Landy's portrait
posted by cbueche
on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 16:23
I asked the best sailors of the Euro to talk about their life as sailors, here is Landy's answer:
Starting sailing when I was 6 in a sabot, by the age of 12 I was racing the adults in my fathers NS14. When I was 18 my father and I built my first Moth. The first worlds was a disaster but the the next one I won. After that my focus moved to Olympic classes. I continued to sail the Moth on the side and was always near the top in the class with my home made boats and sails.
In the Olympic classes I had a go on almost everything, including the Windsurfing, 470, Tornado and later the Star. I even had a Finn, but was smart enough not to get beaten up in that class.
My first A class was a boyer MK4 in 2000 but never got to race it, so I sold it to a Moth mate in England. 2005 I sailed an old Marstrom in Sanguinet which was 12kg's over weight. After that I was hooked but with all the Olympic sailing there was little time for the A class.
The Euro's was a great event for us with a 1 and 3 on the podium. Racing was quite tricky but we always had good wind and several different heat winners to keep it interesting. Like all regattas consistency paid off and I was fortunate not to make any big mistakes. The boat was perfect and the rig did everything I asked of it.
Also I spent two weeks training in Garda before the event so that really paid off. It was a hard recovery after my accident as at one point I did not think it would be possible to sail, but somehow it worked out much better than I ever expected.
Andrew "Landy" Landenberger
Most notable achievements:
- Moth world Champion 1989
- Tornado European Champ 1996
- Tornado olympic silver 1996
- Tornado Europeans 3rd 2001
- Topcat K1 World champion 2005
- F18 worlds 3rd 2000 , 2006
- A class worlds 3rd 2009, 5th 2010, 4th 2011