Panama Jack Racing

NEW NAME!...NEW WEBSITE!

2009-04-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone we leave for europe in four days! with our first event starting on the 22nd April in Calpe, Spain. Before that however we have the hugely competitive Young 88 Nationals on the 18-19th of April.

Also we now have a new name that is 'WAKA Racing', therefore we have to get a new website. The new address in http://www.wakaracing.blogspot.com/ . Like the old website we will be updating our progress and uploading reports on our events on the new website. We hope you all continue to follow us with a big year planned in europe.

Cheers,

The Boys from WAKA Racing!

4th in Hardy Cup

2009-02-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

It was a tough and disappointing day for the team, after going down 2-0 to Nikki Souter we then lost the petite final 2-0 also putting us 4th overall. We never really fired this regatta, we struggled in the pre start a little, purely because the boats are so manouverable making it hard to trap someone or use our skill and experience to our advantage.

Our Semi Final against Nikki was tough. With the girls being heavier helped their speed upwind but that wasn't the winner. She sailed really well and the two races against her she came off the line slightly better each time.
Evan Walker was then our opponent in the Petite final. He also had a tough loss after picking fellow RNZYS team Adrian Short as his opponent,going down 0-2. We sailed a little bit better against him but we still weren't at the top level we knew we had in us. We lost the first race in the start and then the second one we were ahead but failed to gybe for pressure and got passed downwind. It just wasn't our day

We would also like to congratulate the other RNZYS team Adrian Short for taking out the Final 3-1.

PJR into Semi Finals

2009-02-03T23:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we finished off the round robin,ending up with 9 wins and 2 losses. This Qualified us 2nd for the super 6 today. We had our first race today against Walker again,after throwing away the pre start after controlling the whole thing we were already to far behind to find any chance of passing. We won the next two races and then lost again to Niki Souter. We coped a penalty in the pre start and then had the lead for the whole race. After trying to get rid of it on the last downwind, we ended up getting another and then losing it, causing a huge mess and we finished right behind her. A little gutted we didn't win the race but knew it was only a small penalty that lost it for us. We then won the last race which put us into the semi final.

With Evan top Qualifier the other 2 opponents are Nikki Souter and Adrian Short our fellow RNZYS member. We know we haven't peaked yet and are looking to really lift our game tomorrow and try and knock this one off.

Thanks for all your support and we will post the final placing tomorrow. Special thanks to the RNZYS and Setafan Goldwater of Widex for all their assistance.

Panama Jack Racing

Day 1 Hardy Cup

2009-02-02T01:46:00.000-08:00

A strengthening Sydney Sea Breeze welcomed us today as we hoped onto the boats around mid day for the start of our regatta. We faced off first against Evan Walker who is the top ranked team. After an even pre start we lead back to the right hand side of the course. He gained an early advantage with a little shift and then put a very tight cover on us. With almost 15 consecutive tacks we finally got out of phase heading to the favoured right. He managed to hold a small lead at the top and we then gained a tad downwind. We put pressure on his spinnaker drop and did a nice job of setting up for our rounding. He came round slow and we came into the mark right behind with pace and did enough to luff a little and put a penalty on him. We then kept it close and did a great job of putting another penalty on him on the last downwind as he tried to trap us to get ride of his other. A great start to the day and the regatta. The rest of our races were all very close. Winning 4 out of 5 today. Our only loss came in the 3rd flight against Nikki Souter. We had a better start and held a very small lead for the best part of the race. We struggled to extend during the race as her speed was very good. We rounded the second top mark a couple of lengths head and she did a good job of taking our air. She ended up rolling over the top of us and we couldn't quite gain back what we had lost. She sailed a very good race and we learnt a couple of valuable lessons.

Tomorrow we will finish off the round-robin with the goal of making the top 6 and then the top 4. Our boat handling Isn't quite up to scratch but hopefully after another day the shock of jumping into a tiny boat will wear off.

Good bye for now

PJR

Final Day of Warren Jones

2009-01-31T02:07:00.000-08:00

Going into the final day of the Warren Jones Regatta we had the right to choose our semi-final opponent. After a little bit of deliberation the whole crew agreed on choosing Robert Gibbs, who we have raced against many times and we thought we had an advantage in the prestart. This turned out to be the right decision with the first race being a very close race but the next two Phil dominated the pre-starts with us winning all three. Putting us through to the Finals.

