Helena and Jack Sailing for New Zealand in Youth Worlds in Poland

By Helena and Jack

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Helena And Jack Sailing For New Zealand In Youth Worlds In Poland

Project 2019-04-19 14:09:12 +1200

I'm Helena Sanderson, and I've been sailing with my sailing partner Jack Honey for the past 2 1/2 years. We both started sailing about 8 years ago. It took us a lot of training and 3 rounds of youth trials to win this spot and we are ready to do really well at the worlds.

It's been quite awhile since Bay of Islands sailors have represented New Zealand in youth sailing. Help the Bay of Islands Kiwis take on the world.

We are representing New Zealand in Nacra 15 class at the Youth Worlds in Poland in July. Some of our trip is funded, a lot of it is not and we need some help. We've created an easy page for our friends and family to support and cheer us on. Together our trip costs about $30,000, but our goal is set at $6000, which would cover our Yachting New Zealand team fee of $3000 each.

Any additional funds gifted will be used for training, coaching and travel to prepare for being in Poland in mid July. We are sailing in the Swiss Nacra 15 Nationals at Lake Geneva in Switzerland at the end of June, which is unofficially the Pre-worlds. We've just been given a Yachting New Zealand scholarship of $2500 that will pay for our Nacra charter at this event, which is amazing.

We are then training with other Youth Worlds teams in Lake Garda, Italy in early July.

These two events give us time to prepare and get accustomed to larger fleet starts and sailing in cold fresh water.

Our goal is to medal at the Youth Worlds.

Comments

Updates 6

Hi everyone,

It's been an awesome journey, the last few weeks have been hectic and filled with lots of great experiences.

Youth Worlds 2019 was the best event I've ever sailed in. Five days of super competitive and tight racing led us to finishing 6th overall in a 21 boat fleet.

The venue was very tricky and the predominate wind was from the north which meant that the breeze was pretty cold. Apart from that, the wind was very shifty and left big holes and patches of no wind across the course which meant that each race was a game of snakes and ladders. Even though it was really difficult conditions we were able to sail very consistently throughout the regatta.

In the regatta it became clear that the only way to win was to be as consistent as you could in every race and sail every race like a new race. The 13 race regatta was in a mix of conditions which was just what we hoped for. We are really proud to say that we don't have any conditions that we are weak in, and loved every condition that was thrown at us. Because of this we were able to come away with a result to be really proud of and know that we sailed our best. This regatta has given us a lot of key learnings that we can take away and improve on and some mistakes that we won't repeat next time. But most importantly it has given me a drive to do better.

The city of Gdynia is right on the shore of the Baltic Sea which is 80% fresh water. Poland was a surprise to us, and Gdansk has the most incredible old buildings that we were able to explore on our day off. One of the best foods we had while we were there was dumplings, made fresh they were either filled with savoury or a sweet cheese and fruit.

Jack and his Friend Jaime sailed for Spain in the 2019 29er worlds that just finished in Poland today. They placed 44th out of 170 boats with is pretty amazing considering they only had a day's training before the worlds started.

I flew back in to NZ two days ago and it feels great to be home. I go back to school tomorrow which will be a shock to the system. I've only been away from the boat for 2 weeks but I already miss it and can't wait to be back on the ocean again.

Thanks for joining us on this wild ride and backing us all the way.

Sincerely, Helena and Jack

Hi there, it’s Becky, Helena’s Mum. Our kids have gone into a sort of lock down, and I haven’t spoken with Helena since dropping her off with Yachting New Zealand on July 10th. But thought I could send through an update, as its unlikely we’ll get one out of these guys now that they are racing!

Lake Garda was a great venue for sailing, and Jack and Helena put in 6 training sessions in 4 days. They were with 7 other boats, most of them headed to Youth Worlds. By all accounts it was great, fun, and very useful sessions.

In the past hour, the 2nd day of Youth Worlds has finished for Nacra 15. They’ve now sailed 6 races, and are in 6th place. Yesterday was light wind and rainy. Today was clear and 15-18 knots for racing. I don’t really know that personally, as I took the Hungarian airline Wizz in a direct flight from Gdansk to Skavsta, Sweden for 70 NZD round trip. How could I not? I’ve been visiting friends here, successfully keeping my head out of Helena’s air space. I’m headed back to Poland tomorrow.

