What a summer of sailing part 2: British Nationals to European TeamRacing Champs

Hello, back again with part 2 of my solid summer of sailing. 

After the European Championship and Gurnard Dinghy Week it was straight onto the British Optimist Nationals down at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy. I like sailing there because it's such a great racing area and because it's where the Olympic sailing was in 2012.

The nationals were awesome, probably the best one I've done so far with brilliant weather, a mix of wind strengths and tough competition with a lot of international sailors taking part. The year was my last in Junior main fleet and as a National Squad sailor and having just come back from being in Team GBR at the Euros, I felt under a bit of pressure to do well and quite nervous. Also the first six races count towards our rankings for the squad qualifications at the end of the year.

We went to Weymouth as a family as Freya was sailing too. When we eventually got there after an interesting trip I was straight onto the water for a bit of a warm up sail. It was really windy (not my favourite conditions) so it was really good to test myself out against all the other competitors. It was then off to see what the house we had rented was like. It was awesome,  there was a really big  bedroom  for me and Freya and a chill out room in a huge loft. It also had a big pole in the middle of the living room which was interesting! Mum had done a top job on finding this one.

 

Sunday: We started off with a practise race in which I did quite well despite the really windy conditions! I sailed with the other fleet so that I could test myself against the top guys who were in the other fleet. I won the race but stopped before the finish because it is bad luck to win a practise race. Due to the fact that we had time spare we managed to do another two races but these were real!! I got a 4th and a 12th but they left me in 18th position which was not what I wanted :(

Monday: Monday brought some lighter conditions and I had two very good races, a 1st and a 2nd. In the 2nd race a Spaniard beat me so in the rolling rankings it meant that I got 2 1st places!!!

Tuesday: Once again it was a day of very windy conditions (20knts +) so I wasn't able to get the results I needed. In the end I got a 10th,16th and a 4th.

Wednesday: Wednesday brought some medium conditions but it was really shifty and I got caught out many times. The results were disappointing...a 5th, 24th and a 12th. 

Thursday; The next day brought the same conditions as yesterday however I  was able to improve my results: a 3rd, 12th and a 2nd! 

Going into the final day there was no way I could catch Alexandra Schonrock who was leading and had sailed a great regatta but I had a chance of overtaking William Heathcote to be the top British boy.
 

Team Isle of Wight -
Cameron Hook, Freddie Ellis, Me,
Freya, Lily Ellis, Toby Atherton,
Oliver Evans, Mathew Bamber

I was really up for Friday and couldn't wait to get going so when we got up in the morning and the sea was flat calm and no wind it wasn't looking good. We waited and waited but in the end the racing was abandoned at lunch time which was a disappointing way for the event to end but I still finished 7th overall and third British sailor so a good result.

Because we had such great conditions throughout the event, it meant that on a few days we got through the race programme and back ashore early. This meant I could see Freya coming in from being out with the mini racers which I really liked. She had a brilliant week too, came third in her racing and got a coaches sailor of week medal at the prize giving. Nice one Sis.

When we got back from the Nationals we had a couple of days on dry land before Freya did Cadet Week at our club. I wasn't sailing in this but was able to help out with coaching the Oppie fleets. I had such a brilliant week. I really like coaching and helping out other sailors and I got to do a bit of sailing when we had to do some rescues. It was really nice to see Freya out on the water too. Her sailing improved so much over the Nationals and Cadet week. I hope she starts racing soon. We put my GoPro camera on her boat on one day so she could see how well she's doing too.

After Cadet week we had a whole week of not sailing. Hmmmm. But then it was off with Team GBR (Sophie Holloway, Julia Mellers, Oliver Hill and me) to the European Team Racing Championshp in Lake Ledro, Italy. 

Mum, Dad and Freya came to this one too but only after dropping me off at the airport. While I flew over they went all the way by car. It was like some sort of Top Gear challenge ony they were only in the lead to Dover! And during the event while I was in a hotel they were camping at the other end of the Lake!!

Me in action at the
Euro Team Racing Champs, I'm the 2nd boat

Going in to this event we didn't really know what to expect. There were 16 teams in total and quite a lot of the countries have special team racing teams who do loads of training for the event. We had only team raced a couple of times before and had one training session against the GBR worlds team.

On our first day of racing we had three matches and one won against the Spanish.  We were all pretty pleased about this and it gave us a big boost and belief that we could win more. Over the next few days we saw massive leaps and gains in our team racing abilities, personally and as a team. It was really funny seeing the other teams getting told off by their coaches because they had been beaten by us. It just made us want to win even more!
 

Our Team base at the lake

We managed to get just over half wins which put us in Gold fleet which was very exciting! Last year the team didn't win a single race and came last so we were very excited about winning a race and then we made gold fleet. As the week carried on we were able to slowly carry on gaining. Going in to the last day we were 5th overall!! We had a bad day as a team however we were able to thankfully hold our position!

The last night was very memorable with fireworks and a 2:00am bedtime!!! A week of fun.



Gelato time

Lake Ledro was an incredible place to be with the views of the mountains. Our hotel was a bit interesting with electricity plug sockets hanging off the walls and sparking and meals every night that were pasta first course, followed by meat. But the local gelato made up for it.

It was really nice seeing Mum, Dad and Freya in between races for a bit each day and knowing they we're watching me and we all had a big team meal of the final night.



Launching

All in all it was a great event. It was really nice racing as a team and our coach Will and house parent Lizze did a great job in helping us with the racing and looking after us.

With the event over I then joined Mum, Dad and Freya and we stayed on for a few days holiday and some walks in the mountains, swimming in the Lake and lots more gelato. It was then a two day drive back to home but at least I got to watch four hours of the Volvo Race on DVD non stop.





Team GBR at the prize giving -
we got a t-shirt of tiny jar of honey,
Will got a belt and can of WD40!!

So all in all a full on, brilliant summer of sailing. I've had a few ups and downs in the racing,  learnt so much and had soooo much fun. Now the autumn looks like it will be just as good with loads more racing to come!!