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Dave and I got a nice mention in Ben’s latest AST 49er update.

… Finally, we have been extremely fortunate to have David O’Connor and Scott Babbage assist us with our on-water testing in the last couple of weeks and are grateful to the Australian Sailing Team for helping get these boys to Qingdao for our first training camp. The boys have been immensely helpful in helping us find that speed edge we are looking for and Nathan and I are extremely grateful for their time and effort.

Hopefully the time we’ve put in so far has been useful, and hopefully our time in China can help the guys bag the gold medal. Olympic glory by association would be nice enough in itself.

It’s rare that I’m the fat guy in a group of sailors… even in a group of Moth sailors.

But that’s how I feel at the moment sailing a 49er. I’ve got more rolls than a bakery compared to the guys we’re tuning against… and that’s saying something!

… back to the gym…

If only the new 49er carbon rigs were around on Friday night…

I went out for a quick sail with Dave on his 49er in what was left of the gusty south-easterly, and we just put the kite up, did a gybe and were talking about how lame it was to be using an alloy rig in 2008, when next gybe, bang, we hit the piss and peel the Athens games mast off the boat.

Beautiful. An expensive 20 minutes on the water.

I caught the Point Piper YA mark as we drifted downwind, and tied up there as we tried to sort out the rubble. Thankfully we were in Sydney Harbour, and not Port Philip or San Fran in a run-out-tide. By the time we’d got everything together, the water police had arrived and gave us a tow back to the sailing club.

Welcome back to 49er sailing.

I’ve had a couple of people ring me in the last week wanting me to put some time into crewing on a 49er in the lead-up to the Europeans in March. Some people must think I know how to sail or something given the artificially-blog-inflated-profile I seem to have.

It’s pretty late in the game to be stepping onto a boat with any expectations of doing well… considering it’s an Olympic year and all. That and I haven’t got the build to do it brilliantly (I’m going to attempt to go sub-70kg for Weymouth).

And that thing called work gets in the way as well. And the upcoming JJ takes me out til the end of Feb. And a new Moth on the way by the end of Jan.

It’d be nice to train up with Nath, Ben and Emmett, but where am I supposed to fit it in exactly? And how am I going to pay for it?

There’s been plenty happening over the last couple of weeks, but limited internet connectivity has kept me out of the loop for the most part…

In 18′ news…. John and Pete had one of the best races of the year - without me on board. At least we can be happy with the new rig… the regular sheethand… not so much.

In Mothing news, I took out Rohan and Mark’s Bladeriders from Sorrento while the Australian (and foreign) Moth fleet was off racing in Wallaroo. After spending a few weeks in a coach boat watching 9ers, it only brought home how incredible the Moth is to sail. I even managed to pull off a bunch of 2-up foiling gybes with one of the 29er helms in about 15 knots. Nice.

And in the 9er news… I’ve been down coaching at the 29er Nationals and Worlds, from Safety Beach and Sorrento respectively. After some good, solid sailing from the heavy-weight Perth boys, Australia thankfully managed to hold onto the trophy in it’s own waters. The regatta proved a good test, and would have surely been disappointing for a lot of the teams who came in with high expectations. But then there can only be one winner… and unfortunately for Byron & Will, nobody will remember who came second.

And if you hadn’t noticed, Nathan & Ben pulled off a great win in the 49er Worlds. Awesome to watch and a great boost for them towards the games.

…

And once that event is over… season 09 for the 18s… and Nathan’s new campaign to cut Seve’s lunch.

Nice little startline video from Paul & Mark at the 49er Nationals… it looks like a headcam is the latest gadget for sailing geeks.