There’s some really gorgeous photos showing up on Jack and Helena’s Facebook page, if you haven’t checked in there. https://www.facebook.com/Jack-and-Helenas-NACRA-15-Campaign-2240091302872838/

For more photos and event information, videos and all the cool stuff, here’s the Youth Worlds Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/YouthWorlds/

Also, these races are being tracked through RFID and you can watch the races as they happen, and then they get archived and you can watch them in 4x, 8x, 16x if you choose. Click on Youth Worlds tab and choose a race. If its Live, it will say so. Don’t put too much stock in the RFID results though, it seems they get confused sometimes, and don’t always match results. Here’s link to following along- http://nacra15.sailracer.org/eventsites/live-screen-tracking.asp?eventid=214168&labels=S

And of course, results page- here you go, http://worldsailingywc.org/results/2019_gdynia_pol.php Then choose the class you want to see. Helena and Jack are Nacra 15.

These guys have worked blooming hard to be part of this, and you helped them get here. With great thanks, Becky

ps. Helena and I fly out only hours after the awards ceremony, so if you want the up to date information, head to those links, as I think we’ll do a post event wrap up next time we do an update in Pledgeme.

Hi everybody,

We're in Europe!

It's been a very crazy and busy last couple of weeks and we're very glad to be here.

The first day we arrived in Geneva we got told there was forecasted to be a heat wave of 40 degrees Celsius, and sure enough the very next day it was really hot. Unfortunately for us when it gets too hot all the wind gets sucked off the lake and we're left with no wind. We had hired a charter boat from the Nacra 15 dealer here in Switzerland and got lucky with a brand new boat! We had a few days of light air training with our coach Rosie, before the regatta and we got to get used to the venue. It was a very tricking venue and the wind was generally very shifty and fickle. There were a few other teams that we got a chance to know and train with before the regatta which was really cool.

On the first day of the regatta the wind was very light and after a couple of hours waiting we had only managed to get one race in because the other one had to be abandoned. Day two of the Nacra 15 Swiss nationals looked promising in the morning with a good eight knots however as the day went on the breeze started to drop so we were back to light wind racing, after many delays and false starts we finished at 8:30pm. The last day of the regatta was yet another light wind day and we were only able to get another three races in before the time limit. Overall we had a lot of ups and downs however it was a great learning event and was awesome to race in a fleet of 30 boats. We placed 6th in the regatta and have taken a lot of key learnings out of it ready to keep improving.

We've got a few days off then we're off to Lake Garda where we will be sailing in a training camp for four days with five other teams who are also going to youth worlds. This is a good chance to improve on the things we want to keep working on after our event in Geneva.

Thank you for helping us get here,

Helena

Hi everyone,

The last few weeks have pretty busy for both me and Jack, between sailing training and working out logistics for Poland we haven been letting you know how we’ve been getting on. Here’s an update of what me and Jack have been doing over the last few weeks.

Last weekend Jack competed in the 29er national champs and placed fourth with an international student from Spain who has been living in New Zealand for the past year. A noteable achievement considering the amount of time they have had sailing together.

As part of a school trip I went down to Auckland to the farewell ceremony for the Maiden and wave goodbye as it sets off on its first leg of the two year voyage around the world. The first stop is Honolulu in Hawaii. The purpose of this all woman voyage is to raise awareness of equality in the education of woman and to help young woman all over the world. It was such a privilege to be a part of something so special and be able to see them sail off into the horizon.

Apart from that we have also been training very hard in our Nacra 15. Last Thursday and Friday we had a coach, Liv Mackay up in the Bay of Islands to help us get some more practice in before youth worlds and give us a clear plan of the job we have ahead of us. As this one of our last training sessions in New Zealand before we leave we were very happy that the weather decided to cooperate with beautiful 20 knot breezes both days it definitely made it fun.

Our job from now till before we leave is packing up our New Zealand boat to make sure it’s all tidy to be left in a shed and all our spares and tools are organized to come over to Europe with us. With only just over a week till we fly out we have started packing the gear we want to take to Poland.