By now the breeze had started to increase to 12-14 knots and after a tight series in the other semi-finals our final opponent had been decided to be Evan Walker. Our team was quite happy about this as we thought as the wind strength increased we bacame more confident in our boat handling and speed againast Evan.
Due to time restrictions the finals series had to be reduced to a best of 3 format (first to win two races). Race 1 was close all the way round with Evan leading from the start all way through to half way down the last run with multiple double tacks being frequent. We were close enough on the last downwind to take his wind and actually passed him after a big luffing dual. He then tried to do the same thing to us and partially succeed but then tried to gybe onto starboard in front of us without completing which resulted in a double penalty and a hole in the side of his boat for him. With us taking the race.
Race 2 was also close with us coming off the start line with a penalty against us but we then managed to eek out a lead that looked to be enough to complete our penalty turn.
Until our second batten came out of our main sail and then our pit man (Will Tiller) fell over board. After all this we still had the lead and we tried fit our turn in but Evan ended up getting past. He held on well in the final run with more luffing battles to take the race.

Race 3 was the decider and we knew we could win it as long as we got an even start. Phil did superbly controlling Evan in a number of dial ups to force a penalty on him and to still win the start. All we had to do was keep our noses clean and the regatta was ours. We managed to do this and took the series 2-1.
The team was estatic with the result as this is a regatta we really targeted. We'd like to acknowledge all the other teams who pushed us hard through out the event, especially Evan Walker and Keith Swinton. The win means that we now qualify for the Danish Open (World Match Racing Tour Event) and the Open de Espana (Grade 1 event) that are both big stepping stones for the team and will pit us against the best match racers in the world.

Big thanks must go out to Stefan Goldwater from WIDEX and the RNZYS for helping us attend this regatta. Also Chris and Margret Chapple for being wonderful hosts (2nd year in a row) and the Royal Perth Yacht Club and WA Yachting Assosciation for putting the event.

The team is now in Sydney preparing for the Hardy Cup starting on Monday.

PJR Win Warren Jones!!!!

2009-01-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today we won the Warren Jones winning the semis 3-0 and the finals 2-1. This qualifies us for the Danish Open (World Match Racing Tour Event) and the Open de Espana (Grade 1 event). Full report to come. This is a big result for the team.

Big thanks must go out to Stefan Goldwater from WIDEX and the RNZYS for helping us attend this regatta.

cheers,

PJR.

PJR Top of the Table

2009-01-29T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Having completed both Round Robbins we have ended up on top of the table with 15 wins and 3 losses. We sailed exceptionally well today by winning 5 out of six races. The first was against Reuben Corbett when we put two penalties on him in the dying seconds of the pre-start when he tried to put his bow between our boat and the committe boat when there was no room. A little tap on our stern and alot of yelling from both teams ended with him coping two penalties. The next tough race was against Keith Swinton. Once again we came out firing and got a penalty on him in the dial up. We split tacked off the line and then rounded the top mark right behind him. The rest of the race we stayed this way with us trailing nice and close as he still had a penalty to complete. We sailed the last downwind two boat lengths behind him until he slowed right down to try and attack us. This was a little too late for Keith as he ran out of runway and we crossed the finish line behind him but with him having to still take a penalty. Another great result beating the top ranked skipper.

Evan Walker was our next opponent and he turned out to be a tough one. We didn't quite get the start we wanted and didn't get the first cross. This proved to be crucial as we found no passing lanes, with him doing a good job of keeping a tight cover on us and stayed a few lengths ahead for the whole race. Disappointing but we were still happy.
We then raced Robert Gibbs in the last race with the winner of the race taking the top spot on the leader board. We had another fantastic pre start putting a solid two penalties on him and held our lead for the rest of the race. This means we qualify 1st after the double round robbin and have the tough job of selecting our opponent for the semi finals tomorrow!!

The Team is wrapped and looking forward to the very tough final series tomorrow.

Another big thanks to Stefan Goldwater of WIDEX and the RNZYS for all there support. It is much appreciated.
Also there is a link off our website www.panamajackracing.blogspot.com to the Warren Jones website, which has live radio broadcasts and results streaming (We are 4 hours behind in time difference).

