Europeans, here we come!

Over the next month and a bit I have the most exciting sailing of my life coming up with two European Championships and the British Nationals.Next Wednesday (9 July) I'm off to the European Championships in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. on a really early 0650 flight from Southampton. We have a few days training before the event starts on 13 July. It's going to be awesome with over over 250 sailors from 44 nations taking part. 

Making the Europeans Team was my big goal for this year so I can wait to get racing. I'm so excited but quite nervous too. I've sailed in Dublin Bay a couple of times before;  last year at the Irish Nationals and in a training week we had at the end of May, so at least I know a little bit about what the conditions can be like. I can't wait to race against so many new really good sailors from around the world and see how I get on but the racing at the Championships is a bit different than what I normally do as the girls and boys are in separate fleets. You can follow the results to see how I'm doing on the Championship website and there is a facebook page for the event too Optimist European Championship 2014 facebook .

When I'm back from the Euorpeans there is only a short time before the British Nationals in Weymouth (with a bit of Gurnard Sailing Dinghy Week in a Pico in between) and then after that a week and a bit before I'm off to the European Team Racing Championships in Lake Ledro, Italy. 

We have a team of four of us going to the Team Racing Championships, two boys and two girls who are all in the Euros Team too. I really like Team racing and sailing in the Italian mountains is going to be brilliant.

Last weekend we had a two day training session in Lymington for the Worlds and European Team racing teams which was great fun but really hard work. I learnt loads as I haven't done that much team racing before.


As well as working hard on our skills we did have a lot of fun and after training on Saturday we took our Oppies surfing on a bit of water in the Solent called Fiddlers Race where wind against tide makes these really big waves. I've never gone so fast in my Oppie and our coach Alan Williams had to go really quickly in the rib to keep up with us but did get some great photos of me.

 








I'm really lucky that I'm about to have such an amazing summer of sailing coming up so thank you to everyone who helps me: Royal London Yacht Club Youth Trust, Crewsaver, Isle of Wight Council talented athlete scheme,  SailSpy UK, North Sails, IOCA UK, my coaches, my grand parents (Nan Nan and GD) and all my family and friends.

Here's a video clip from my SailSpy UK GoPro camera from the team racing training. I hope you like it!

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!!.

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.

SailSpy UK Sponsorship

Big Big thanks to SailSpy UK for sponsoring me by giving me a GoPro® Hero 3 Camera and accessories! AWESOME! I was so excited yesterday when we went for the meeting! It all went smoothly and I was handed over a GoPro. I also got a t-shirt and a new Volvo visor from them! 

SailSpy support Nikki Curwen as well who is part of the Artemis Offshore Academy. I met Nikki and she first started sailing in an Optimist also.  It's so cool having the same sponsor.

Me getting my GoPro Hero 3
from Sail Spy UK

The team at SailSpy have kept my rudder so they can build a special bracket to fit a pole out of the end of my boat to put the GoPro on so we can film me from behind the boat. SailSpy's support is going to be a brilliant help for my training as it means I can film myself loads. It also means that you guys get more videos of me sailing! 

I'm off to Turkey on Monday with the British Optimist Development Team for the Bodrum International Regatta so no time to use the new GoPro yet unfortunately but I've set Dad some home work for while I'm away to learn how to use it! I don't think he'll mind!!!!

SailSpy is the leading provider of GoPro® video cameras and specialised accessories to the sailing industry. Based in Cowes, UK, SailSpy is run by a bunch of keen sailors and photographers who are dedicated to promoting sailing to a wider audience.

Here is a link to there website www.sailspy.com

GoPro Sailing from Freezing in Farmoor

No sailing for me at the weekend (NOT GOOD!) as I have my SATS exams at school this week (really NOT GOOD!!) so had to concentrate on them. This coming weekend I'm racing in the Optimist Inland Championships at Grafham Water. It's the first ranking event of the year so an important one.

Last year I won the Regatta fleet, this year I'm in the main fleet. There will be about 200 sailors competing so a big fleet. I can't wait.

As I didn't sail this weekend I thought I would put up a GroPro video my coach took of me when I was Zone Squad sailing in March. The weather that weekend was freezing. If you look closely at the kicker rope and boom you can see the ice!

I hope you like the video.