Two weekends ago we had the the first major event of the year, the Optimist Spring Championships in Torquay/Torbay.
We all went down as a family for this one so it was all of us in a Premier Inn. Friday night was OK. Not too much snoring from Mum and Dad and after a hearty breakfast on Saturday morning we drove down to the Royal Torbay Yacht Club and got rigged and ready for the day. Mum and Freya were on tally board duty so it was quite funny seeing them run around like maniacs trying to hand out 165 tallies to different people!
My results from the first day were a 5th, 23rd and a 6th. The first race went well because I had a good start at the pin and then tacked across the fleet on Port tack. I rounded the winward mark in 10th position. I then gained one place on the reach and another two on the downwind. After a good playing of tactics on the second beat I managed to get to 5th position and then hold my position until the finish line to come 5th.
However, in the next race due to poor tactics I got a 23rd which ended up being my discard. With a 6th in the third race of the day I was in 12th position overall overnight which was good and meant I was in Gold fleet for the next day.
It was a really tricky first day as the waves were massive. When we were at the bottom of a wave there wasn't much wind and I couldn't see the boats around and then you would go to the top and get the breeze and view. At the start of the second race one of the waves broke right on top of me at the start filling up my boat which didn't help. At least I wasn't affected by the swell unlike a lot of sailors who ended up being sick. Yuck!
Saturday night we had a a really nice dinner with the Ellis's and the Atherton's before an earlyish night to conserve our energy for the next day. After another Premier Inn breakfast we headed down to the Sailing club for the the second day of racing racing. The wind on Sunday was quite light but still with a decent swell from Saturday which was very annoying. As it was mothers day, Mum had a treat which was a day on the Mothership which is basically a toilet boat! But it did turn out to be a lush yacht! Quote from Mum ..."yes, but I did help about 50 children go to the toilet!"
My results on Sunday were 5th, 13th and 19th and I finished 14th overall which was a good result but I was a bit disappointed as I came 9th in the Springs last year. The overall winner was my friend from the National Squad, William Heathcote and sailed really well.
Last weekend we had a joint National, Intermediate and Development Squad weekend at Weymouth. It was really windy so quite tough. The racing we did definitely favoured the older bigger sailor but I didn't capsize and could keep pace with the fleet and got some mid fleet results. I was really pleased with this as a year ago in the same sort of conditions at Weymouth just staying upright and getting round a course was tricky so I've made some great progress.
Next up in is the Easter Regatta at Braassermeer. It's a really big international event so I'm really looking forward to it. I'll also be using my new North Sails V4 which I tested out this weekend and it seems to be really fast and point high.
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| My new North Sails V4 |
