Henken | Tobias Sailing

April 18-19, 2019

Sailing World Cup Series Genoa has come to an end as a light and tricky regatta. On the 4th day of racing we scored a 11 and a 6 in winds just as light as the previous days. That concluded the qualifying series which was suppose to finish on Day 2, however, because we didn’t complete 4 races within Day 1 and 2 and there was no racing on Day 3 because of no wind, the qualifying series ended on Day 4.

We squeezed into gold fleet sitting 22nd and we had one day of final series to try and jump up in the results. On the final day of racing we had marginally better breeze and we managed to finish 4 races! We scored a 16, 13, 18, 9 out of a 25 boat fleet. The last day of racing consisted of really short races that concluded in really tight fleet racing. Two boat lengths at some points in the race would separate you from the top half to the bottom half. There was a lot to play for in most situations and it was all about learning how to win the small battles when they mattered most.

In the end, we finished 21st in gold fleet. Moving up in the results every time we got off the water, even if it was a small change! Although it’s not the result we are looking for, we realize that every time we go racing there are many opportunities to get better. Especially in the conditions we had over the past week! We started this regatta knowing it was going to be a practice event, trying new techniques that we wouldn’t have usually done, and stepping out of our comfort zone. We have a strong appreciation for how challenging light air racing can be after this week and we are eager to get better in it!

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We will go home now for 2 weeks and rest before we head to Weymouth, England for our next event, the European Championships, starting May 13th-19th.

Thank you for following alongside us. We love all the support we can get!

Anna & Paris

April 16 – 17, 2019

Not much has been happening over here in Genoa regarding the wind and racing unfortunately.

On Tuesday, since the 49ers had an early start time the previous day, it was our turn to start earlier. We were scheduled to have a 11am start, however we went down to the boat park and got postponed onshore until 2pm waiting for wind. Our D flag eventually went up and the FX fleet went out hoping to get some racing in.

The race committee started our race in a 3-4 knot dying breeze. We got off the line right in the middle in an okay position, but noticed that the very little breeze we had was shifting hard left. We tacked and crossed all the boats that started at the committee boat, however everyone that started closer to the pin did the same. As we got farther up the beat, we noticed that it wasn’t going to shift back right anytime soon, so we decided to ride the header back to the left side of the course earlier in what we thought was the best breeze to do that. Unfortunately, there were a lot more boats left of us than we thought and we rounded the mark at best around 20th.

The wind has now dropped to about 1-3 knots and for a second we thought the race was going to be abandoned, but about half way down the downwind leg, we realize that the race committee was desperate to get any racing in, so they were going to keep us racing. We caught a few boats on the downwind beat by gybing early to the gates and rounded the right gate looking downwind. We had a much better last upwind beat trying to stay in as much pressure as we could to keep the boat moving as fast as we could make it go. We happen to pass quite a few boats on the last upwind beat rounding the windward mark in 11th. On the last downwind leg, we passed one more boat on the gybe and finished the race happily in 10th. The winners of that specific race was scored OCS (over the line at the start) and therefore we finished 9th.

Despite not being more on the left side on the first beat after the start, we persevered through the whole race and never gave up. This paid off as we passed 10 boats over the course of our very very slow and light wind race.

On Wednesday not a lot happened as were had a later start and eventually were postponed onshore again because of lack of breeze. We sat around the boat park for awhile patiently waiting for any breeze to come in, but we were not lucky and racing was called off.

Right now we only have a total of 3 races and we need 4 races in order to split into gold and silver fleets. Hopefully there will be some more breeze later in the week!

Anna & Paris

April 7th

The Trofeo Princesa Sofia regatta wrapped up yesterday. We finished in 13th overall and top American boat! We didn’t have the greatest last day of racing which moved us away from qualifying for the medal race on Saturday, so for us our racing ended Friday!

We had three races on Friday in a building breeze and swell! First, let’s just say the racing was fun and wet and got a little wild in the last race of the day as a squall came through towards the end of the race.

In the first two races of the day, we didn’t have the greatest of starts. We held a tight lane out towards the left which was where we wanted to go to, but we would have liked the freedom to put the bow down a little more.

In the first race, we were sitting about 10th when Anna missed the trap and fell off. Luckily she dropped the main sheet and Paris was able to grab it and Anna held onto the trap bungee and stayed with the boat. We didn’t capsize and got back on the boat quickly, but unfortunately lost a couple of boats. We managed to pick up one or two on the final leg to finish in 13th. The second race was similar except we both stayed on the boat that race and finished with a 16th.

