ADF UPDATE: Galen Richardson

Dear Athlete Development Fund (ADF) Contributors,

My name is Galen Richardson and I am a Member of the RCYC High Performance Team. For the past couple years, I have received contributions from the ADF fund at the Club and it has been a great help towards my sailing campaign. My sailing partner, Jake Adair from the Kingston Yacht Club, and I are currently sailing the 49erFX, the Women’s Olympic skiff class boat. We have recently transitioned from the 29er into the FX and are planning to use it as a stepping stone in the Men’s Olympic class of the full rig 49er.

This past summer we had a huge amount of success traveling North America in the 29er and finished the summer in beautiful Kingston, ON. We started our summer traveling in July to Pointe Claire Yacht Club in Quebec for the annual TRY regatta. We have a great relationship with the squad in Quebec and it is great to support their local regattas as they do with ours. Quebec provided two days of tight and intense racing. We finished the regatta in second and were excited for what was to come in the rest of the season.

After the TRY Regatta, we headed to Bristol, RI for a training camp followed by the 29er US Nationals. During our training in Bristol we were able to work on our starts and holding our boat in one place on the start line. After our training block, we moved our boats over to New Bedford, MA where the 2018 29er US Nationals were taking place. After a couple of days of training and getting a feel for the venue, we were feeling ready and confident to start racing. Wind forecasts were looking good with some big breeze for the three days of racing.

We ended up having three days of big breeze, but unfortunately only raced two of the days. The second day (Saturday) sailing was abandoned due to big breeze and thunderstorms in the area. We finished the regatta in second place overall behind another Canadian boat from Vancouver. As well we were the top youth boat. It was great to see a lot of the training we had put in come out in our racing and allow us to achieve the results we were looking for. We then headed down to Kingston, ON for our final regattas of the summer. After some training in both the 29er and the 49erFX, we were ready for our next event, the 29er Canadian Championships held at the Kingston Yacht Club.

The Canadians provided us with four days of intense racing. Kingston produced all sorts of conditions from light and shifty winds on the first day to 15+ knots of wind on the last day. We were able to stay mentally tough throughout some both physically and mentally challenging conditions.

We were super happy to push hard and come away from the event as 2018 Canadian Champions! Up next we had a block of training in the 49erFX before two back to back events. First, we had our 29er North American Championships in the 29er and then CORK OCR in the 49erFX. In the end, two of the four days of racing for the NA’s were abandoned due to lack of wind. On the last day we had our work cut out for us to perform to the best of our abilities in the circumstances that we were given. We ended up finishing the 2018 29er NA regatta in second place only a couple points behind first!

We were now ready for CORK OCR, but unfortunately had a setback sailing out on the first day. Jake experience excruciating pain in his abdomen from a fall that we had taken while training two weeks prior in some big breeze. It came back that he had a broken rib and was out for the regatta. Thankfully, former National Team member Justin Barnes was in town and willing to fill in for the rest of the regatta. It was great to have Justin in the boat, as I was able to learn a ton.

Finally, our summer ended in Toronto with the 2018 Canadian Youth Championships being held out of RCYC. With Jake still recovering I had the opportunity to sail with Will Bonin. It was amazing to race out of my home club. It was so awesome to see all the volunteers come together and do a fantastic job. A huge thank you to Felicity Clark and her team for such a great event.

Jake and I are now back a training out of Kingston part time and in school full time. We are preparing for two more events that we have in Oyster Bay, NY in October before we finally finish our season. If you would like to learn more about our campaign and follow our journey, follow us on Facebook at Richardson Adair Sailing. Once again, a huge thank you to those who donate to the Athlete Development Fund as some of this summer may not have been possible without it!

Posted: 9/27/2018 11:57:03 AM by Galen Richardson | with 0 comments

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ADF UPDATES

With over 90% of Club Members contributing to the Athlete Development Fund (ADF), we're setting the stage for further improvements as our Club is represented at all levels of competition! Thank you, on behalf of all RCYC athletes, for your continued support.

Here, our ADF Athletes will share the short articles on racing, training and their development goals.

To learn more about RCYC's Athlete Development Fund, please visit: rcyc.ca/ADF

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