Warren Jones So Far

2009-01-28T03:41:00.000-08:00

After two very long days of racing on Perth's Swan River, we are more than half-way through the Warren Jones regatta.
After day one we were very happy with one narrow loss to fellow RNZYS team Ruben Corrbert, where we were penalised on the finish line. We had a couple of very close races but our experience and boat handling pulled us through.
Today saw us come up against the local boy Keith Swinton first up, who was undefeated. We knew we had to be on form and we were with us having a fantastic pre start with us coming off the line ahead with a penalty on him. We rounded the top mark first with him close behind and gybe setting. This proved to be the right call as at the bottom he just got bouy room on us. We sailed the next beat well and caught right up, gaining the starboard side. Tacking back on a good shift we came at him fast making him tack and also causing him to infringe by tacking to close. Another penalty for him, forced him to take one imediatly and we won comfortably from there. Great race and a good win for the team.
The next race we lost to Evan Walker in another very close race until our spinnaker halyard broke on the last leg. We were a little gutted but stayed focused. We went on to win the rest of our races for the day, but not with ease as we beat Robby Gibs by only a few centimetres.

Great day in all but some tough ones for the boys tomorrow to finish off the round strong!!

We'd also like to that thank Stefan Goldwater from Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for all their support.

Slowly but steadily!

2008-12-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

After the lastest release of the ISAF World Match Race Rankings PJR is now 51st. This is our best ranking achievement to date and comes before two of our major regattas for the year that are held in Australia, in January. So all things going well we should be cracking the top 50 rather soon!

Y88 Thursday Night Sprints

2008-12-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday night the core crew of PJR competed on the Y88 Panama Jack with Stefan Goldwater helming. 3 races were sailed in moderate and very shifty conditions, off the RNZYS.

We had a good night out with consistent starts and good performance around the track, which resulted in our placings for the night being 2, 2, 1. This meant we were top boat for the night and have closed the gap overall in the series to a couple of points.

On a side note the competition is starting to heat up with Flash Gordan coming out to compete for the first time in a long time and it was also good to see Undercover back out there again.

Crew for the night:

Stefan Goldwater (helm)

Jimmy Williamson (trim)

Garth Ellingham (main)

Phil Robertson (tactics)

J Banger [Jono Spurdle] (pit)

Brin Wilson (floater)

Brad Farrand (bow)

Cheers

PJR.

Keel Boat Nationals

2008-11-17T16:05:00.000-08:00

After a promising start on the first day, with the team winning a race, PJR missed out on the top ten (gold fleet) by one point. This was highly frustrating as we had shown glimpses of form but couldn't manage to be consistent. We put this down to the fact that we actually haven't competed in such a high quality fleet racing regatta in a long time as we have been focussing on our match racing.
Alot of positives were taken from the regatta with many lessons learned with regards to trim and tactics.
Some photos of the event which was sailed in Platu 25s are shown below.

PJR now 53rd in the World

2008-10-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Panama Jack Racing has achieved its best ever ISAF World Match Racing Ranking moving up 11 places from 64th to 53rd to make it New Zealands 3rd highest ranked team.
The team is currently in the process of training for the NZ Keelboat Nationals as well as the NZ Match Race Nationals, coming up in November.

Y88 Thursday Night Sprints on Panama Jack

2008-10-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first night of the always exciting Young 88 Thursday night sprints. We had a good night with no damage or incidents occuring (which isn't always easy in sprints!!!). We comfortably won the first two races by a 1/4 of a leg with excellent starts and good boat speed. The conditons were a light north easterly with a big incoming tide and a massively favoured pin. For the last race we tried to port tack the fleet but with a minute to go the wind completely crumped and shifted way right pretty much hanging us out to dry. We ended up putting the spinaker up just to get through the start line and actually used it as a code zero up wind with good effect (turns out our "special blue" is quite good at this) passing two boats to leward on the first beat/reach. The rest of the race was pretty much a follow the leader race, reaching from one mark to another and as much as we tried we could not catch up anymore. The funniest part of the race was that we managed to have the spinnaker up for 80% of the race.
Overall a fun night racing. You can check out the results here:
http://www.rnzys.org.nz/Sailing/Results/Young88Racing/tabid/161/Default.aspx

Crew for the night was:
Phil (helm)
Garth (main)
Jono (J Banger) (pit)
Guy Pilkington (D/W Trim)
Brad Farrand (Floater)
Jimmy Williamson (U/W Trim)
G unit (Bow)

Y88 Owners Nats

2008-09-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Day 1:
Conditions: 15-20 knots. Choppy

5 Races were completed. We sailed reasonably well but felt we were lacking in speed. We put this down to a serious lack of weight on the rail and sail set up not quite being right. It was a frustrating day as we showed glimpses of where we expected to be but just couldn't finish the job. This left us 4th at the end of the day with Triple 8 leading Abracadabra, both who sailed very well all day.

