Exciting Times

What an exciting time for the Zach Railey 2012 Campaign!!

This week I was able to achieve the goal of being on the podium in Kiel winning the Bronze Medal.  The racing was really close and the top three boats all ended on the same points.  I came up short on the tie break and that did sting to not be on the top of the podium but we are making huge progress and that is what we were looking for at this event.

I had a great week in Kiel and it was a really successful event for the Railey Family with Paige winning the Gold Medal.  Both of us are really looking forward to the future of our Olympic Campaigns.  For more information on the Kiel World Cup Event please visit:  http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/News/2011/Three_Medals_at_Kiel_Week.htm 

Right after Kiel I flew to Valencia, Spain for the announcement of the Green Comm Racing Challenge for the 34th Americas Cup in San Francisco.  I am very much looking forward to being a member of this team and building a successful team towards the Americas Cup in 2013.  There will be many more details to follow but for more information please read here at: http://www.americascup.com/blog/green-comm-racing-opens-a-new-chapter_144

I will now be getting everything in order here in Europe before returning home and putting together our schedule for the rest of the year.  

Thank you everyone for all of your support and I will be sure to update you soon on all the exciting details of the future!!

Zach

Sail For Gold and Kiel Week Preview

Hi Everyone!!

Well Sail for Gold is over and we are leading the Olympic Trials Qualification!!!  This was our # 1 goal entering into the event.  Caleb Paine is 8 overall places behind and I will carry this advantage into the 2nd qualifier later this year in Perth, Australia.  Being the top ranked American also qualifies me for the Olympic Test Event later on this year in Weymouth.  This will be an excellent opportunity to practice for the Olympic Games as the Test Event is exactly that a "practice Olympics."

My overall result in Weymouth was not what I wanted against the international competition only managing to finish 10th overall.  There were some exceptional sailing moments followed by complete disaster.  My consistency was simply not up to par throughout the event.

I have however improved even though the final finish did not meet my expectations.  Our goal going in was to finish top 5 overall, but to be honest I did not sail well enough to make this happen.  We have made huge steps with my boat speed, but I simply did not make good decisions on where to go on the course.  We do know the mistakes that I made and we were able to learn an invaluable amount of information about the Olympic Sailing Venue for 2012.

Looking forward I will be focusing on getting up to my racing weight and starting to put a final package together with my equipment.  As you all know I made the decision to cut weight with the goal of being too light and then building some more mass in my upper body.  This has been hard work and we are just starting to see the results but we have a long way to go.  It certainly hurts when its windy, but it is all part of a process and everything is on track!!

I am now in Kiel, Germany getting ready for the final World Cup event of the year.  We will be using this regatta to work on what we identified in Weymouth.  You can follow the event at www.kielerwoche.de  I will also be doing updates each night via the blog and twitter.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made this possible.  From my personal sponsors and donors to all the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics sponsors and donors we could not do this without you.

Sail For Gold Regatta Preview

Hello from Weymouth, England!!

We are getting ready to start the Sail for Gold World Cup event here in Weymouth, England.  We have been hard at work putting in a lot of hours leading into this event as it is the first part of our Olympic Games selection process.

The process for selection is pretty straight forward.  We take our final overall finishing position at this event and carry that to our 2nd qualifying event later this year.  You take your final overall finishing position at the 2nd event and add that to your finish here at Sail for Gold.  The USA boat with the lowest combined overall score will be the Olympic Representative in 2012!!!

Knowing this process my main goal for this event will be to put as many boats between myself and the other USA Finn Sailors.  My main competition will come from Caleb Paine and Luke Lawerence.

This event is the 1st step in a 3 step process we have been working towards for quite some time so there are a lot of nerves and excitement all at the same time!!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made this possible.  From my personal sponsors and donors to all the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics sponsors and donors we could not do this without you.  I would also like to thank those who have given their time to helping the campaign.  This is not an individual effort and I look forward to representing all of our efforts this week in the first Olympic Trials event.  I would not be here without you!!

I will update during the regatta.  The event website is www.skandiasailforgoldregatta.co.uk and they will have live tracking, updates and full coverage streaming on the web.

Zach