June 2015

National Series 5 –  Lowestoft

My best National series event in 2015.

This event was a full day’s travel from Somerset so we left straight after breakfast.  Some South Westies spent a lot longer on the road than us, 7 ½ hours was quite enough thank you!

We parked our motorhome on the green next to the promenade, just 2 minutes from the club.  The 10 minute walk along the promenade to the launch area on the beach gave us our warm up each morning!

Saturday dawned bright but windy, choppy and resulted in lots of breakages.  Almost a third of sailors returned to shore during the course of the day.

Saturday evening saw a late BBQ with friends after the AGM and another walk along the promenade with the dog before bed.

Sunday started off with light winds but soon after we launched these became shifty, the sea breeze kicked in and the wind picked up.  

A good day’s sailing resulted in 3 good results for me and my best overall National Series position to date.

Castle Cove Sailing Club

One of my targets from our winter Zone Squad coaching was more time on the water in between events.  This was going to mean joining another club, preferably with other young topper sailors and even more travelling.  Castle Cove sailing club is within Portland harbour and is home to several of my Zone Squad friends.  They had spaces for cadet sailors so I have joined and had 3 great evenings out on the water this month, thank you to Andrea and Jock Fellows for sorting my membership and the club members for making me so welcome.

Other Sailing Events

World Cup and Red Bull Foiling - living relatively close to WPNSA has its advantages, we made a couple of day trips to see the competitors taking part in the Sailing World Cup and then the Red Bull Foiling.

Thank you for your continued sponsorship VR and 1610 gyms.  Packing for Garda soon so more new kit J

Read More

May 2015

New VR Sailing Kit

New team bibs and t-shirts arrived in time for the ET’s at Rutland.  Fantastic Neil Pride Elite Firewall kit arrived in time for half term (outgrown my GUL kit) and was subject to a test of endurance in the form of the RNLI Passage sail from Plymouth to Yealm, a 16 mile round trip during which the Firewall kit was comfortable, easy to move around in and kept me toasty warm.

National Series 4 –  Inlands at Grafham

An interesting weekend of sailing thanks to increasing strength winds that shifted through 90 degrees, course changes and long beats.  2 bad races but overall I had a good weekend’s sailing including a 28^th when right paid and riding the waves (chop) downwind worked.    VR Race Team HQ were pleased as Coco and myself finished side by side on the results board!  Primary aim for the weekend had been to finish all races, main sheet disagreed with that aim in the last race meaning I had to retire so more knots next time and lesson learned, but I finished all the races I could in some challenging conditions so I was very pleased with my 102^nd at the end of the weekend.

Transition Boat Trials – Grafham Water

Bank holiday provided time for transition boat trails thanks to the various class associations. Lasers, 29ers, 420s and multihulls were on offer.  For me that meant fun in a catamaran. My first time for traipsing and was great fun except for breaking a rudder … oops. 

Eric Twiname Championships at Rutland

Rutland greeted the Zone Squad sailors with high winds and postponements.  As 22 gusting 30 was not sailable the RYA Coaches greeted us with fitness trials, yipee!  Once on the water, challenging conditions remained, the wind chill meant it was bitterly cold, we had a 90 degree wind shift overnight and chaotic starts but our squad worked together, we encouraged each other, trying to ensure we all achieved our personal bests as well as a good team result.  Our Topper Squad finished third overall so we were all very pleased, 6^th was my best result which was fab, 6 of us finished in the top third of the 80 strong fleet and Milly was top girl … go Milly!

It was also great to meet up with fellow VR Race Team members Coco and Jenna who were here with their Zone Squads.  Photo opportunity as we were all sporting our new VR Race bibs.  

Catamaran Training – Plymouth Youth Sailing

3 of our SW Zone Squad took advantage of a day’s catamaran training at PYS.  Millie, Angus and myself had a full day of learning to rig, twin trapeze and maneuver a catamaran.  Fantastic fast sailing but no chance of turning these on a sixpence!  A huge learning curve for me as my sailing has only really been on our Toppers but it is safe to say I am hooked on the idea of the catamaran pathway once the time to transition comes along.  Just need the finances to support that thought now!

