This summer Sean has taken on a coaching role, looking after the athletes from the Australian Sailing Team during the SailDownunder Sailing Series in Australia; three RS:X events including SailBrisbane, SailSydney and SailMelbourne, which is an ISAF World Cup Regatta. Sean will be looking after multiple Olympian Jessica Crisp, who earlier today won the SailSydney regatta in good form and will be looking to follow that up with a win at the SailMelbourne regatta next week.

Jessica talks to Sail-World about the event in an excerpt from the magazine article on SailSydney:

Triple Olympian Jessica Crisp (AUS-15) has taken over the RS:X Sailboard lead held by Yasuko Kosuge (JPN-9) since Day 1. Crisp cites coaching from sailboarder, Sean O’Brien (AUS-120), as the reason for her improved performance in higher winds.

Crisp, who has finished just outside the medals at the last two games, racked up three wins from three races to take a two point lead from the petite Japanese sailor who admitted yesterday she struggled in conditions over 15 knots, and although conditions did not go over, it was quite gusty on the Harbour.

‘I finally got my act together,’ Crisp laughed. ‘Everything went well; it couldn’t have gone better. I’m getting better in the higher end of the wind scale – it’s all about technique, rather than strength,’ she said.

Sail-World Article

Sean has just arrived in Cascais, Portugal for the 2007 ISAF Sailing World Championships. In the year preceding the Olympic Games, ISAF take control of the World Championships for each of the Olympic Classes and run a combined event. Cascais, on Portugal’s west coast, got the gong for this year’s event and with the consistently windy conditions predicted, it should be an event to remember.

Sean will be writing a daily report during the event which will feature some comments, photos and behind-the-scenes of some of the top RS:X sailors in the World. Join Sean on this adventure to Portugal by following this link:

• 2007 ISAF Sailing World Championships (Daily Report)

Sean and his French training partner Julien Savina (FRA-157) begin an early evening session with QLD High Performance coach Adrian Finglas, at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. With only two weeks to go before Sean leaves for Europe to begin the first phase of his Olympic campaign, Sean is training daily with Julien and Adrian. Julien is living in Brisbane for the next year and has been a member of the French Olympic Team training squad for quite a few years on the Mistral class.

When they’re not sailing, you can find Sean and Julien up and along Mt Coot-tha/Nebo on the roadbikes, getting in some miles before work starts each morning.

Sean finished the 2007 Sail Melbourne Regatta as 1st placed Australian, giving him the Australian Title for the RS:X Olympic Class. Sean had been sitting in 3rd for most of the week long regatta, behind Benjamin Tillier (FRA-39) Tomizawa Makoto (JAP-11). Sean was the only Australian inside the Top 10, qualifying him for the medal race on the last day…

This was raced in rediculously light conditions (under 2 knots at times) and the lighter Asian competitors made the most of it. Sean dropped back to 6th overall after this double points race, but wasn’t the only one to suffer under the harsh Olympic Class scoring system. The light winds of the medal race changed the finishing places dramatically, as FRA-39 dropped to 2nd overall despite winning every single race the entire week bar one. Ho Chi Ho (HKG-6) came up to third with his 2nd in the medal race.

A slightly disappointing end to the regatta, but an enthusiastic start to the RS:X season as Sean had previously only spent one week training on an RS:X board during the whole of 2006!