Monaco Team Racing!

Hi all, sorry I haven't been able to post anything regularly but I will be soon uploading a thank you for the 2014 video so stay tuned for that. I've been doing some national squad training over the winter and was very lucky last weekend to be able to go to the team racing event at Monaco, so here's more about it.

Day 1

Day 1 and we got to see a Ferrari and the Formula 1 track which resulted in a lot of photos and posing! Eventually we found our way down to the yacht club which was a massive glass looking boat which was apparently worth 120 million euros and was donated by the Prince. After a bit of shock from the yacht club we all sorted out our supplied brand new boats! We then headed out to breakfast after once again taking in the sights of Rolls Royce's and super yachts!   Breakfast was very posh and we ate the best croissants in the history of croissants! We then headed back to yacht club for the opening ceremony and briefing before launching.  We had a great first day for the team.  We had a lovely sunny day with a fresh 15knts at midday but the wind unfortunately dropped towards the end of the day. We pretty well dominated the first race scoring a 1,2,3,7 with not much team racing. However we got slightly over confident and we were all over in the next race giving us maximum points. Yet we came back from it and won the next 3 races with some good team racing moves being put into practise. The next race however didn't go our way and we received some unfortunate penalties. But with our great team spirit we were able to pull back another race which resulted in an opponent crying! We were all very pleased with the day and we had a nice evening to top it off, having dinner at a restaurant. We had a quiet and relaxing evening as we were all very tired.

Day 2
The second wasn't the best as there was no wind which unfortunately resulted in 0 races for us today. We were all a bit annoyed in the morning as well as we woke up early! However once we knew that sailing was cancelled for the day we were able to do something with our day. We went ice skating which was a bit different from sailing to say the least and I think the team should stick to sailing! Due to no sailing we were in no rush to do anything so we all had an early night which was shown in our results the next day!

Day 3
Day 3 was an incredible day for the team as we ended up scoring 7 wins out of 8!! We had a sleep in (we had learnt from yesterday!) so we were all very awake and ready for a decent day. We had breakfast at the club which once again provided some amazing croissants! The wind was quite decent (about 12knts) however it was quite gusty as we were sailing in the harbour amongst all the super yachts! It was quite a solid day of racing so we didn't have much time in the evening. However our evening was entertained because dinner was held at the club and there was lots of activities to do included real - life table football! 

Day 4
Heading into the last day we were 3rd overall so we were in with a chance. However we weren't at our best and we lost to Russia in the quarter-finals which meant we were knocked out. Due to this we came 5th overall so we were all very disappointed. What made it even more disappointing as well was the fact that we beat Russia the day before 1,2,3,4 so we felt like we let each other down massively.  To add to our disappointment the team that won overall we beat in the round-robin :( It was still a great event despite the disappointment on the last day. We then had the prize giving before heading off to the airport.

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the event and who helped our team.Id also like to specially thank John Holloway and Simon Cook who made the event possible. It was a great event, a good experience and I would love to go back next year!

 

The Yacht Club

My brand new Charter Boat!

 

The row of super-yachts we passed everyday!

 

Rolls Royce

 

 

 

Something different : TEAM RACING!

Last weekend I was at Bowmoor Sailing Club for the new IOCA Random Pairs Team Racing Championships. It was the second time I had ever team raced.  The first time I was in a Feva for the RYA Team Racing Championships so this was the first time I had ever properly team raced in my Optimist.  I was really excited but also quite nervous. To add to my nerves, I wasn't very well over the weekend with a cold and a bad cough. 

It was a two day event and on Saturday the wind conditions were 8-12 knots gusting 14, so perfect for team racing. The weekend was based on random pairs. This is how it worked: 

There were 24 sailors in total. 12 more experienced sailors had a number and 12 less experienced had a letter. In each race a random number and letter were put together to race as a team and in each race we had a different pairing.  All sailors had 22 races and the winner was the sailor who won the most number of team races. 

On Saturday I lost my first race, then won two and lost the fourth. By this time though I really felt like I was started to get to grips with how to race as a team and help my less experienced sailors. I then won 5 races in a row, lost one to Julia Mellers (who was sailing really well) and another to be on 7 wins and 4 losses. But I won all of my next races to end the first day in joint second place with 11 wins and 4 losses. 

My favourite race was round 11. In this race I was with Freya Black versus Ellen Main and James Hall. The more experienced sailor was Ellen Main on the other team so I was targeting her. On the start line I managed to force Ellen to the pin which was my plan however Freya was over so she had to go back which mean't she was 4th.  The team with the sailor who finished 4th lost the race so I had to do something.  I forced Ellen out on starboard from the start almost to the edge of the lake so that she couldn't tack whilst Freya beat James and rounded the the first windward mark in 1st place. I rounded it in 3rd with Ellen snapping on my heels. I managed to pull away from Ellen on the next three legs however James was waiting to try and block me for the final upwind leg. The second I rounded the last mark James tacked on top of me so we got into a tacking duel and Ellen got past me and I was now in last place. I decided I had to out tack James to get back in to 3rd place. I did five really quick tack, a short pause, two quick tacks and a fake tack and I had gained half a boat length. However, me and James were coming in on port and Ellen was coming in on starboard and Freya was above us all waiting nervously. I got as close as I could to Ellen then said tack and tacked before James knew what was happening and I gained a half a boat length finished second with Freya finishing 1st. What a great victory. 

Over Saturday night my cold got a lot worse and I felt really rubbish on Sunday but at least I had my new Crewsaver Phase2 drysuit keeping me warm and dry. It was really windy averaging about 20 knots with loads of huge gusts. I was really struggling to just sail and keep the boat upright and felt like I had no energy so concentrating on the team racing tactics was really hard. I only won one more race on Sunday and had a capsize and a couple of nose dives. In the end I missed the last race as I couldn't keep going and didn't feel like it was very safe.  

In the end I finished in 7th place overall just missing out on a top six prize.  The day finished early at 12:30pm.  Although I was annoyed at not doing so well on Sunday I still had a brilliant time and learnt a lot from the weekend which was good and very useful but now I don't know which I prefer Team Racing or Fleet Racing!