A fresh and exciting six months!
Written by Sophie Weguelin | 19 June 2013
In January Eilidh and I teamed up together in the 470. We have both sailed the boat for a few years whilst at school or university, and since we were both now full time sailing we thought it would be worth a trial.
Six months on and we have medalled at three out of four of the events we have competed in, the latest one being a bronze medal at the 470 European Championships in Formia, Italy last week.
We’ve been on a pretty steep learning curve so far; getting to know each other, establishing routines on and off the water, putting the hours in the gym working on our strength and fitness, whilst still developing our knowledge and understanding about the boat.
Training has been tough with the men’s teams Luke Patience and Joe Glanfield, and Nick Rogers and Elliot Willis who have been putting us in our place a few times! It’s very intense and great fun. We’ve had to buy a lot of coffees though by losing the last ‘coffee race’, but we’re closing the gap down!!!
We have had a fantastic opportunity working with double Olympic Gold medalist Sarah Gosling (nee Webb) who has shared some of her knowledge and experience with us, and we’ve enjoyed every minute of it! She has taught us some highly valuable lessons in campaigning and racing, and has set us up in the right direction.
To mix the regattas up a little bit and keep us on our toes all of the regattas this year have had a different race format which ISAF are trialing (a couple of which were a little crazy). It’s interesting and is a great experience; we can only hope that the best one is picked for the Games in Rio.
For us the big event of the year will be the 470 World Championships in La Rochelle (5-11 August), so all of the racing and training that we are doing is in the build up to that. We will compete in Kiel next week (22-26 June), and then spend July in Weymouth and La Rochelle preparing for the Worlds!
It’s been amazing fun and very exciting so far, and the best bit is knowing that there is so much more to come!
Follow Sophie and Eilidh via their official Twitter page @GBR470_W