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420 Worlds. RIVA , ITALY
REPORT #7 After our "no racing day" yesterday today is actually fine though not hot enough again to be sure of either the strong morning northerly or the stronger afternoon "Ora" southerly. We ended up racing in light 5 to 10 knot winds with sloppy small waves. The result was that the "fly weight" Italians and others really excelled with most of the leading boats really suffering. Some really obvious brand differences with sails as some clearly did not suit these conditions. Whole brands were either at the front or out the back. Unfortunately for our girls we suffered from both issues and had some pretty disappointing results. I did some research into the reason behind there being a maximum of only three races per day. The race officer told me he would like to change it as we were rapidly losing heats that could not be caught up. It turned out to be that the 420 class placed the restriction. I then wrote to the class representatives to ask for a change of sailing instructions for the final and only day left to give the RO the option of more races. I received a nice written reply basically saying they had no intention of changing and everyone accepted this situation by entering the regatta. Hard and fast and not really in the interest of the sailors. They did suggest that they would look at it for future regattas. Final day today and the schedule changed to an 8 O'clock start time with only the Gold Male and Female sailors on the one course area. At the club at 6-15AM for preparation and the weather is finally returning to normal. Racing started in a really nice 17 to 20 knot breeze. The leading boats plus our girls wearing huge smiles about the breeze. We had a much better first race with an Eleven despite a pretty average start possibly because of the appearance of the first "black flag" after the first General recall of the regatta. The second race was again away on black after a general recall. The girls away to a better but not brilliant start. At mark one we round equal first with the three leading boats in the regatta breathing down their necks. The high intensity training of the leading boats, who all attended the recent World youth championship, showed in the downwind legs as each time they sailed through us. Each time upwind we beat them. After the downwind finish we are in fifth and VERY happy. Race three and again Aimee aad Chelsea lead at the top mark then lose a few downwind. They sail REALLY fast up the last beat to round with a commanding lead which they held to the finish. Extremely happy team, going out with a win in the final heat of a World Championship. The Kiwi Girls are VERY worthy winners as despite tearing their Spinnaker in half on the first reach they finished 16th, in a race they had to count, to win the title by a few points. Presentation as is usual for regattas not in Australia was soon after the last race. Also as usual for 420 regattas it was a noisy affair with no respect from sailors or parents to the procedures. The officials battled over the noise rather than trying to fix it and eventually all was concluded. We finished loading our 420 and coach boat and headed into town for a celebratory dinner, that was early and quiet as we had an early start and 14 hour drive the next morning. Now safely back in Alfeld with our hosts, Marianne and Wolfgang, for some needed rest and packing away of boats. Chelsea will leave us and head for the 470 Worlds in Denmark where she is sailing with Stacey Omay. The rest of team Negri/Hall heading for Australia and what's left of winter. Cheers, signing off. Casso and Team Negri/Hall
Yesterday the weather reacted as it does everywhere when a major championship is on. It went completely abnormal. Very light and unpredictable. The race officers decided to only go with one course area again and sent the ladies out first for a 12 noon start. Four and a half hours later and several attempts to get a race with lots of following the start boat and still no racing. Rain and an approaching very black cloud caused the Water police to send the sailors back to the beach. The race officer was not too happy as we were only under postponement. The fleet were told to return and were given time to launch and sail half an hour to the course. More waiting around, increasing but still light rain and thunder. Suddenly all hell broke loose with really heavy rain and lots of thunder and lightning. Fortunately only about 25 knots of wind though the visibility was about 50 metres. Racing abandoned and the fleet quickly picked up by the rescue and coach boats for a horrendous tow home. Very difficult to see anything driving upwind into REALLY heavy rain. Everybody home safe and very soggy. The plan for tomorrow is to send the boys out first in the early morning and to only use one course area as similar conditions are expected, hopefully only the wind conditions minus the storm. The Ladies will try for a start at midday. More news later, Casso and team Negri/Hall Report #5 02/08/09 Later in the day and, after some rig fine tuning, we head out for two races. The boys will have three. The club have a RULE here that only