Day 2:
Conditions: 12-16. Flat water

After playing around with our set up and a good talk about what we were trying to achieve for the day we got stuck into racing. Big positives were that we had solid plans before we started about where we wanted to go and Stefan got us some really good starts to achieve our plan. This resulted in a really solid day with the results of 3,1,1,2,3 (Turned out we were OCS). Unforunately due to the OCS this put us in 3rd. However we felt we learnt alot about our new set up and a few other little tricks which resulted in good speed all day!

Big thanks to PCC who did a great job in easily getting 10 races in to complete the series.

Next up on the calendar is:
- Squady Wed night racing
- Y88 Thurs night sprints
- Bucks Match race
- Keelboat Nationals
- NZ Match Race Nationals

Cheers from PJR

What we are up to?

2008-09-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks the team has had a nice break from yachting catching up on work and university. We have been in the stage of planing our calendar for the next few months.
That starts this weekend with the Young 88 Owners Nationals, sailing with Stefan Goldwater on his 88 Panama Jack.
We came 2nd in the regatta last year and are hoping to take the top prize this year!
The crew for the regatta is made up of our regular crew who we have all sailed with a number of times. They consist of:
- Stefan Goldwater (Skipper)
- Phil Robertson (Tactician)
-Garth Ellingham (Main)
- Robs Hielkema (Trim)
- Jono Spurdle (Pit)
- Wil Tiller (Floater/Strategist)
-Scotty Morrison (Bow)

We went training on Tuesday night with eveything going smoothly and are looking forward to the event thats starts this Saturday the 27th and finishes on the Sunday 28th.

NZ Nations Cup Trials

2008-09-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

After two Round robins we qualified 1st. This meant that we were able to choose our semi-final opponent with us picking Reuben Corbett. On this day we had to substitute crew as Will Tiller who had been doing bow for us all week had injured his knee badly. Our replacement was the familiar face of Dave Miller who had been sailing with us in the two previous regattas.
In the semi-final the racing was close with the breeze building throughout, getting up to 20 knots. We took the series out 2-1 to advance into the final against Adrian Short who beat Josh Junior 2-0.
For the finals the breeze continued to build with match-racing moves going out the window and survival mode definately switched on. It was a close fought battle coming down to the final race after we won the first race and Adrian won the second. In the last race we got a strong start to windward and had the plan of protecting the right therefore when he tacked we were going to dial them down creating a port/starboard situation. Unfortunately when they tacked we were too busy hiking and an opportunity was lost with them getting to the right of us. They managed to just beat us to the top mark and in those conditions first to the top mark won the race as once you turned downwind you were gone. This left us absolutley gutted as we thought we had the race under control but taught us a valuable lesson.
Congratulations to Adrian and his crew who were on fire all week.

For the team we take a couple weeks break from sailing and then get back into some fleet racing with the Young 88 Owners Nationals coming up on the 27-28 of September. We will be sailing on Panama Jack with Stefan Goldwater driving.

1st Day of Nations Cup Trials

2008-09-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

Hi all after one days rest of arriving back in NZ we were at it again in the NZ Nations Cup Trials. This event is being sailed in the RNZYS Elliot 6m's, which we have sailed in plenty of times. Our team for this event is Phil Robertson, Garth Ellingham, and Will Tiller.
The first day went well with the team performing solidly, continuing on our good form from the Ficker Cup. The conditions were light with some big shifts coming through.

Results:
Panama Jack Racing - 6 wins
Josh Junoir - 5 wins
Reuben Corbett - 4 wins
Adrian Short - 4 wins
Laurie Jury - 3 wins
Jono Rankine - 2 wins
James Williamson - 2 wins
Graeme Sutherland - 2 wins
Mike Bullot - 0 wins

Next race day is on Saturday.