Heading into the final race we needed a very good race to qualify for the medal race. We needed to get a top 5 at least. We had again a decent start and rounded the top mark in a top 10 position. We were set to gybe on a great lane back to the leeward mark where we would have picked up a couple boats who went a little too far, but then it didn’t go as planned. We started a gybe and then our leeward wing hit a wave and spun the boat and we whipped into a capsize. We lost the whole fleet and then we were playing catch up! We sailed hard despite being last by a long way knowing that anything can happen. The last downwind leg was when the squall started to come though. The wind picked up even more and made the waves exciting to navigate around. We focused on our boat and sailing fast (and upright) and ended up beating 6 boats across the line to finish in 19th.

Overall, we are happy with our performance. We had many races in the top 7 including finishes and first mark roundings. We were happy to see the work we put in February and March starting to pay off. We still have a long way to go and we know that but we are happy to see glimmers of what we are looking for.

This was the second event of our Olympic Test event and Pan American Trials, with Miami being the other event. Despite being top American at this event, we didn’t have enough points (overall positions) between us and our fellow USA teammates and they won the qualifying spots. Nevertheless, we we will keep training hard as the Olympic Trials start later this year.

We head home for a week before we head back to Genoa, Italy for the next stop on the World Sailing Cup.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Anna and Paris

April 4, 2019

Today was an awesome day of sailing! It was windy! Wavy! And fast!…and wet at times. We finished the day with a 12, 7, and a 21 to put us 11th overall.

The wind was up and the temperatures were down when we launched this morning. The wind was in the 16-22kt range for our racing and the temps stayed in the high 50’s. The waves had kicked up to a nice 3-4ft chop which made for some exciting downwind sailing.

The first race of the day we had a great start and didn’t feel smooth around the course. We capsized upwind on a tack on the second beat and rounded the top mark in 21 , but sailed well enough on the downwind and passed 9 boats to finish 12th.

The second race was much better. We had a decent start and sailed smart to get to the top of the fleet at the first mark. We held 4th downwind and then on the second upwind leg, we passed the boats in front of us by playing to the left of them, but a few more boats played harder left than us and we lost a few finishing 7th.

The last race was the most heart breaking race of the day! We sailed an awesome first leg and rounded the top mark in 3rd. Downwind we rolled a boat and gybed on a tighter layline. Unfortunately we found a couple waves that were a little too close together and couldn’t get our bow around them and ended up pitchpoling. It was such a bummer at the time, but we tried to sail hard and catch up as much as we could, but the damage was done and we ended up 21st. We could have sat and sulked about it but I think we took away the fact that we were quite happy with the way sailed to that point.

Tomorrow is the final day of gold fleet racing with three races left to decide the top 10. We are looking forward to the racing! You can follow along here.

Thank you for your continued support

Anna and Paris

April 3, 2019

Today was the first day of Gold Fleet racing and the conditions were great, but very tricky.  We had three races.  The first race we were scored OCS, then finished the day with a 3,7 to move us to 9th overall.

We had a later start again today as the boys fleet sailed the “morning shift.”  We headed out in a slightly building breeze, but the sea state was already there with an underlying swell and chop on top.  There were low clouds with breaks that provided some conditions that kept us on our toes.

The first race, we had a pretty good start, obviously because we were over lol, but that aside, we didn’t have that much of an advantage off the line.  We had a tight lane that we held for a while then were able to break free and put the bow down and go fast.  We tacked when we wanted to and about 30 seconds after the tack, we thought we were going to make a cross on a boat, but missed it by a couple of feet and had to spin a circle for breaking a rule.  We spun our circle, but unfortunately it was early enough in the race that a lot of boats passed us and we struggled to come back through the fleet that race.

The second race was much better.  We again had a great start and sailed in a lane off the line.  This time we made the tack that we wanted to and crossed the boats that we needed to no problem.  We rounded the top mark in third and held that whole race.

The final race was the trickiest of the day.  We didn’t have the best of starts, and had to tack out almost immediately.  We found a couple of tight lanes early on that lead us to be able to get out into a wider lane and sail the shifts that we wanted to.  We climbed back to round the top mark in 6th.  We held that on the down wind leg.  On the second upwind leg, we tacked early out of the mark and headed to the left side of the course which ended up being a little more favorable.  We made up some distance on the other boats that rounded in front of us and rounded the top mark in 4th.  On the downwind leg, we got caught a little high on starboard and the two boats behind us were able to surf into a lower lane which lead to them rolling us after the gybe.  We lost those two boats and right at the finish we lost one more to finish in 7th.

Overall, we are pretty happy with the day.  We are having fun and still learning a lot every race!  Tomorrow the conditions are looking a little different, so will be fun to race in something different.

Thank you for your continued support of our campaign.

Anna and Paris

April 2, 2019

It was the best weather we have had in Palma since we have been here!  It was “warm”, the sun was out, and there was wind..not a ton of it, but enough to have some great racing.   We finished the day with an 18, 6, 16 putting us in 13th place overall heading into Gold fleet racing tomorrow.