three races can be sailed in a day so our morning race counts as one of our three. Race one of the finals and the girls away to a pretty good start. At mark one we are second to a German boat. The leading Brazilian team is back in eleven. The girls sailed a faultless race in second until the last mark when the fast finishing Brazilians passed them. Third at the finish and two happy Aussies. Quite impressive considering they are now racing only the quickest 42 boats. (Girls elevated to 2nd after the Brazilian boat was disqualified) Race two and the girls get a shocking start. Despite planning to start at the boat and go hard right up the very favoured side of the course we started mid line in the second row. Halfway up the beat and we are the most left boat and looking really bad. Last around mark one. One lap later and up to 30. At the finish we are in 23 and obviously not blaming the result on a lack of boat speed. The same German team in first. The Brazilians and Kiwis are consistently placing high and looking good overall. Conditions were tough today for everyone. The leading British boys from the qualifying (and current World youth champions) have something like a 1, 23, 17 and 11 score card. Aimee and Chelsea are still very upbeat about their chances and looking forward to tomorrow. More later. Casso and team Negri/Hall Report 4. 31st.JULY No wind for the start of the day and very overcast and cool with drizzling rain. Without sun and heat the "Ora" afternoon wind is not created so we waited onshore for a few hours. The RO decided to use only one course area with the boys at 1- 00PM and the girls at 3-30pm. We arrived on course 45 minutes before our start time to find the boys has only completed one race despite the wind in this area of the lake being 8 to 12 knots. The RO insists on REALLY long courses despite the time constraints. The boys completed their three races and then we were on. Race four and the girls got away well at the pin with the Brasilian and good Italians. Undfortunately one bad tack later and a collision resulting in a penalty and they were under pressure again. Sailed to the opposite side to the fleet and rounded in 34. Good recovery to finish 19th. Race five started at 5-45PM with the girls away well again. Half way up the first leg we are in tenth and looking good. Several minutes later and some missed shifts and we are around twenty approaching the mark. Huge confusion and crashes with our girls in the middle of it. Around in 30th place. They finished 34 and very dejected. Back on the beach at 7-00PM for a de-brief and some serious counselling. On the plus side we will still make the gold fleet for the finals unless they have a pretty bad race 6. Disco party at the club was not supported well as all sailors were tired after a long day. Lay day tomorrow so time for some R and R. More later, Casso and team Negri/Hall Report #3 30th. JULY Three races today and the Aussie girls are on edge before the start. Race one and the girls got away well in the middle of the line, tacked over as soon as possible and headed right in about 8th place. Unfortunately didn't continue right and rounded the to in 18th place. One lap later and they are in 6th place. Brazil and New Zealand in the lead. At the finish Aimee and Chelsea were 5th and very happy with their speed. Race two and again a great start, however at the pin and not the preferred boat end. Great recovery upwind to be 12 at the top. As in the first race the top reach is only 10 degrees off the close hauled course and impossible for spinnakers. Not sure what the race officer is thinking. The girls sailed consistently for a tenth place finish. A little bit slower than wanted so we did some upwind work and made some minor changes which got the boat jumping again. Race three and away well up toward the boat end. Worked the left well and rounded with the lead group, again Brasil and New Zealand well placed. At the finish team Negri/Hall were 6th and pretty happy with their day. As they are the only Aussies they are in the toughest of the four groups with the top ranked teams from each country. The Brazilian team are the current World Youth Champions. Overall we are lying tenth and looking forward to day two when there is more wind predicted. The added breeze will help the Aussies as their major competition are considerably lighter and will be quicker if it lightens off. More later, Casso and team Negri/Hall World 420 Report #2 30/07/09 The wind was less than predicted however it was a really nice sailing breeze, around 12 to 14 knots. The committee as usual here on Lake Garda laid the start line with so much pin bias that it was just possible to clear the line on Starboard tack. This is necessary because everyone wants to get to the right side of the course first to take advantage of the massive lift under the cliffs on that side of the course. Without the biased line there would be chaos at the boat end. We were under the impression from the coaches briefing that the ladies course would be closer to the left side of the lake and less prone to this rush to the right. Not so on the water. The ladies and Open courses were both on the right side with the Open course