Great end to the Sailing Season

I've been a bit slow to get this post out but I've had a couple of busy weekends recently to finish off this year's sailing with the Optimist Winter Championships and National Squad Training.

The Winter Championships were at Datchet making two weekends in a row there (I had been at a Boys invitational training the week before). 151 sailors took part so we were split into four flights with two groups racing at once in a race.

Check out the Crewsaver winter gloves

The Saturday was the first cold sailing day I've had this winter so it was full on with my Crewsaver thermals and dry suit. I also had some new boots and Crewsaver winter gloves. The gloves are awesome and definitely the warmest I ever had.

We had three races on Saturday all in very light winds which were very shifty. That's OK as long as you are in the right part of the course and getting the shifts right. The only problem was I didn't seem to be and think I spent to much time tacking to try and stay with the shifts. At the end of Saturday I had a 11th, 14th and 18th which are OK results but meant I was in 33rd place overall which I was really unhappy about. It still meant that I was in the gold fleet for the Sunday. 

After Saturday night in the Holiday Inn in Slough, fish and chips from a very strange Indian/pizza/burger/kebab/fish & chip take away and watching the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who (which I didn't get as I've never watched it before) I was ready to go out and do much better.

Top Optimist GoPro accessory
ready for action

Sunday was light winds again but I had a much better day of getting them right. In the first race I cleared all the negative thoughts out of my head and managed to get a second however I was a bit angry at myself because I let 1st place slip at the Windward mark. However in the second race I had a shocker- a 21st!! But I managed to regain confidence and get a 5th in the next race.

Overall I finished 9th which was a great result and my second best this year so I was happy with that.

The following weekend we had a three day National Squad training camp at Farmoor Reservoir. We had a real mix of wind conditions from gusting over 20kts to no wind at all so got some brilliant training done. I had my new GoPro pole on my tiller that SailSpy UK gave me (thank you) so was able to get some great video from behind me which you can watch here.

During the training we did some Team racing which I really enjoyed and some fleet racing which I came second overall in.

So that's sailing done for this year. I wonder if Santa will bring me any sailing presents for Christmas?!

National Squad 2013/14

Training, training and blindfolded sailing

Since my last event, the End of Seasons Championships, my sailing has been all training. 

To start with it was my first ever National Squad training camp. This was four days at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy. I was so excited. Getting into the National Squad was my aim for the season so it was brilliant to be part of it. 

The first day was a land day for sailors and parents. There were sailors there from the Optimist, Laser, Techno and Toppers squads.   So there were quite a lot of us and a real mix of ages. I was one of the youngest with the others up to age 15. For most of the day we were having fitness tests. I thought I did quite well  especially against the older ones but I still ended up being told I needed to be fitter!

I'm not to sure what the parents did all day. I think they were told about what we would be doing and how they could be 'Performance Parents' to support us! Once we get to the National Squad it also seems that parents lose their own names as the name badges they were given to wear at the start of the day just said 'Parent of.... Haydn'

For the Camp we were staying at a PGL place just outside Weymouth which was OK. Sharing a room with four others was really fun. 

Unfortunately, the Camp was at the same time as the big storm that came through. I think it was the windiest weather I've ever been in. We had to store our Optimist in doors to stop them blowing away and when we went up onto Chessil Beach I could barely stand up.

Because of the weather we had to do two shore based days working on goal setting, boat set up, tactics and strategy. While I would rather have been sailing this was all really helpful stuff. 

On Tuesday, the last day of the Camp we did go sailing and it was still pretty windy with big waves. Even the older sailors were hiking so for me it was really full on. I learnt loads about windy weather techniques that are best for someone my size and our coaches, Alan Williams, Tom Haynes, Vagelis Atzemian and Kate Williams are awesome.

Alan made a video of the Camp which you can see here.http://vimeo.com/78775120

Last weekend I was at the IOCA Boys Invitational training at Queen Mary Reservoir In Datchet. This was another very light wind training session but really useful.  As we have the Winter Championships there this weekend it was good to get used to the distraction of the planes from Heathrow airport which are so amazingly close. We did loads of tacking practice, worked on our starting, boat handling techniques and fell for the boat

One of the exercises we had to do was sailing blind folded (or for me wearing a large hat over my eyes) to see how much feel we had for the boat. I had my SailSpy GoPro camera on at the time so you can see how I got on here. 

