My summer started on June 14th in Lymington when I headed down to my crews house for a week of boat work. He had just finished his final GCSE so it was a happy positive week. This was the final week our boat was in the UK until August so we made sure the boat was in perfect condition ready for a lot of high quality racing! After this we headed down to Weymouth for our final training session with the team. We felt fast and prepared so all positives so far!
From here it was up to London to catch a flight to sunny Portugal. We headed out a few days before the majority of the team to give us some more time to familiarise ourselves with the racecourse and also Vilamoura itself as I find it important to feel comfortable where I am. In preparation for the Youth Worlds we had switched to Zaoli Sails for the 420 Worlds to help us get used to tuning them. Below is a video our of first training session in Portugal using them. It was a gorgeous 15-20 knots blast in 25 degrees. I think that just about is the definition of champagne sailing.
The next few days bought a whole range of wind strengths and directions which was perfect to help us acclimatise to the venue. We hired bikes as well to make the long commute to the sailing club more exciting and just quicker. Over the next few days we made huge gains on our boat tuning and making sure we were getting the most out of our new sails capability. A few days later the rest of Team GBR arrived. The GBR 420 class send 20 boats and 40 sailors out to the Worlds making it a great team event which really helps make the event more enjoyable and is a great way of helping each other out.
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| Wish it was always like this... |
Before we knew it measurement and registration was upon us. Measurement in a 420 international event is the most unenjoyable experience ever. It requires the sailors to completely strip the boats of all ropes and to make the boat perfectly dry. The dry part is the easiest as the hot weather evaporates all possible traces of water meaning the boats inconveniently end up under weight requiring us to put lead in our boat to make it the required 80.00 kilos. After all of this we then have to put EVERYTHING back into our boats which takes ages. Especially for Will and I who seem to take a lot longer than everyone else. The only positive is this means the start of the event is near.
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| Oh wait big wave inbound |
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| Ahhh looks nice and calm |
Day 1 was always going to be an interesting day for Will and I. This was our first 420 World Championships so we didn't know what to expect. However, I often find this a positive as it means there is no result based pressure as such as we don't know what a 'good' result is. The first day brought a solid 13-16 knots, which we knew we were fast in with the new Zaoli's. All of the nerves reached their climax on the start and as we were lining up for a tasty start our trapeze rope pulled through! NOT IDEAL! Luckily Will my crew is great at keeping calm and calming me down and we managed to sail a superb race to pull back to 13th. With the positive points of race 1 we put our head down and sailed quick for race 2 bagging a solid 2nd. Overall a positive first day.
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| Sunny and windy = perfection |
The 3 days of qualification bought light and difficult winds :( We seemed to struggle with getting off the start line as we would lose our lane soon after the start. This put us on the back foot. 2 jury penalties didn't help our progress either as it meant we had to retire from our only top 10 in gold fleet. Overall we finished 15th which we were still pleased with as 15th in the World is a pretty solid result!
We came out of the event with many training points to take into the rest of the year but didn't have too much time to reflect as 30 mins after we got in we were off to Poland for the Youth Worlds. See you in the next blog post :)
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| He really is tall! |