The racing was super tight in the blue fleet today and points were all over the place on the leader board.  We are happy with how we sailed and learned some valuable lessons to take into the final series.

The first race we had a decent start and managed to get to the top mark around 9th.  We struggled a little on the downwind and lost boats on each of the downwind.  The last downwind leg of the race there were about 10 boats that crossed the line at about the same time.  There was lots of yelling and screaming amongst the boats, but it was just a matter of who was going to drift across the line the fastest.  Unfortunately for us, we were under a lot of boats, so we were not drifting as fast and crossed the line in 18th.  

The next race was much better.  We had a great start and were able to sail the beat we wanted to around the course.  We sailed around the 6-7th position the whole time and finished the race in 6th place.

The last race was setting up to be a fantastic start.  We both made little mistakes at about 5 seconds to go and basically lost control of the boat and started late.  It was very frustrating at the time, but we moved on and got to the top mark 17th, having worked hard to pass boats.  We picked up a few boats on the downwind and then lost one on the upwind.  We rounded the last mark in 16th and held that position to the finish.

It was a bit of a tough day to swallow results wise because we were in positions much better than what our scores show, but we were super happy with our speed today in the lighter air and chop, which was something we have been really working on.

We are looking forward to tomorrows racing in the Gold fleet.  The top 25 of the 66 boats will move to race together in the finals.  With the fleet sailing how it is, the racing will be close and every point is going to matter.  We are very excited to get back on the race course and battle it out with everyone.

You can check out the results here.

Thank you for your continued support,

Anna and Paris

April 1, 2019

Today was the first day of racing at the Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofia regatta! And we had quite a good start to the regatta. We finished the day in 6th overall with a score line of 5,2,11.

We are quite happy with these results! The conditions were about 6-8kts with some small chop. We have been working on our speed in these lighter conditions so it was great today to see it pay off!

It was a long start to the day. We were supposed to launch around 10am, but with the wind being light they kept us on shore until noon. Then we headed out to the course and sat waiting for wind for another 2 hours. The wind eventually shifted around to a nice sea breeze and we got right into racing!!

The first two races we didn’t have the best of starts, but were able to sail our way into a solid lane and used speed to get us to the top mark in a good position. We rounded the top mark in the first two races in the top 5 and were able to hold our position around the course!

The last race we had a great start towards the pin end and were able to tack and sail across on top of most of the fleet. However we struggled a little occasionally with our speed and rounded the top around 10th. Downwind we miss judged a layline and ended up loosing a boat or two and on the upwind we maintained our position despite not fully sticking to our game plan (which turned out would have been the best plan up the beat). We fought back a couple boats on the downwind and crossed the finish line in 11th. We were a little disappointed with the finish because we started so well, however it was a good lesson learned because we recognized we needed to adjust our set up before the  race because of bigger chop.

Tomorrow we have three more races scheduled starting at 1pm! You can keep following the results here!

Thank you for your continued support!

Anna and Paris

March 31, 2019

We have one more night before we start racing at the 50th Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofia regatta here in Palma, Spain.  We are excited to get on the start line tomorrow morning at 11am with the huge fleet of FX’s we have here and start racing!

We both arrived in Palma on Sunday the 24th.  We landed shortly after each other, met up in the airport, and made our way to our apartment to drop our bags off.  From there, we headed down to the boat park to find our boat that we will be sailing for this and the next three regattas.  The boat is brand new so we had to put it all together, so despite this taking a bit of time, we were able to rig it the way we wanted to.  After one and a half days of boat work, we got the boat ready to sail and we hit the water the next morning with our coach, Willie McBride.

The wind the first day of training was high teens to low 20’s sometimes gusting higher. We picked a great “break the boat in” day!  But we did ok, and only had one capsize due to running into a wave in front of us.  The rest of the days consisted of a little speed work and then practice races.  We had different wind directions for each of the days of practice so it was great to see multiple conditions.

Its been a while since we have sailed against the international fleet and we are definitely excited to see how our winter training in Miami has worked.  We feel faster and more comfortable in the boat, and now, the focus over the next couple events is racing.  The big focus is learning boat placement and tactics in these boats.  I’m really excited to feel comfortable enough that we can sail the boat now, and that is what we get to focus on moving forward.

We start racing tomorrow morning at 11am.  We have 66 boats in our fleet so we will be sailing in split fleets for the regatta. The first couple of days are qualifiers and then the last three are the finals before the medal race. After the qualifying series the top 25 boats overall will be in gold fleet and the rest will either be one silver fleet, or silver fleet and bronze fleet depending on where you finish. You can follow along with the results! Just click here!

Thank you all for your support, 

Anna and Paris

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