VeniceiShares Cup
9th June 2009
Venice was an amazing venue for the first event of the iShares
cup 2009, we were racing with St Marks square in the background and
the iShares photographers got a brilliant picture of the boat
flying a hull past a Gondola with the churches behind. Ten teams
raced in a 300m wide by 800m long course, the teams consisted of
one Americas cup outfit (BMW Oracle), two offshore racing multihull
campaigns (Groupama and Gitana), two middle east catamaran
campaigns from Oman Sail, an owner driven team from France. The
sailors came from a wide variety of backgrounds with teams
comprised of Olympic medallists and numerous world and national
champions.
This season the level of competition at the iShares cup has
stepped up since last year. Most of the teams have put in plenty of
training time pre-season, and even though the season is only just
warming up the standard is already red hot. For the iShares boat we
have a new team from last year:
- Shirley Robertson is the skipper
- I am doing mainsheet
- Nick Hutton - trimmer
- Johnno Macbeth - bow man
This regatta was the first time for the iShares team to race
together in a regatta, and it was a steep learning curve in the
confines of Venice’s waterways.
The size of the course starting line made it difficult to hold a
position next to the other boats as only 8 of the 10 boats could
get on the line at the same time. This put a massive priority on
getting to the front row of the start line early and then hold
position to be able to get off the line clear. The winds were also
very light and unstable in direction which meant that the start
became even more important and through the course of the weekend we
became one of the top teams at holding a position on the starting
line. As a consequence of this our results gradually improved and
by Sunday we were consistently one of the better teams off the line
and this lead to our best race of the weekend a 2nd on the last
day.
The next iShares Cup event is in Hyeres at the beginning of July
and we start training in a couple of weeks. We will be working hard
to make gains on the opposition for the next regatta, which will
most likely be completely different with a windy venue in
prospect.
For now I am back in the UK and getting all of the organisation
together for the next few events in the calendar. I will be in
Cowes racing Atomic the Farr45 for the next two weekends, before
going out to race the Round Texel regatta in north west Holland
during the 2nd week of June.
Many thanks to all of Hugh Styles sponsors, Towergate Mardon,
Gill, Holt, Marlow Ropes, Tacktick, NACRA Europe, Sailing
Networks.
Hugh Styles
Extreme 40, Olympic Sailor and Coach
Tel +44 7712760524
Email: hugh@hughstyles.com
Skype: hughstyles
www.hughstyles.com