This weekend it's the Winter Championships, which is the last event of the year. The results from this and the End of Seasons are used to decided who gets selected for Team GBR for the Irish Nationals so it's important to have a good one.

The forecast is looking good at the moment but does look like its going to be cold so all my Crewsaver thermals and dry suit will get a real testing. Then the weekend after that it's a three day National Squad Training Camp at Farmoor Reservoir in Oxford. So not only do I get three days sailing with my friends but I get a day off school for sailing to. Result!!.

Four weekends of great sailing

I've had a really busy time since my last blog post with four weekends in a row of sailing which has mostly been amazing. To summarise it's been:

• The RYA South Zone Championships - 15th
• Boys invitational training - one of the best training events ever
• Volvo Gill End of Season Championship - 28th
• Volvo Gill End of Season Championship - our team came 3rd

RYA South Zone Championships

These were in Poole and it seems like quite a long time ago now. There were quite a lot of the good sailors from our zone there and we had 80 boats in the fleet in total. As I wasn't going for the zone squads this year it meant I could use the event for practising techniques rather than having to worry about the result so much. Still once I'm racing I always want to do as well as possible and win. I had on OK event but not quite as good as I would have liked. I finished in 15th place overall which I was a bit disappointed with however in the same event last year I finished 21st so it's still an improvement

Boys invitational training

This was at Burghfield Sailng Club with the national squad coach, Alan Williams. He is awesome. It was some of the best coaching sessions I've ever had. For the whole weekend there was hardly any wind but it didn't really matter as we still got loads of sailing in and were able practice techniques loads and as it wasn't windy it was really easy to hear what the coaches were saying. I really learnt a lot more about my tacking and boat handling. During the training we did a series of races which I won and was given one of Alan's sailing belts as a prize, which as he said will fit me one day!!

End of Season Championships

This was the first time I've done the End of Seasons where the result counts towards the rankings and getting into the squads so I was a bit nervous and scared of mucking it up. 

Waiting to launch at the End Of Seasons

There were over 200 sailors taking part and we were in four flights with two flights to each race so over 100 boats on the start line. 

 On Saturday while we were rigging it was quite windy but as soon as we launched the wind disappeared and we had a long wait to start racing and had to completely change the set up of the boat on the water. Hanging around for ages isn't too bad as I like talking to my friends out on the water. We had two races on Saturday in really light shifty winds and I got a 9th and 23rd. 

On Sunday morning it was really windy but we went off early to get four races in. The first race was epic, loads of people capsizing and really fast reaching. I came 37th which was OK in the conditions. The wind was a bit up and down after that.  I had two good races and two with pretty bad starts. In the last race I was one of the last to cross the line but was able to sail though the fleet to finish 27th so I was pleased with my boat speed and tactics so just need to practice my starts over winter training. With a 9th and 10th in the other races overall I finished 28th.

National Squad

So what does this mean to the rolling rankings? I am now ranked 11th of all the optimist sailors and means I've been selected for the National Squad. The squad is made up of the top 6 girls top 6 boys, the next 10 sailors and two discretionary places. Being in the National squad is awesome and it was my aim for the year so I am very very happy.

RYA Eric Twiname Team Racing Championship

Me and Max

This was epic, 10/10 on the awesometer. I've never really done any team racing before apart from a little bit in Optimist training and this was in RS Fevas so sailing really competitively in a two handed boat as crew was quite new for me too. 

I was part of Team Heathcote (a Royal Lymington YC team) with Robbie and Alex King, Max Moyles, Vita and William Heathcote. I was crewing for Max who now sails a 420. He's a brilliant helm and really good at the rules and boat handling. I learnt loads from him over the weekend. 

The racing was over two days. On Saturday we won all our races but one which was brilliant. On Sunday it was quite windy which made it tricky for us as quite a light weight team. We lost the first couple of races but won the next four which put us into the gold fleet in third place. We then went into the quarter finals which we were winning but a massive storm came through and it became more of a team survival than team racing. The racing was abandoned for the day but the sailing in the Fevas when it was really windy was so much fun. I have never gone so fast in a dinghy on a reach before. It was all a bit chaotic trying to get back ashore though. 

Team Heathcote waiting to race

With racing abandoned we kept our third place and got presented with an engraved glass at prize giving so another one for my collection.

As I've been sailing on the mainland so much lately we having been staying at my grandparents lots, so a big shout out to them for looking after us and the lovely dinners.

Next up is the first National Squad training camp which is a four day residential in Weymouth. I can't wait.