Cheers

PJR

Final Day of Ficker Cup

2008-09-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Going into the final day of racing we were tied in first place with Brian Angel. As this regatta was only two round robins and had no semis and finals we knew that the title would be decided on who beat who in the last round robin.
We started the day with two confident wins and then suffered a close loss to Chris Van Tol. The next race was against Brian Angel and we knew that whoever won this race won the entire regatta. Going into the race we had a game plan to get a windward start and get to the right hand side. Our pre start was strong and when the gun went we had achieved our plan however it was judged that both boats were over the line when the gun went and both had to return behind the line before starting. During this process the right hand side had become even more desirable but it was very light conditions and when we went to return behind the line we couldn't lay the boat end of the start line. This meant we couldn't get to the right hand shift first as Brian just managed to lay the boat end. This effectively cost us the race as although we kept the race close, the big right hand shift had made the the race a bit of a one way track with Brian winning the race and the regatta.
We'd like to congratulate Brian and his team for sailing a really clean regatta. For us it was a great week of learning how to match race in a much bigger boat than we were used to and all things considering we sailed really well.
Today we fly back to NZ and have one day of rest and then start our next regatta the NZ Nations Cup Qualifier.
At this stage special thanks need to be mentioned to Scotty Dickson for letting us train against him (stealing his tricks) and helping us find crew for the event. Also to Stefan Goldwater of Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for their ongoing support of our team.

Thanks heaps see you all back in NZ

Final Day of Ficker Cup

2008-09-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

The regatta came down to our race against Brian Angel which we fought hard in but unfortunately lost. This meant that we ended up 2nd for the regatta which is still a good result. We fly out today so a full report will be posted soon.

Ficker Cup Day 2

2008-08-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

The team was amped and ready for the days racing, breeze was light again, 5-8 knots. We started off with a convincing win against Stone after having a leg lead against him yesterday in a dying breeze and the race committee unfortunatly abandoning the race. The second was against Van Tol, the top seeded competitor. We had a slightly better start with him tacking off and ended up with a big split. We managed to grab one of the few left hand shifts of the day and crossed, staying ahead for the rest of the race.
Race 3 was against Brian Angel,we got a start to leeward of him which wasn’t ideal considering the course was skewed towards the right, meaning it was a long port tack. We felt a little faster but couldnt quite get a cross we tried to cross behind but got dialed down and we fell behind enough for him to defend the rest of the race.
We had the old pro Dave Perry next and were slugging it out with him in the pre start. Unfortunatly we came out with a penalty and started having to dip him after we were slightly over the starting line. However we were heading to the favoured side and picked up the right shift and had a convincing cross. Once again we felt fast and held him off for the rest of the race.
Up next was our training partner and 11 time defending champion Scott Dickson. We had a great start, heading right again and once again crossing after picking up the right shift. This race was alot closer around the course but we fought hard and held him off by 3 legnths.
Another win in the last race resulted in us finishing the day off with a 5-1 total. We have got 5 more races tomorrow to finish the round robbin and the regatta. We’re tied for 1st with Angel at the moment with 5 races left and are happy with how everything is going. We need to work hard tomorrow, we need even or better starts, sail fast and we can hopfully pull off a solid result.
Once again the longbeach yacht club turned up the hospitality for us with beers and hot dogs after racing. This was folloowed by a very hilarious umpire debrief where we all debated the penalties of the day.
All in a all great day boating.
Cheers,

Panama Jack Racing Team
Also we would like to acknowledge the support from Stefan Goldwater of Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

1st Day Ficker Cup

2008-08-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
For the last couple of days we have been in Long Beach, California getting ready for the Ficker Cup. This is a match race regatta held at Long Beach Yacht Club with the winner of the event getting an entry into the prestigious Congressional Cup. It is held in Catalina 37s which are very big boats ( we've named them "tanks") that have a crew of six. For this regatta we have added to our crew from New York with Stefan Goldwater flying over from NZ and also picking up a local all American hero the Mooseman, Max.

