2023 ILCA CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

This year's ILCA Canadian Championships took place at Buffalo Canoe Club from August 25th to 27th. I came into this year's event hoping to defend my title from last year’s event at ABYC. The first day saw light winds from the north, with very unstable conditions. I made a number of mistakes on the first beats, leaving myself a challenge to climb up the ranks with finishes of 5, 11, and 8th after a flag.

The second day saw marginal hiking conditions with more stable breeze, I was able to finish 6, 3, and 3 in the 3 races, moving up a bit and giving me an opportunity to potentially finish on the podium with a good last day. The final day saw similar light and variable conditions to the first day with big changes in direction. I finished the first race in 9th, costing me any chance of defending my title. Prior to the last gun time the race committee started a final race, with a start at the favored end I found myself in 2nd place, with the positions being such that I would have moved up to 2nd, when the race committee decided to abandon a race for the first time in the entire event. I finished in 4th place. Kudos to the race committee for getting as many races off in challenging conditions as they did and BCC for being incredible hosts.

2021 CORK OLYMPIC CLASSES REGATTA & SAIL CANADA SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

CORK is back to normal after a year off!

From August 14 - 17, CORK Olympic Classes Regatta (OCR) took place with the ILCA 6 (Radials), ILCA 7 (Lasers), and Kiteboards. With the 49ers and 49erFXs competing the following week. We had four days of scheduled racing, with ten races to be sailed. Like the first day at Canadians, the first day of OCR brought a good breeze and three races, another big day fitness-wise. The following three days were lighter, and we did not get any racing in on day three because of no wind.

I didn’t have my best showing, getting penalized with multiple flags by the jury for pumping infractions, including one upwind. A career first for me! I ended up a disappointing 3rd overall.

Congratulations to Luke Ruitenberg (1st) -center and Forrest Waccholz (2nd) - right.

I flew to Europe the day after and am excited to join my new coach as I begin to prepare for the European and World Championships. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the volunteers at CORK for putting on a great event as usual and to Andy Roy for coaching us.

THANK YOU!

RESULTS

2021 ILCA CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS AT CORK

It was great to be sailing on home waters, and in classic Kingston conditions.

The Canadian Laser Class Championships took place this year over the July 31 - Aug. 2 long weekend. The first day of the regatta was a big one that brought a solid 15-knot gradient breeze built on by the classic Kingston thermal to a low 20-knot range from the southwest. This made for some fantastic racing and a hard day fitness-wise.

The following two days brought shifty and puffy conditions from the northeast on Sunday and north on Monday. These challenging conditions gave both myself and the race committee a difficult time, especially on Sunday. Unfortunately, I had a poor day on Sunday, which led to a second-place finish overall, 0.5 points off of first. Congratulations to Ryan Anderson on a consistent and well-sailed regatta. It was great to be on the water with 122 other sailors in Canada again and have my parents back on the water to see me race. Thanks for the photos Mum! 

Left to right: Andy Roy (ILCA World Council North America Chair), Forrest Wachholz (3rd), Ryan Anderson (1st), Liam Bruce (2nd)

RESULTS
PHOTOS

2019 CORK OCR / SAIL CANADA SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Getting a good start. In the center of the photo here - 215019.

I finished up the summer regatta season with a 9th place finish at CORK OCR / Sail Canada Senior Championships. I was ecstatic to be sailing back in Canada on fresh water and in reasonable temperatures. A trying 4 days saw all sorts of conditions from light to heavy winds. While I was disappointed with my finish due to my inconsistency in results I managed to have another regatta with consistently strong starts. While unsatisfied I recognize my improvement from 12th place last year and have identified more areas for improvement on my journey to the top.

I am really grateful for the support from everyone to pursue my lofty goals, especially my parents who were on the water watching and mum managed to get some great photos as always!

Keeping good company upwind. Just to leeward of me in this shot is fellow Canadian Sailing Development Squad teammate and winner of the regatta Luke Ruitenberg (214514).

Next up I’m staying in Kingston while I prepare for U21 Worlds this fall.

2019 CORK OCR RESULTS
PHOTOS

2019 ILCA LASER CANADIANS / IAN BRUCE MEMORIAL REGATTA

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken Dool

I just got back to Kingston from the Laser Canadian Championships in Beaconsfield, Quebec. We didn’t manage to get off any races yesterday (Sunday) due to a lack of wind caused by rain. This did however leave me to win the regatta! After 2 days, 6 races and 8 points in mostly light conditions I was tied with Canadian Sailing Development Squad (CSDS) member Hugh Macrae. However I held the tie breaker since I had the last bullet and we had an identical scoreline of 1, 1, 1, 2, 3. I am ecstatic to be able to call myself Canadian champion for the next year. Congratulations to Hugh, and CSDS member Matti Muru for rounding out the podium in 3rd.

RESULTS

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken Dool