Hello everyone!

We want to start off with a huge thank you. The support from our last newsletter was overwhelming, and because of it, we were able to purchase a new (to us) set of sails for Junior Worlds next week.

Thank you to everyone who is supporting, following along, and being part of this journey. This campaign does not happen without your support, and we are so thankful for it.

The last few weeks have been a fairly accurate summary of our campaign so far: some great training, some questionable logistics, some freak weather, and a lot of learning very quickly. We’ve logged close to 200 hours of sailing over the last three months.   

Somehow, through all of it, the boat mostly survived, the sails mostly made it home, and Henry and I are as stoked as ever to get back racing.

We are in the middle of the harbour training in Kingston when coach’s phone starts blaring.

BZZ BZZ. Weather alert. Tornado incoming.

Just what you want to hear on a light-wind sailing day when you’re a steady 30 minutes away from the yacht club.

So we start racing back into shore. The breeze is steadily picking up and our visibility is rapidly dropping.

Then the sky goes from blue to red. We watch as a cloud literally drops out of the sky, and all of a sudden I can barely see the bow of our 49er. The wind is so strong that we are both trapezing while both sails are fully luffing. Coach drives by and screams something that neither Henry nor I can understand because of how loud the wind is.

We both agree that, with the lightning getting closer, the best play is to abandon the boat. So we unhook, and right as we plan to try and set the boat down, we get hit with a massive gust. I get sent flying off the back and Henry gets sent onto the mainsail.

We swim to the coach boat, climb in, and rip to the nearest shore: Wolfe Island.

Luckily, Henry’s grandparents have a cottage there, so we head inside and get a cup of tea while we wait out the storm. We call the Coast Guard to let them know that we are okay and that no souls are aboard the 49er.

Once the storm clears, we head back out to retrieve the boat. It’s still sitting there upside down in the middle of the bay.

Kingston Harbour is busy in the summer, and we clearly weren’t the only ones caught by surprise. When we got back out, there was a Coast Guard boat near the 49er and a helicopter doing low passes overhead.

It was a pretty cool experience to get a salute and fly-by from the Coast Guard helicopter. We righted the boat and sailed on in.

It also just happened that Andrew’s cousin was getting married that day. After a very quick derig and change, he made it to the ceremony with about two minutes to spare.

Regardless, it was an absolutely ridiculous day of training and a good reminder of the importance of checking for freak storms, having a backup plan, and knowing when to pull the plug.

And by some act of God, no one was hurt, and nothing on the boat was broken.

BEEEEP.

Four minutes to the start. Last race of the regatta. Team Storm has one job: make sure the second-place boat, the Swedes, don’t finish better than fourth.

A few minutes of match racing later, we see the fleet sailing away far ahead of us and the Swedish boat.

Perfect.

This would be the first time Henry and I had ever been happy being second to last. It was a good thing that our skipper Peter’s bread and butter was exactly this kind of situation.

So we sail the two-nautical-mile upwind covering them the whole way, intentionally trying to force both of us to the wrong side of the course so the other boats can get as far ahead as possible.

This week, we had sailed very consistently, so we saved our discard race for last. That meant we could still win the regatta even if we finished dead last. We just had to make sure the Swedes didn’t finish in the top three. Our job was simple: prevent that from happening.

As we sailed up the first leg in our 33-foot wooden boat, we could hear the wind start really picking up. We started in 20 knots, but by the time we made it to the upwind mark, it was closer to 30.

We turned our seven-thousand-pound displacement boat around the mark and, much like the boats in front of us, cranked our spinnaker to the top of the mast.

The boat was rocking hard in the waves, swinging from side to side. I was surprised our wooden hull was even holding together.

And then, as we were working a twist out of the kite:

KREEEEEK—BOOM.

The mast snapped in half and pushed Holly, our bowman, off the boat and into the water.

The whole team grabbed her by the ankles and brought her back on board. The mast had ripped her foul-weather gear straight in half. Once she was safe at the back of the boat, Henry turned into full salvage mode.

Together we cut through the already-ripped sails to get access to the halyards that were keeping the mast attached to the boat. He cut the boom off from the rig and stashed it down below. Then saved as much of the spinnaker as we could.

After we started cutting halyards, we realized there was some wire rigging that was not going quietly. But no problem for the young Henry Simms.

Henry went at those wires with everything we had, snapping a Leatherman in half, switching to another one, and then finally taking a hacksaw to those darned wires. With metal shavings flying everywhere, Henry was in the zone. All the rest of the team could do was yell at him to put his sunglasses on.

Once the wires and halyards were gone, we tied all the lines in the boat together to a big orange buoy.

As we lowered the mast into the water, or rather, as the waves sucked it down, we let out all the rope and chucked the buoy overboard.