We have been out training a couple times against "local Legend" Scotty Dickson trying to get our head around the boat handling side of these beasts. Therefore when it came to race day today it was only right that our first race of the regatta was against Scotty. The prestart was quite intense with us getting a penalty on him just before the start gun went. The rest of the race we focused on keeping as close to him as possible and when it came to the finish and he tried to compete his penalty turn we just snuck by to take the race.
In the next two races we won one and lost one, which was disappointing as in the one we lost we were ahead three quarters of the way up the first beat. The was a valuable lesson in choosing the right time to tack back and cover. Especially as it was light wind and tacks are so costly.
We started a fourth race with us performing well but half way through the race with us having a handy lead the wind died and racing was called off for the day. All and all it was a positive start to the regatta and hopefully we can build on this tomorrow.

Cheers PJR

We'd like to acknowledge the vital support from Stefan Goldwater of Widex and also the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Race Day 3

2008-08-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today was Day 3, the second day of racing, and once again we had to go looking for breeze. Conditions were much the same, with 4-8knots of wind. We were confident in the morning knowing that our first day had shown promising signs and we were happy with how we were going.

Our First race was against the Japs and we dominated the pre start but just couldn’t match their speed in the light wind and lost by a small margin.
The next race against the girls went as planned and we had a healthy lead off the line and lead for the rest of the race.
We then took on the Italians, having an intense pre-start but got taken out by the umpire boat with 40s left and ended up 4 boat legnths behind off the line and it stayed that way for the duration of the race. We requested for redress but they didn’t want a bar of it which was quite disappointing.
Race four was against top seed Arbuzov from Russia.This was a tough race and very exciting.We got a penalty on him off the line and ended up having a split tack start. We sailed a nice beat, tacking tight to leeward of him at the top mark. At this point we got a bit greedy and luffed him to try and get in front at the top and the umpires awarded us a penalty (cancelling out the penalty Arbuzov was owing). It was a 50/50 call that went against us but it wasn’t necessary on our behalf. We had a close downwind and he just got bouy room at the bottom mark and managed to hold us out the rest of the race.
Our last two races were against Walker (AUS) and Van Tol (USA). In both races we had terrible pre starts and came off the line well behind. We managed to string the rest of the race together this time but couldn’t quite gain enough around the short course to pass them.

A disappointing end to the round robin with only 4 wins and 7 losses but some valuable lessons learnt for the whole crew. We felt with another round robin we could have climbed the score board but with so little wind they had to scrap the rest of the racing and just the top 4 continued.

The crew is looking forward to the next regatta (Ficker Cup) and hope that all we have learn’t can be put into practice and can bring home a top result. This is definitely possible as we felt that everyone at this regatta was beatable but we just couldn’t manage to put a complete race together.

Special thanks must be mentioned to Stefan Goldwater from Widex and the RNZYS for there support.

2nd Race Day

2008-08-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Just had an extremely long day will post a full report tomorrow.
Ended with 3 wins and 2 losses unlucky not to have won them all.

Day 1

2008-08-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

Hi all
Today was meant to be the first day of racing but there was no wind all day meaning no racing.
As there are only six boats it means that each team has blocks of races in the boats and then has a big break. Luckily today the draw works out that we had a big break to start with meaning that we didn't spend all day out on the water roasting in the sun.
Bad news is that the forecast isn't any better for the rest of the week.

Cheers

Panama Jack Racing

We would like to thank Stefan Goldwater from Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for there vital support in making this experience possible.

2008-08-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today was practice day and registration. Everything went smooth and felt good with the crew all looking forward to getting out and start racing. The boats are slow and very underpowered this is not helped with the very light conditions. Racing starts tomorrow...

Report 2

2008-08-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all from Panama Jack Racing,

We have just woken up to the fantastic news of what happened in the Olympics with Tom and Nick last night. An awesome achievement for both!

Over the last couple of days we (Garth and Phil) have continued to have the sights of Rhode Isaland shown to us by the Vogels. This involved visiting the Herreshoff Marine Museum and the America’s Cup Hall of Fame which gave us a true history lesson on some of the amazing yachts and characters that have competed in the Cup. It was really cool to see a few famous kiwi faces there!

America's Cup Hall of Fame

Phil on Dylan Vogel's Windskater

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to the Vogels and head back to New York City to the Knickerbocker Yacht Club. After our 4 hour train trip to get there it was great to see that the rest of our team for this regatta (Rob and Dave) had arrived at the club safe and sound from NZ. We ended up waiting around at the club for a good couple of hours until our hosts came and picked us up.
Today is the is registration and practice for our first regatta, the Knickerbocker Cup. This is an ISAF Grade 2 match racing event with the winner receiving an invite to the World Match Racing Tour event, the Bermuda Gold Cup.We will be racing in boats called Colgate 26’s that have a crew of four.
Racing starts tomorrow our time (16 hour difference to NZ).
Check out our Blog; panamajackracing.blogspot.com for daily reports as well as links to all our upcoming regatta event websites.

