2023 Princesa Sofia Regatta
Palma de Mallorca, Spain, April 2023
This year’s 52nd Princesa Sofia Trofeo took place in Palma de Mallorca hosted by Club Nautico S’Arenal. This is a regatta filled with tradition and tough sailing. Many of our competitors and friends have been competing in this event for a decade - for Reed and I, this was our first go.
We arrived in Palma with three weeks of training scheduled before the start of the event. With our housing generously covered for free, we had fantastic accommodations which allowed us to spend more time on the island training. Leading up to the event we had over 17 days of sailing in one of the worlds most prestigious venues.
We finished the event in 97th after 12 races. With wind varying from 4 - 14 knots, this year’s Palma brought shiftier and lighter winds than usual.
Our biggest event to date before this was the World Champs in Halifax. The worlds was a tough event filled with the best sailors in the fleet. After struggling in the finals days of the event, we were determined to start the winter season with a better mindset. We wanted to work out why we lacked in two crucial areas of racing: starting and speed in a straight line.
This winter we had several training opportunities as a group with the US Sailing and US Sailing ODP team. This totaled to six 49ers, all at different levels and backgrounds. We trained with a mixture of different coaches, all of whom have different goals and different knowledge of what each boat is capable of. This mixing pot proved to be unhelpful this winter, and we did not finish where we wanted to in our first event of 2023.
Our poor result in Palma prompted a refresh in our training plan. We are not satisfied with our recent finishes and will continue to find different solutions to achieve our goals.
Despite a poor finish, we had strong moments throughout the regatta. We rounded marks in the top 12, and had several competitive starts. Ultimately our decision making and speed held us back. In the last three days of the event we raced in the bronze fleet, the bottom of three fleets separated by the first two day’s scores. Despite competing in a fleet filled with slower boats, we had some of our worst finishes in the bronze fleet racing. This points to the fact that we felt we slowed ourselves down more than our competitors did.
Reflecting on Palma has been an interesting and challenging take. To describe in a few words - unfulfilling and aggravating, yet it has also served as fuel for the fire and an alarm bell. This was an event to prove to the international fleet that our training had been productive. It hasn’t. This was a chance to show the U.S. Sailing team what we are capable of. We didn’t show that.
But that’s the nature of sports. Good training can be for nothing, strong preparation can be wasted. We started the first day of Palma with our boat in perfect condition, our bodies ready for action, and our minds ready to take on a challenge. We started the first day with two very competitive races where we lost out on two top 13 finishes. From there, our frustration built and our scores dropped. Ultimately, our results have not reflected the effort we have put in thus far. This has left us more motivated to prove that we can achieve our goals.
Our next training block in the Netherlands will be intense as we put our noses down and fight for improvements. We won’t put nearly as much emphasis on results as we use the next several months for training purposes and put all our energy into improving our 49er sailing skills.
