I recently travelled to Italy with my teammates Mike and Martyna accompanied by our coach from Sail Canada, Dan Cunningham. We arrived with 9 days scheduled for training and preparation before the racing began.
The conditions were varied during training with light, medium and heavy wind in mostly flat water sea state. Sailors from other nations were there early for training as well. Each day we spent some time training independently and then some time doing practice races put on by the coaches. Each day the fleet got bigger and at one point there were up to 50 riders on the start line. We made some new friends and practiced the course we would be racing during the event.
Our first day of racing was scheduled for October 13th but due to the sea breeze coming in late, the men’s fleets did not get any racing off.
Day 2 we had tricky conditions with the wind coming from off the shore which is atypical for kite racing. This made for a difficult launch where I ended up tangling my 15m kite which would have been the right kite that day. I switched to my 11m kite in order to make it to the start line in time. Results were pretty rough this day with a UFD (disqualified for being over the start line early) to start. Followed by not finishing a race in the time limit. I was feeling pretty discouraged at the end of the day but did have a few moments of success throughout the day. My up-wind sailing was strong but I would get passed on the reach and down wind due to being underpowered.
Day 3 I was able to make some gains up on the leaderboard through having decent starts and pushing hard on the reach leg and down winds. It was a pretty windy day but the 15m was the correct kite and felt fast this day.
Day 4 I was placed in Bronze fleet due to my results leading up to this day. I had 3 pretty solid races with one 3rd place finish. I was riding my 21m kite in very high wind conditions but it ended up being reasonably controllable. The starts were more manageable with the bronze fleet and I was able to get in front of the majority of the fleet early.
Day 5: Medal Racing and Pack Up.
Overall impression:
I am reasonably happy with my results at World’s; however I would have liked to perform at a level closer to my results at Europeans. I left this event feeling more motivated than ever to improve and can’t wait to compete again later this winter.
Mac Morrin Kite Racing 
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