Finally a big thank you needs to go out to Vogels for an awesome trip up in Jamestown. Also to Stefan Goldwater from Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for there vital support in making this experience possible.

2008-08-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

On the 15th of August Phil and Garth flew out for New York. As our first regatta starts on the 20th we decided to go visit some friends, the Vogel family (whos son Garth coached when the America’s Cup was in NZ). They live in James Town, Rhode Island, New York.

After 25 hours of travelling in plane, taxi, and train we arrived finally to be kindly picked up by Dory Vogel at 6:30 am there time. As her husband Scott works for Southern Spars and travels to NZ often she informed us that the best way to avoid jet lag was to battle through the day without sleeping. So our challenge began!

Scott took us and Dylan (his son) to a cool little diner for breakfast, which is apparently the same one one he used to go to with his Liberty crew everyday before racing in the 1983 America’s Cup.

Scott then took us on a Tiki tour of Newport that included a visit to the local boat yard, which not only had Speedboat moored there but was the home to the Volvo Puma Team! We had an aweswome time there having lunch with the Puma Skipper Ken Read who gave us a few tips on the Catalina’s 37 (boats used for the Ficker cup) and what not to do at the after party if you win the Con Cup…
Rob Salthouse (fellow kiwi) then gave a us an indepth tour of Puma Racing which was really interesting. He also informed us that a local pub would be showing the All Blacks so we then headed there for lunch and a few beers.
This proved to be a fatal move because after the game was over the beers effectively put us to sleep! Luckily Dory came to the rescue and picked us up, uploading us with Starbucks aswell!
In the end Garth lasted till 8 30pm before crashing and Phil put in a massive effort lasting till 10 45pm.
We had a Great Day and are glad to be back in short, tees, and jandals!

Bucks Match Race Day 2

2008-08-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

We arrived today to find out that our semi final opponent was Laury Jury who we lost to in the semi at the last Bucks regatta and was the highest ranked skipper at this regatta. However we felt confident with our boat speed against him.

Semi Finals:
We came out firing winning the first two races in the best of 3 series to advance to the final.
In the other semi Jono Rankin also won 2-0 against Mike Thorpe.

Finals:
This meant we would race Jono in the final. We felt confident we could do the business as in the last Bucks regatta we beat him convincingly 2-0 in the play off for 3rd/4th. However it was not to be as Jono beat us in the first race after a 50/50 umpire call forced us to do a red flag penalty turn at the bottom mark effectively costing us the race.
In the second race Jono and his crew got a slighty better start and managed to take full advantage of the favoured left hand side of the coarse. They nailed every shift up the second beat and we simply couldn't get back to them with Jono winning the race and the regatta.

We would like to congratulate Jono and his team (which included Dave Miller, who is coming to the states with us).
Also say a big thanks to BBYC and Laury Jury who organised a great event.

The event was perfect training for us even though we were missing two members of our normal crew (thanks to Cam and Mouse who filled in). We feel confident we can build on this momentum to get some top results in the upcoming events.

Bucks Match Race Day 1

2008-08-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

Cam Horne and Tom Bentham (mouse) joined Panama Jack Racing to sail with Phil and Garth for this regatta. The team got off to a shakey start in the morning (1 win - 2 losses) to end the round robin with a 4 win - 2 losses score line, to qualify 2nd equal.
Match of the day for us was a come from behind victory against Laurie Jury where we wiped off an early penalty on the first downwind as well as take the lead and went on to win the race.

The Top 4 are:

Mike Thorpe (Top Qualifier)
Jono Rankikn
Phil Robertson
Laury Jury

We look forward to a good day sunday which is when the semis and finals will be sailed in best of three series.

In Training

2008-07-19T20:41:00.001-07:00

The team will be competing in the Bucklands beach match racing regatta.
Next is the Knickerbocker Cup in New York followed by the Ficker cup in Los Angeles.

The team is training hard on Wednesdays and Saturdays in preparation for these coming events.