further upwind. Aimee and Chelsea started really well about two thirds down the line. They waited for the first opportunity to tack for the right side and took it. Unfortunately as usual the first boats to the cliffs were the ones that opted to start at the boat end and immediately tack. Getting to the cliffs first more than compensated for the loss from starting at the “wrong” end. At mark one the first four boats with a clear lead were those boats. The Brazilian girls that recently won the World Youth Championship were first and showing the reason why they won. Our girls were sixteenth around which was excellent considering they could not take advantage of the right side. Most teams including our girls opted to pull out before the finish to rest up for the actual heats. Race day today and the wind is very light with an expected 8 to 16 knots for race time. Girls are both edgy but confident they have the pace. Due to go on the water now so more news later. Cheers, Casso and team Negri/Hall 290709 We have been in Sunny Italy at the fabulous sailing venue of Lake Garda for three days now. The first day was spent unpacking and preparing our brand new 420. The boat was built less than one week ago. Late afternoon we managed with help from Barry Johnson to get the measurers to measure our boat as a practice for the official measuring the next day. Those that have attended big regattas will know the incredible value of avoiding sitting around for hours waiting in measurement lines. We had a potential major issue as the measurers would not accept our measurement form. The form normally goes to the National authority in Australia who then issue a Certificate. As the boat is only days old and will never go to Australia we tried, in vain, to get them to accept us with only the form. Barry Johnson as Australian international measurer was immediately on the case and enlisted Bob Chapman at Yachting Australia to help. Day Two. Aimee and Chelsea hit the water in the morning for some training. The wind was unusually light however it was nice to get the cobwebs out. After lunch and a de-brief we hit the water in a nice 18 knot breeze. The boat was set up to the girls Perth tuning and we were well off the pace against the quick boats. After a de-brief we planned to spend the next morning, avoiding the lighter winds, to re-tune the rig. Day Three. Very productive morning. We basically started from scratch and using the "JESS Casso" tuning base we changed everything except the spreader length. Mast position, mast rake, tension, pre-bend, chocking, foot strap location were all changed. We hit the water at 2PM in another nice 15 to 18 knot breeze. There were over one hundred boats out for some practice. We lined up with the British, Swedish, Italian, Brazilians and others (roughly 60 boats) for some "coach organised" races. The girls started at the back in the first race and finished tenth. Second race, a good start, and first to the weather mark. The boat now has serious pace and height, both of which were missing before the re-tune. After another hour or so working on our boat handling we were back on the dock amid the chaos at 5-15pm. De-brifed a much happier team and then home for dinner. Day four. I arrived at the club this morning to some great news. Barry and Bob Chapman came through for us and I was handed our much needed Measurement certificate. HUGE relief!!. Measuring still going on for half the fleet. Barry has been tearing his hair out trying to get the measuring process working. The locals are insisting on measuring ALL previously measured equipment. With 213 boats and roughly 18 hours of measuring time it's NEVER going to happen. We are laughing as we don't have to worry and can now spend the time remaining on the water. More practice later today before racing starts tomorrow. More Later, Casso and team Negri/Hall
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Report #6 4th. August 
An early start today as the 6th race of the ladies was not completed and was rescheduled to this morning at 08-30. Down at the club at 6-30AM and preparing for battle. The girls did not start well and fortunately made up really good ground to finish 20th. (18th after protests) The catch up was essential for them to qualify for the Gold fleet finals. The first six races make up the qualifying and the overall place achieved carries forward as race one in the finals. The girls therefore carry over a 37 as race one of the final series which comprises another 11 races. If enough finals races are completed they can drop their carry over race so it's anybodies series at this stage. 
Bad news this morning on arrival at the club. Aimee and Chelsea were disqualified in race one. There was a hearing in their absense last night and they were disqualified. The girls checked the board, for protests, before leaving last night. Unfortunately they hadn't waited until close of protest time "plus half an hour" as the instructions say. They also had not told me that there was an incident to be concerned about. HARD lesson well learned. Not the ideal way to start the day. We spent some hours getting the focus back on track before going on the water. 
Practice race yesterday.