed your name)

Again, we cannot thank everyone enough for all of their help and to everyone that donated and are helping us on the journey to bring home Gold to USA in Tokyo 2020!!

Anna & Paris

January 31, 2019

It was a day of “almosts” today.  On the score board the scores don’t look fantastic, but we are really happy with how things felt while we were sailing.  We ended the day with a 15, 19 putting us in 13^thposition overall going into the last day of fleet racing.

We were on the later start which we thought meant we were going to get solid wind and 4 fast fun races off.  We only got two off before the wind died and the races were called for the day around 4pm.

The first race was the windiest race of the regatta so far.  It was around 10-12 kts when we started with a nice little chop coming down the bay.  We had a good start on port tack and headed out to the right hand side of the course because that’s what we thought was going to be the favored side.  There was every indicator that it would be given the big black cloud on over there, but unfortunately it didn’t work out as much as we had hoped and rounded the top mark in 21^st. We sailed quite well from there and picked up boats on every leg to finish 15^thoverall.  This was our first race where we passed boats on every leg in a race, so that was a great feeling to have.

From there, the wind was on its downwind trend.  We had another great start, this time in the middle of the line on starboard.  We felt fast and pulled out on all the boats around us. We sailed a good beat and managed to get to the top mark in about 6^th-8^thplace.  Unfortunately, as we rounded the mark and I was hoisting the spinnaker halyard, my halyard and sheets tied themselves in a huge knot somehow and we ended up sailing a little slow for about a minute.  This cost us a lot of boats at the time and put us well back in the fleet from where we were.  We were able to climb back up on the second beat, but then on the last leg, the wind really started to fade and we lost out to a few boats at the finish because the boats that went the other way downwind got a little more breeze back towards the finish line.

Overall, we were happy with how the boat felt.  We felt fast through the water both upwind and downwind.  We had some really good tactical calls, and great starts in both of the races.  We also had a few mistakes that cost us some points, which is frustrating, but in a way I’m glad they are happening now so we can learn from them and keep getting better.

Tomorrow they have scheduled 4 races for us starting at 10am.  The forecast is for lighter winds again, which I’m kind of excited about.  You can follow along with the scores here!

Thank you for your continued support

Anna and Paris

January 30, 2019

21,4,6 was our score line today.  A much better overall day both on the scoreboard and with how we felt sailing.  These scores moved us up to 11^thoverall. With it being a challenging day, we are happy with our scoreline for the most part.

Race 1, we had a great start and headed out to the left side of the course.  We had a great lane and executed our plan, but we ended up being just a little shy of where we should have ended up and got a swallowed up by the two outside edges.  We rounded around the 21^stposition and were plus and minus boats the whole course until we crossed in about the same position.

Race two was much more dramatic to start with.  We ended up in a tight situation on the start line and ended up losing flow and fouling a boat with about 35 seconds to go to the start.  We backed out of the start line and were very slow.  We had to spin a penalty circle to exonerate ourselves and after, we finally managed to get back up to speed,  started on port below the whole fleet, and led to the right hand side.  Right at the start, the wind had clocked right about 20 degrees so we fortunately ended up in a good position.  We tacked over and crossed the boats to round the top mark in 1^stplace. From there the top four boats extended on the fleet and traded positions around the course the whole race. Unfortunately, we got rolled on the last downwind leg and ended up finishing 4^th in the race.

Between races the wind died down and then built back up in its original direction.  So after a short postponement waiting for the wind to come back, we got back underway and in sequence.

The final race of the day I would say was our best race.  We had an awesome start in the bottom 1/3 of the fleet heading out the left side of the course.  We held our lane and tacked just shy of layline.  We had great pressure  (and by great I mean about 4-5kts) and sailed up to the top mark. We rounded in about 8-9th and made the call to do a straight set with the kite.  During the downwind we recognized what the wind was doing (shifting back right like the previous race) and made our call to sail the right hand side of the course on the second upwind leg.  By now the wind was getting very very light and it was all about trying to keep your boat moving up the leg.  We did and passed one or two boats up the leg.  We were able to round right inside the Swedish team at the top mark and get over the top of them after we gybed set.  From there it was a straight shot into the finish.  It was slow and challenging as there wasn’t very much wind left on the course.  I had to ask Paris at one point if we were at least half way down the leg as I couldn’t see anything except out kite from where I was sitting. (Thankfully she said yes, we were over half way).

After that race, the race committee called it  day for us and we headed in.  We hit the shore, put the boat away, and had a debriefed the day with Coach Willie, snacking on paleo cookies and tea (made my Jo, Anna’s mom).

Tomorrow is forecast for a bit more breeze than we have seen this week.  We have four races scheduled to try and catch up from the first day of racing where we only got 1 of the three scheduled races completed.  We are both very much looking forward to tomorrow and are off to get a good night sleep.

You can follow the results here!

Thank you all for your continued support!

Anna and Paris

January 29^th, 2019

Today started the racing at the Hempel Miami Sailing World Cup, and it definitely wasn’t the start that we were hoping for.  We finished with a 24^th  in the only race of the day, but on a positive note, we weren’t penalized with a Black Flag (DSQ).

