A Great Start to the Year

It's only the beginning of February and it's already been a great start to the year with being selected as part of the Winner Optimist Team, team racing in Monaco and some really good training.

To start, I am one of four sailors who has been selected for the 2016 UK Optimist Winner Team. Every year, Winner (who make the best Optimists) have a team made up of 3 or 4 top sailors from over 20 countries around the world. In the UK, the Winner Team is organised by Pinnell & Bax. This means that quite soon I will get a new Optimist. I can't wait, it's the first time I'll have had a brand new boat and it comes with all the best gear. You can read more about it in Yachts and Yachting here.

Having to pretend to be Welsh!

A couple of weeks ago I went back to Monaco to compete in the Monaco Royal Yacht Club team racing event. This is the second time I've done this, and this year our team was me, William Heathcote, Jamie Cook and Rhys Lewis and Jamie's Dad took us and was our coach.For the event we were representing Cardiff Bay Yacht Club in Wales which was a bit strange for me and William! For the first two days we had to sail all the other teams (there were 15 in total). After a poor first race, which we lost to the home team, we got going and won the next five races. On the second day we won half and lost half which meant we went through to the final stages in 6th place. We won our quarter final against the hosts Monaco (who beat us in the round robin). This meant we had to face one 
of the amazing Swiss teams in the semi-final.

Our team

We were a bit disappointed at losing in the semis and then had to go straight in to a third/fourth race off. We weren't in the right frame of mind for it really and lost to France which is a shame as we really felt afterwards that we could have won it.

Last year our team came fifth so we did one better and the three teams above us all specially train for team racing which we hadn't done as a team. Overall though it was a lot of fun and I am very grateful to go to all these lovely places. 
Thank you Simon for taking me!!

Monaco a great place to sail

I've also been doing some good training in January with the National Squad at Rutland Sailing Club and at the Royal Lymington YC in a mixture of winds which is helpful at this point in the season.

This weekend, I'm off to Burghfield for their Optimist open. Given how long I've been racing my Optimist and as its not very far away, its the first time I'll have raced there. My sister Freya will be there doing her first event of the year in the regatta fleet so I can't wait to see her on the water with me.