Solid Finishes at the Santander Invitational Test Event and 49er North American Championships!
Our month of June by the numbers:
- 21 Total Races Completed
- 12 Total Sailing Days
- 11th Average Finishing Position at Santander Invitational
- 8 Total Travel Days
- 7 Days Spent Rigging and De-Rigging
- 6 Total Race Days
- 5 Countries Visited
- 2 Regattas Raced
- 2021 NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONS
June has been a very busy month for our team. We traveled for a combined 8 total days and through 5 different countries to sail 2 different events. Toward the end of May, we made the decision to travel back to Spain to race the Santander Invitational Test Event. This event served as a final Tokyo Olympic Test Event for many of the current Olympic 49er Teams and a last international event for us to compete at before our domestic summer training begins. Once again, we were able to race against some of the world’s best and measure up how we have improved since racing in Cascais! After 3 days of light air racing, we finished the Santander Invitational in 11th place, just 3 points out of the top 10 and the final medal race! It was great to transition back into our light air boat speed, since our heavy air training in Cascais, and a great event for us to end our European racing season. After racing concluded in Spain, we stored our equipment in Barcelona and traveled directly to Bristol, RI to compete at the North American Championships.
The North Americans were raced in 8-15 knots over the course of 3 days. We raced against teams from all across the United States and Canada and it was great to see so many new up and coming teams beginning to find their way in the 49er! After a long month of sailing and training all of our HARD WORK paid off! We won the 2021 49er North American Championship and were named the 2021 North American Champions! What a great way to end the month of June!
From here, we begin a domestic training block in Long Island, NY on July 12th and will continue to exclusively train in Long Island for the remainder of July and August before packing up our equipment and shipping it to Oman! With the information we gathered from the events at Lanzarote, Cascais and Santander, we are ready to put our heads down and begin deconstructing our game. With our eyes keenly focused on executing at the end of the year at the 2021 World Championships in Oman, we relish the challenge of building better consistency in our game and can’t wait to get after it in the upcoming weeks.
We would like to give a big thank you to our U.S. squad coach, Mark Asquith, for continuing to really push us to focus on all the right things in our sailing! We would like to thank the U.S. Sailing Team for all the logistical help and support in making our month of June all come together. We would like to thank the Windmark Sailing Foundation, specifically Bam Miller and Yevgeniy Burmatnov, for all the generous help and support to get us racing in Bristol, RI! We would not have been able to do this without you! Thank you! Finally, we would like to thank the St. Francis Sailing Foundation for helping keep the lights on, the engine running and the dream alive! Your continued support in our goals and dream is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!
Stay tune for more updates and photos! throughout the next 6 weeks both on facebook, @barrowshenkenracing, and on instagram, @hanshenken, #49erUSSkiffSquad and @us49ersquad as we continue to train in Long Island, NY!
Barrows Henken Racing 