Blog Roxy

X-GAMES 2009, ASPEN (COLORADO) – 22 TO 25 JANUARY – THE TEAM ROXY IS READY

The station at Aspen in Colorado is all set to host the 13th winter X-Games between 22 and 25 January. Snowboarders Kjersti Buaas (Nor) and Torah Bright (Aus) and skiers Sarah Burke (Can) and Jessica Cummings (USA) will be looking to shine at the winter season's biggest boardsports meeting.

Following her 2nd place in last year's Superpipe, Torah Bright, after the Dew Tour Stop, will be competing in another major international competition of the season at the X-Games. Alongside her in the race for the title will be another Roxy Girl, Kjersti Buaas (Nor), at the biggest freestyle contest of the season. After finishing 2nd in halfpipe and 3rd in slopestyle, during the Burton European Open, Kjersti will be trying to win a podium place in Aspen. She will be lining up in the halfpipe and slopestyle events, whereas Torah will just be seeking to get back on the top of the podium as she placed 2 years ago.

The team's two snowboarders have differing styles. Whilst Kjersti is the style queen, Torah rides with impressive fluidity and she is the most technical rider of all the girls. All will be revealed at the end of January.

For the skiers, Sarah Burke (Can) is the one to beat, having performed brilliantly to win the Superpipe at the last two editions, following second place finishes in 2005 and 2006. She's an exceptional skier for an exceptional event. The girl from Whistler has perfect mastery of style and technique, performing big moves with superb fluidity. She is one of the rare freestylers able to pull off 900s (two and a half turns) above the coping. This year, she will be competing for the Superpipe event, and is also invited to take part in the new slopestyle event open to women. Another of the team's skiers, Jessica Cummings (USA), will also be taking part in the biggest boardsports meeting of the season. Having finished fourth last year, Jessica will be desperate to produce a perfect run this time around and finish on the Superpipe podium.

Sam Davies, Day 70 onboard ROXY

Hello everyone,

Yesterday has been a peaceful day onboard Roxy in the South Atlantic. With a light wind and a flat sea, the decks have remained dry and Roxy has been full main + solent for the first time in weeks! It is so nice to be able to go on deck without oilskins and boots, and to be able to move around without risk of being catapulted off balance.

I have managed to get some rest, to go through my check-list, and also do some maintenance and running repairs such as splicing work to repair my chaffed reef lines. Roxy has been drying out and so have my oilskins (at last).

I have also spent a fair amount of time working on weather files, none of which say the same thing. I have concluded that the next few days will be complicated, frustrating and a little slow. I need to cross my fingers, whistle for the wind and trust my feelings.

It has certainly not been a lonely day today, as I was relieved to hear from Dee Caffari, Cali (Arnaud Boissieres - by mail) and Brian Thompson (by phone) after their storm-running experience. I also had a chat to Steve White. The most extraordinary contact of the day though was an e-mail from "Leopard 3" - Mike Slade’s maxi - who is doing the Cape Town - Salvador race, and is crossing my path a few hundred miles to the North. Some of my good friends from The Solent are on board and it was great to hear their news, and read their hilarious "daily newspaper". It just goes to show that it is a small world sometimes (even if it does take three months for me to sail round it).

Roxy is now gliding along happily under the starry night and I'm going to get some "zeds" whilst the conditions allow.....

Sam x

Attack of the cling-ons !

Good morning everyone!

Well, yesterday evening was HARD work!

I was just thinking that now the upwind work has started, things will become quieter - I may even get bored. That was a mistake; just as I picked up my book ("Into the blue, boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before"), Roxy lurched and slowed instantly from 10 to 8 knots.

SO, I got out my endoscope to inspect what "cling-ons" we had picked up, and discovered that we had been attacked by a forest of GIANT kelp! I spent an hour doing back downs - after four years of Figaro sailing, I'm good at that - but to no avail. The kelp wrapped around the keel was probably as long as Roxy as the branches trailed beyond the transom. I managed to wrestle a bit of it off using my hands and the boathook - disgusting!

I then realised that I was potentially going to have to take an earlier bath than planned to free us from our "cling-ons". I stopped Roxy by dropping all the sails: this was the first time in two months of racing that Roxy has stopped. I anxiously waited to see if this would clear the kelp and had another look with the endoscope - YES! The forest was gone, thank goodness, which meant no swimming for me today. Phew!

However, the downside to this was the big wind to hoist the main back up. I made the most of it being down to check the top of the sail and battens, headboard and halyard lashings.

After a lot of exercise and 2 hours of down-time, I got Roxy up and running again. She is now kelp-free and 2 knots faster. I was so knackered that I managed to eat an 800 calorie meal, a bar of chocolate and drink pretty much an entire bottle of water!

This was essential as I still had a tack, including stacking of all the gear and sails, to do. After the tack I fell into a BIG sleep, with no alarms and just Roxy to wake me up. It was WONDERFUL!

Hopefully today I will not have so many adventures - in fact I am actually quite looking forward to being bored.

S x

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