RYA Yealm Passage Sail

So whilst at PYS for the Catamaran training Milly and myself were asked if we would double hand a Laser 2000 in the RNLI Yealm Passage Sail in 2 days time.  Mum was not impressed with the thought of another 150 mile round trip, but Milly and myself were very excited so the sailors won the day and back to PYS on Saturday it was!  The Passage sail is a fundraiser for the RNLI and involves racing from Plymouth to Yealm Yacht Club.  This was an 8 mile race with quite a swell once we were out of Plymouth Sound but we persevered and Milly and myself were third place cadets (under 18’s).  A good finish and lots of tea and cakes at Yealm  made the thought of the return 8 mile sail to Plymouth a little less daunting!

Read More

April 2015

After almost 1,000 miles to sailing events last month this was a slightly quieter month with only 500 miles - for a total of just under 2,000 miles for the year.

WPNSA Fitness Camp

the Paralympic Podium Potential Squad who weren’t competing at the Trofeo Princess Sofia in Spain were at WPNSA to work on boat upgrades and team fitness and I blagged an invite to their camp.  En-route we had an text message SOS for clotted cream, mayo and cheese - still trying to work out how clotted cream and a fitness camp go hand in hand!  

Overnight the winds were gusting 50mph but  I slept through most of it even though the van took a hammering in the night.  

It was still blowing 40mph for our cycle ride in the morning - into a headwind equals going backwards on a bike!  We made the most of the times tidy up Carol’s new storage unit and apply stickers to Carol and Alex’s SKUD.  We met Carols’ Helm Alex and his carer Rob for the first time, Alex made me jump whilst I was applying the stickers as he came to ask for my assistance and I suddenly realised he was at my height … but his wheelchair moves at 100mph and it raises Alex 4 foot up into the air!!  We finished the day with several sessions of very active football as our aerobic exercise.

I helped with craning the Skud in on Wednesday, whilst Alex operated the crane controls from above.  There was a gust of wind which mum thought was going to see me going for an impromptu swim as I was holding onto the bow tether! 

The light winds on Thursday meant after all that we craned the SKUD out and put her back in the boat park followed by yet more sessions of applying Team GBR stickers to the sails and boat hull before we headed home for Easter.  Thank you to everyone for a great week.

SW Topper Training and Traveller at Castle Cove

I had the RYA National Head Coach, Natalie for the day and we practiced hard on double tacking, mark rounding and had a few practice races of which I won 3.  I think that the fitness week I spent with the Paralympic team has helped me to be able to hike for longer periods in the racing on Sunday - with 4 races back-to-back out near the edge of the harbour in challenging wind strengths of 20 gusting 28.

SW Topper Zone Squad Camp 6

Our last training weekend was at the Mount Batten Centre in Plymouth.  On Saturday we didn’t go out because it was far too windy to launch in gusts of up to 40 so we spent the day on theory and reviews.

On the Sunday we had some really good wind so we launched as soon as possible. One of my friends launched without their kicker (!) but luckily we had stayed in the Catt Water so it wasn’t too far to return to shore.  By the time we sailed out to Drake’s Island I realised that I didn’t have my bung in properly, so we had some fun trying to drain my boat with the support boats out on the water. 

With the wind at 13 gusting 16 it was perfect to blast around in our races once my hull was emptied.

Thank you to Duncan and Lynn our coaches plus the various assistants we had over the winter.

New VR Kit 

Neil Pride Hiking Shorts fit me really well and are brilliant for hiking in hard wind sailing; my feet are now toasty warm with the combo of Gill Neoprene Socks and Gul Evotherm Hiking Boots; and a pair of Forward Sailing Gloves rounded off the kit purchases.   Thank you to everyone at VR for my sponsorship and all of your hard work.

Read More