As we watched the mast sink, we noticed a lobster pot conveniently right beside the buoy. So one lucky Marblehead fisherman might come up with a couple lobsters and a 45-foot mast.

Then we got the boat on a tow. Still unaware of the result of the race happening around us, Peter said:

“No matter the result, I’m proud of how we sailed, team.”

And I think in that moment of calm after the storm, I was especially proud of how we handled it. Through a fallen mast, a super shifty regatta, a rough start, or a tricky layline, we stayed calm, did everything we could, and made the most out of every opportunity that came our way that week.

To lead a world championship from the first day, wire to wire, all the way until the last race, says a lot about how long Storm’s core team; Peter, Holly, and Dan, have been working toward this goal.

And for Henry and I to get to be part of that team was truly special. I learned so much about sailing: tactically, technically, and mentally. It was an incredible experience.

Every day during Worlds, after sailing, there was some kind of function or event. It was really incredible to see how open and welcoming the IOD fleet was to Henry and me. As new faces at the regatta, we were greeted with nothing but open arms and smiles.

A big lesson we both took away from the regatta was that just because you’re super competitive on the water doesn’t mean you can’t be kind and generous off the water. That is something we have both worked on, but at this regatta it really solidified. It is something we will carry with us throughout our campaign.

Thank you to everyone who made the regatta possible. To the Andreasens, for being the most welcoming hosts, and for helping Henry and I get up to race weight with the most stacked kitchen we had ever seen.

Thank you to the race committee for volunteering their time to put on the regatta. To Greg and his team for organizing everything around the racing. And thank you to everyone in the fleet for being both fierce competitors and friendly faces.

So it turns out it was not quite so easy breezy getting our sails home.

We arrived at the airport at 4 a.m., walked up to the Lufthansa counter, and learned that we had displeased the policy gods.

Feeling as fresh as one can that early in the morning, Henry and I got to brainstorming.

We frantically tried to get on a different flight with another airline, but they seemed even less enthused about our 2.5-metre sail tube. We had already submitted oversized baggage verification more than three days ahead of time, but regardless, it was made very clear to us that the sails were a no-go.

One ticket agent looked at us and asked, very seriously, why we didn’t just throw the sails out and buy new ones. A fair question, if you do not sail.

So we got to work.

Andrew sprinted to the rental car centre, hoping they might be able to store the tube. But it turns out not a soul in Italy works before 8 a.m. So he sprinted back across the airport with the tube on shoulder and Birkenstocks on feet, maybe a poor fashion decision.

Then we got creative.

We bribed the check-in lady with a cappuccino and croissant, and ever so nicely asked if she could store the tube at the airport for a few hours while we figured out a solution.

Turns out a little caffeine goes a long way. Combine it with some pity, and apparently you also won’t get an overweight charge on your 100lb bag.

We were on flights for the rest of the day, so we had to figure something out quickly. We had made friends with our cab driver on the way to the airport, so we called an airport hotel and asked if they would be willing to store the tube for a few days.

With our team of superheroes assembled; the hotel front-desk attendant, the ticket-counter lady, and our trusty 6’5”, ascot-wearing Italian cabby, we hatched an airport extraction plan for our training sails.

The ticket lady left them in her office. Our man with the ascot picked them up in his taxi, which can reach speeds up to Mach 6 (we learned that morning), and escorted the sails back to the hotel.

From the hotel, our coach Fede, for the 21st time in as many days, saved our butts. He picked them up in his van on his way out of town.

Now keep in mind this plan was all put together as Henry and I were sprinting through the Verona airport. Huge shout out to voice-to-text on that one.

We were some of the last people to board our flight, but at least one of our bags made it.

Luckily, we should be able to enter phase two of the extraction and have the sails delivered to the Junior Worlds.

Operation LEFThansa was a go.

The funny part is that all three stories are kind of about the same thing: staying calm when the plan falls apart.

Whether it’s a tornado warning in Kingston, a mast sinking beside a lobster pot, or a sail tube trapped in an Italian airport, the answer is usually the same: think fast, work together, and keep moving.

As we roll towards Junior Worlds, we feel that our starting, boat handling, and tactics have improved like crazy. We still have a long way to go on this journey, and our expectations for Junior Worlds are not results-driven. We are hoping to test our processes, find the gaps in our sailing, and use it as the first real check-in on our longer-term campaign.

We have not yet sailed with another 49erFX, so our speed is still a big unknown. But just like we have all summer, we will adapt, learn quickly, and make the most out of it.

Thanks as always for following along and supporting the campaign. We’ll keep sending updates from the road, hopefully with slightly fewer emergency extractions, but no promises.

If you’d like to support the campaign, you can do so here.

If you know one person who'd find this interesting, forwarding this email genuinely helps. Most of how this list has grown is one person at a time.

Thank you!

Andrew & Henry