The Kirkland Brothers

I recently had two long lost friends from my sailing days drop by London on their way back to Bermuda. Jesse and Zander Kirkland are starting out on a campaign to sail in the 2012 Olympics in London sailing in the 49er class. From what I understand from them, 49ers are similar to Australian 18-footers but smaller and lighter and understandably fewer crew members, 2 to be specific. Like the 18-footers they also go incredibly fast and are very hard to manage, apparently they can get up to 25knots (~28mph) or something.

So basically at the moment its just Jesse and Zander against the boat rather than against the rest of the fleet but they're learning fast and are optimistic about their chances. They've just finished a tour of Europe sailing in regattas in Poland, Germany and, for the last two weeks, in Weymouth. Now they are flying back just in time to get hit by Hurricane Danielle before they head out to Cali to do some more training.

So just wanted to wish them luck in all the hard work they have left to do over the next two years up to qualifying in June, 2012. If people are interested they have a blog up: BER 49er Olympic Campaign.

- Landey