A week of learning in Santander
Written by Sophie Ainsworth | 26 September 2014
I would sum up our World Championships as a week of learning, that is for sure. Charlotte and I were slightly annoyed with our final result in Santander as we felt like we definitely had more to give and have more potential in this new 49erFX class than we showed over the course of the regatta.
But saying that there is a long way to go still in this cycle, there are two years to go until the Olympic Games in Rio so the fact that we finished in the top ten and are often in a place where we can medal just means that we need to learn how to close out regattas.
It seems to be that when the boat handling and the fleet gets quite close together that we don’t quite get the best from our performance.That is definitely something that we will go away and work on with our coach over the next few months.
We entered the medal race in Santander in seventh which threw up some really difficult conditions. It was really shifty and the pressure was up and down, the sea breeze was establishing so it hadn’t quite settled down. On the first lap we were coming third and pretty happy with how we had started the race but we then got caught outside a shift and we were then in the battle. And then unfortunately for us didn’t win that battle.
It was a little bit disappointing to finish seventh but on the plus side it is a whole lot better than last year’s World Championships where we didn’t even make the gold fleet!
With the Worlds over and with it our last major event of the year finished, we are now looking forward to the winter training which will involve a lot of fitness, a lot of boat handling and to just make sure we are best prepared and ready for next season.