It promises to be a close regatta
Written by Dylan Fletcher | 29 June 2010
After Kiel week Alain and I have had a bit of down time to relax before
we set off on Thursday (1st July) to Poland for the 2010 49er European
Championships.
The down time has mostly involved watching the football, grand prix and kitesurfing with some of the other members of Skandia Team GBR. I think both of us needed a bit of time to just chill out after the disappoint in Kiel of missing out on a medal. We also had a meeting with our coach Harvey Hillary about Kiel and looking forward to the Euros, so now we can not wait to get out to Poland and get racing.
Neither of us have sailed in Poland before but have been told that it is normally not that windy, which probably means that when we are there its 20 knots every day. Whatever the conditions we both know that we are ready to take it on. After some mixed conditions in Kiel is was great to see that our training had paid off with us going into the medal race in 1st place. Although from then the medal race did not go to plan, it was the first time we have ever led a ISAF grade 1 regatta. We are both hoping to try and replicate that going into the medal race at the Europeans just with a slightly different result in the medal race!
With almost 90 boats entered for the 49er Europeans with pretty much all the top guys in world there is promises to be a close regatta. There is no doubt in our minds that we have got in the minerals and can come away with the gold.