September 8, 2015
Shortly after my first post we managed to get out on the water for our first taste of sailing the Tom 28. We started slow at the dock familiarizing ourselves with the boat, BJ and Kris feeling everything in their section of the boat to prepare for our time on the water.
The Tom 28s are a more performance oriented boat than the Sonar and getting used to the layout and heel took a bit of time. The sail area is also larger which will take some small adjustment moving forward. Luckily none of the teams are overly familiar with the boats and the extra room in the cockpit makes the movement of four sailors slightly less like a round of bumper cars than in the Sonar cockpit.
We did a bit of speed testing with four of the Tom’s out in a formation. We are confident we can do well with our speed and its looking likely that good starts and roundings are going to make the difference just like in any other race. What I’ve learned from sailing with the blind teams is that we have to stop thinking of it as a different form of sailing; the sailing is the same and the changes for safety are really minor and have more to do with avoiding collisions than anything.
After the required Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner we made a quick stop at Target to pick up a few snacks and ran into our big fan Chewbacca who is looking forward to his new movie release.
Chewbacca cheers on the team.
For more information please visit these links:
2015 IFDS Blind Sailing World & International Championship Entries
Crew Info
| Name | Position | ISAF | Country |
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| Jason Berdyck | Headsail Trimmer | Group 1 | USA |
| BJ Blahnik | Main Trimmer | Group 1 | USA |
| Kris Scheppe | Helm | Group 1 | USA |
| Matthew Wierzbach | Tactician | USA | |