After a casual morning of waiting for what was scheduled as a 2pm start, we headed to the boat park around 11:30 to get the boat ready to go.  Because the wind was lighter and quite shifty, the race committee was unable to get races done as fast as they had planned, so we were held on shore a little longer than scheduled to make the racing run smooth. We finally launched sometime around 1:30, and headed out to catch the guys (49er) last race. We got out there, did our homework, got the boat feeling fast, and were ready for racing.

 

The first starting sequence went, and this is always the most nerve-racking one of the whole series. We were under a U-flag start, meaning if there was someone over the line within one minute of the start, then you will be disqualified from the race, unless it was restarted.  The fleet was very eager to start and we ended up having the start recalled. The next start was a black flag start, meaning the same thing as a U-flag, but there is no forgiveness this time. Again the fleet was over, and they caught 5-6 boats DSQ. We knew we were close, but thankfully not close enough and weren’t over the line.  The final start got off shortly after, and race 1 was underway.  We had a great start, but ended up a little too far down the line for perfect placement.  But we got off the line, had great speed, and were able to sail fast. We tacked onto port and sailed across the course. There was a band of wind just to windward of us that wasn’t coming down, but was filling in from the right hand side, and so the right hand boats got the pressure slightly before us.  We ended up 17^that the top mark, which wasn’t great, but it was what it was given we were on the wrong side of the filling breeze.

Downwind we gybed set and headed down the course.  We ended up gybing too early before layline and the boats that were behind us, extended into the corner and had better pressure and passed us.  We were probably about 28^that the bottom mark. The final upwind wasn’t much better in terms of passing boats, but on the last downwind leg, we were able to catch back up and pass about 4 boats to finish 24^th.

Although today wasn’t great, I am a big believer in trying to take the positives out of the day.  Our starts, all three of them, were really quite good.  And our speed in the lighter conditions felt really good too.  We have struggled with those two things the last few weeks so it was nice to have both of them lined up today.  And our big lesson learned/re-learned/re-emphasized is to never give up.  It could have been quite easy for us to have just checked out after the first downwind leg and not put much effort forward to try and pass boats given that the course wasn’t offering a lot of passing lanes, but we didn’t and I’m happy that we managed to pull back some boats at the end of the race.

Sometimes we make bad decisions, but once the decision is made, we can only look to try and make the current situation better.

Tomorrow we have 4 races scheduled starting at 11:30.  I’m looking forward to getting in multiple races back to back so that we can keep learning/re-learning all of these lessons.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support of us!

On to tomorrow!

Anna and Paris

 

Sunday, January 27th

Welcome to our first blog post! There have been some questions about an easy way to keep up to date with our sailing and as anticipated we plan to write a blog post for any and every important update about our team. We decided now is a great time to get the updates started as we prepare for our first big event of the year, the Miami Sailing World Cup!

Today was the first official day (registration day) of the Miami Sailing World Cup.  Paris and I wrapped up our registration today around noon and then finished all the boat work that goes along with getting ready for the event.  I’ll come back to that, but a little about our pre-regatta prep.

Last weekend we sailed the first regatta of 2019, the Midwinters Championships.  We didn’t have the most fantastic overall result (14^th/ 31), but it was about around where we should have been given where we are in the campaign and our big lack of racing to this point.  I say big lack, not because we have been avoiding it, but because we have had so many other little things to focus on to get us even remotely race ready.  Last fall and winter and all the way up to this point, we have been working on the other little things.  We really dialed in the boat handling and mechanics to the point where we are ready for any situation that would occur on the race course.  However, because of that, our tactical and starting game have been a little rusty.  And that’s how we really felt on the race course, rusty.  We made calls that as soon as we did them, realized that it wasn’t necessarily the call we should have made for 49erFX sailing, or similar little things like that around the course.

We did however, have one epic day of racing where we got two races in and finished with a 5,1 in some big breeze. But those days are always the most fun!!

After the regatta, we took two days off, before getting ready to sail again. We have been starting each practice day with some tuning with our Canadian friends, Ali and Mariah, and then we hopped on some racing that was run by some coaches, which included around 20-25 boats each day. It was great to take the lessons we learned from the last regatta and start being able to put them into racing these last couple of days. It built our confidence going into the regatta.

Now, back to today.  The measurement process required us to weigh our boats, which means de-rigging just about everything on it and removing almost everything to lift it on a scale to make sure it makes weight (there is a minimum weight the boat is allowed to weigh). Some boats come in a little under the required weight, so in order to bring it up to weight, we have to add corrector weights.  Once the weighing was done, we had to re-rig all the lines, put the blocks back on, put the mast up and the boom on.  And while we are doing that we have to mark each part of the boat with stickers and record the serial number in order to complete the registration process.  The second part, the sticker part, is not that difficult to do.  It’s the re-rigging of everything that takes a little bit more time.

We managed to get it done and then we hit the water in literally no wind just so we could make sure that everything was working.  We got out on the bay, did 2-3 tacks, pulled the kite up, gybed, pulled the kite down and the towed back in.

So, we are now ready to start racing.  Tomorrow we are taking off from sailing and have the opening ceremony in the evening. I’ll give a little more detail on the event tomorrow when we find out the plan for the week and the forecast.

Thank you for reading and supporting us towards Tokyo 2020

Paris and Anna