Crewsaver Sponsorship

Awesome news in fact well over 10 out of 10 on the awesometer. 

I have been selected by Crewsaver to be one of seven new sailors for their sponsorship programme. Thank you, thank you, thank you.The other day a huge box arrived with a load of brand new kit for me including:

Spray topHikersBootsThermal topsLeggingsGlovesBuoyancy aid
And loads more and a big kit bag to put it all in.

The kit is really great and I can't wait to start using it. Being so little it's sometimes hard getting stuff small enough to fit me but everything seems just the right size which I'm really pleased about. The Bouyancy Aid is so much  better than my old ones. It's  not too long on me whereas the old ones always seemed to get in the way and now I need the weather to be colder again as I have been given some epic thermal gear.

Me in my new Crewsaver kit

This sponsorship all came about because we saw an article about Crewsaver looking for sailors to sponsor on the Yachts and Yachting Website, so we emailed them a load of stuff about me and my sailing and I got picked. It's brilliant being given loads of new kit but what's really nice is that one of the really well known sailing companies are impressed with my sailing and think I have the potential to do well. 

Crewsaver have written a press release about all the sailors they are sponsoring and they asked us to send them some pictures of me in the kit. Here are some of the photos Dad took. I think he thinks he's some kind of fashion photographer or something as he was making me walk down the pontoon and he was lying and rolling around on the floor taking photos!! LOL.

Crewsaver have got loads of great kit which you can see in their website www.crewsaver.co.uk and here is a link to the press release so please have a look www.marineadagency.com/pdfs/pressreleases/Crewsaver_Sponsored_Sailors_Annoucement.pdf

Warsash Optimist Open and teaching Freya to sail

Well the Warsash Optimist Regatta was hot and slow. It was great to be sailing barefoot, in shorts and a rash vest but it also meant there wasn't very much wind. There were 40 sailors in the main fleet and even in the light winds it was the older and bigger National and Intermediate squad sailors who were at the top of the fleet so it was tough competition.

On the first day we had three races. Two were good for me with an 8th and a 5th. Getting the starts right and finding the best breeze upwind was really important as it was hard to over take once we were reaching or going down wind. In the other race of the day I got a 12th which I was annoyed with myself for at as I should have made better advantage of my light weight in the conditions. 

On Sunday we only managed one race and there was a lot of hanging around. We had two other races which we started but were abandoned mid race. One was abandoned just as we were coming up to the windward mark for the second time when we thought they were going to shorten the course. No one at the front of the fleet was very pleased with that.

Overall I came 8th which was good but I did feel like I could have done better but I did get a plate at the prize giving to add to my collection!

Me teaching Freya to sail

Dad was out on the mark laying rib on Sunday with our friends Richard Ellis and Nigel Smith. They kept having to move the marks because of the light shifty winds only for us not to race. It looked like hard work in the hot sun. Still, it kept them out of trouble or something like that that grown ups say!

I had my GoPro camera from Sailspy on board so got some great footage of my light winds tacking which I have been watching loads since to see where I can make things better.

Last weekend I took Freya out sailing for a bit of practice before she does mini racers at the Nationals. Dad said that Freya looks a more natural sailor than me at the same stage. Hmmmmm. As it was another  hot sunny day me and Dad both helped her to do some capsize practice too. We got Dad to bail out a completely full Opi and he did admit at the end that he hadn't realised it was such hard work!! I think all Opi sailors should get their parents to do this out on the water so they know what it's like.

Freya learning to bail - essential optimist skill

This weekend I'm racing at the Gurnard Sailing Club junior regatta in a Pico with my friend Oliver Evans which will be awesome fun and a great way to spend my 11th birthday.

Winning the Salterns Optimist Trophy and Twitter Chatting with Extreme 40 sailors

Hello everyone. Here is a bit of an update on what I've been doing since coming back from Turkey. 

Firstly Mum and Dad made me have a bit of time off from sailing to recover. It meant I didn't go to the Hayling Island open which was not so good. But the Saturday it was on I didn't wake up until 1030 so they were probably right. Which isn't so good either!! :-) 

A couple of weekends ago I took part in the Royal Lymington Optimist Open Regatta. It was on the same weekend as the Isle of Wight Festival which was really bad timing. We've been to the Festival as a family for the last few years and it is awesome but so is the Lymington Regatta and as it was being used as a training event for the British Team for the Irish Nationals I really wanted to go. It made the weekend quite complicated though. I stayed over at my friend Oliver's house on Friday night so Mum, Dad and Freya could go to the Festival. Dad picked me up early on Saturday morning to take me to Lymington. He looked like he should have had more sleep and less festivaling (ha ha). Then it was blowing well over 20kts and racing was cancelled. There was a time trial instead but before I got to my go that was called off too as it was even windier.

I spent the night with my Grandparents with fish and chips from the chip shop as a treat for tea which was very nice but not as nice as their roast dinners.

Sunday was the complete opposite and hardly any wind. We did get three races in though. It was tough going in the conditions and tide but I was really pleased with the way I sailed. On the first race I didn't manage to work with the tides so well and I got a disappointing 25th. In the next race I had an amazing start and managed to defend my position for the whole race giving me a well-earned 2nd place which I was really pleased at. In the next race I didn't have such a good start but I worked the shifts and managed to finish 9th.

Me with the Salterns Optimist Trophy

Overall I finished 8th out of 94 and as always at Lymington it was a very competitive fleet and at the end of the day I got a bonus as I had won the Salterns Optimist Trophy as the highest place sailor age 10 or under. There's some good names on this cup including Milo- Gill Taylor, Matthew Whitfield, Richard Mason and Vita Heathcote.

As well as Lymington I've been sailing on Friday's cadet night at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and I've joined Gurnard Sailing Club and been sailing there on Thursday nights in Picos and Fevas. It's been good fun sailing in two handed boats.

As well as having fun on the water I joined in with a @SAPSponsors twitter chat with Jes Gram-Hansen and Rasmus Kostner who sail on the SAP Extreme 40. I asked quite a few questions but my best one was 'Would you like to swap, you can have a go in my Optimist if I can have a go on your Ex40!' I got a reply from Jes & Rasmus '@Haydn_Sewell come to Cardiff you might get lucky!' which is epic. So just got to get dad to take me to Cardiff now!

I got another new North Sails DZero6 this week so I have a new sail for the Nationals and a good spare. Thank you North Sails for your help. It's great getting new sailing stuff.

My next event is the the Warsash Open this weekend which is looking like another light wind one so good for us light weights :-))