The young bucks of Mikee Anderson-Mitterling & Dave Hughes file this report on Olympic Pre-Trials. They are also putting together a piece for us on the difficult task of fund raising for their Olympic effort. It should be interesting reading, stay tuned for that.

Long Beach played host to the 2006 Olympic Pre-Trials in the 470 class. The event was sailed as a combined fleet – men’s and women’s -- with a total of 13 boats. Team USA 1734 finished 7th overall and 3rd men’s team with a DNC-DNC-DNC-7-3-3-1-1-2-DSQ. A bit of an alphabet soup and a learning curve after getting back in the boat after a long break, but still decent enough for 3rd men’s team.

We had a good time during the racing, learned tons, experimented with some new setup ideas, and worked on our technique. More importantly, our communication was at a top level and we felt our tactics and strategy were better than the fleet. All good things. The flip side, however, is that without any practice since Worlds we were a bit rusty on the little things, which cost us in the early going.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t race the whole event. The regatta could not have been scheduled any worse for us. Mikee’s full-time at school with an overloaded semester (his last before graduation). Mikee was in the middle of mid-term exams and we missed Races #1-#3 because he was sitting an Econ test. Of course, no offense to Mikee on this point – he’s in the process of graduating! We started the regatta on Day #2, which essentially became our ‘training’ day. Each night, Mikee would rush off to prep for the next exam, only to return the following day a bit more tired and brain-dead. Kudos to Mikee for making both happen on little sleep!

Race #7 was an exciting tacking an gybing duel that resulted in our victory. We won Race #8 by a leg. We rounded the first mark in Race #9 nearly last, but worked our way through the fleet to 2nd. Good stuff! Again, we're really happy with our overall approach to course strategy. The DSQ in Race #10 - the final race - was a leeward-windward protest on the final reach. We were leeward boat. There was contact. We protested. We got chucked. It was surprising to us, but the good thing is that we learned more about how to operate with protests – a skill within itself.

The Pre-Trials will count toward our overall US Sailing Team rankings, in which we’ve been #1 for the last two years. We now carry a 7th (not a 3rd) into the men’s ranking system that weighs the Pre-Trials, Grade C1 North Americans, and Grade 1 Rolex Miami OCR as all equal events, with Miami as the tiebreaker. Surely, it would have been nice to start the US Sailing Team rankings with a full regatta and some practice.

In the end, we’re happy with what we accomplished with the hand we were dealt. However, as athletes who pride themselves on preparation and training, it’s disappointing when you have to go into an event late and without training.

Now, we’re all the more fired up to make up the gap come January! Photo by GTS Photos.

Mikee & Dave

11/03/06