To everyone who contributed I want to say a big thank you, this would not be possible without everyone getting us a lot closer to our goal. So again thank you.
We will keep everyone updated with pictures and results over the next few weeks on our Facebook page called Jack and Helena’s Nacra 15 campaign.

We will also be doing email updates as apart of the rewards for pledgeme so you can keep up to date with what’s going on.

Kindest regards, Helena

Read article in Neighborly

Our tickets are confirmed, we are leaving New Zealand on June 22nd, flying via Shanghai to Zurich and then a short flight to Geneva. We arrive late in the evening after a long set of flights. We've given ourselves two days to get our feet under us, try to switch our body time zone and get our boat rigged and ready.

Pledgers 32

Pauline Mills

01/06/2019 at 12:12pm

"On behalf of Uncle Ed. Good Luck with your sailing endeavours. Best Wishes from England. Go for Gold! "

Pauline Mills

30/05/2019 at 6:10pm

"On behalf of Nan and Jenny, we wish you the best. You are an inspiration and the future of NZ sailing. Love xxx"

Beverly Dickey

30/05/2019 at 5:32pm

"All the very best to you both Rgds Bev Dickey"

Irma

30/05/2019 at 11:07am

"Bon voyage."

Alan Harris

29/05/2019 at 8:09pm

Mandy Passmore

28/05/2019 at 9:29pm

"Wishing all the best."

Lester Sowry

28/05/2019 at 8:53pm

"Keep focused and make us proud"

Bruce Gordon

28/05/2019 at 6:53pm

Nikki Mills

28/05/2019 at 6:47pm

Matt Taylor

28/05/2019 at 5:22pm

"Good luck guys!"

Suzanne Cashman Rain

28/05/2019 at 4:53pm

"We are cheering you both on and waiting to catch you at the end! We can’t wait to hear the stories. Sail on! Love the Cashman Rains"

Nadia Lehmann

28/05/2019 at 3:57pm

"Good luck-you got this. Kia kaha"

Dan-Carolyn Cashman

28/05/2019 at 1:07pm

Denis Garner

28/05/2019 at 9:52am

"Go Hard Go Fast... Denis, Geraldine and Gyanne"

Derek Enderlin

28/05/2019 at 9:32am

"Good Luck!"

Fleur Goddard

27/05/2019 at 9:55pm

"Fantastic effort Helena and Jack to get the NZ spot. Best of luck and we look forward to hearing how it goes. X from Goddard Whanau"

Katrina Benecke

27/05/2019 at 7:35pm

"Sail like there is no tomorrow Helena and Jack. We are so proud of you."

Hamish McMaster

27/05/2019 at 7:08pm

"You guys are going to smash this. Hope I can get over and see ya sail."

Anonymous pledger

27/05/2019 at 4:43pm

"I hope Helena realises her dream in sailing, from Geoff and the team at Shieling Lab"

Pamela Hsuan Bramwell

27/05/2019 at 2:55pm

"❤️ From the Bramwells! "

Stephen Rowe

21/05/2019 at 12:29pm

"Good on you Jack and Helena!"

Mary Gammon

17/05/2019 at 1:37pm

"Go Helena and Jack! From your Great Aunt Mary"

Jef Desbecker

16/05/2019 at 12:49pm

"Go fast, take chances!"

Suzanne Dent

13/05/2019 at 8:27am

"Good luck Helena, this is so fabulous for you."

Sasja & Frank

08/05/2019 at 6:12am

"Whoohoo!!!! Go guys! We wish you all the best! Frank, Sas, Storm & Sol"

Margaret Pyne

07/05/2019 at 2:35pm

"well done Jack and Helena, we are following your wonderful endeavours"

Grant Fletcher

06/05/2019 at 4:27pm

Dog Groomer Paihia

06/05/2019 at 9:20am

Celeste Seward Moriarty

06/05/2019 at 8:44am

Martin Sperring

05/05/2019 at 9:34pm

"Good luck!"

Followers 1

Followers of Helena and Jack Sailing for New Zealand in Youth Worlds in Poland

Becky Cashman