Killing time in The Hague...
Written by Penny Clark | 15 July 2010
The week so far at the 470 Worlds has been a little frustrating, to say the least.
The weather conditions haven’t exactly been great and helped us out, and I think a little bit of confusion with the race committee has led to what could potentially be seen as a few poor decisions.
We went out on the water on day one and a big storm came through, so quite rightly they sent us back in. Unfortunately they sent us in and abandoned for the day, so when champagne yachting conditions came through in the evening we were all sat ashore having dinner!
We got a few races in on the second day in very difficult conditions. We struggled a little bit with that but managed to get two just about counters out of that, and then yesterday we had perfect conditions, champagne yachting and two fantastic races. Then they heard another storm was coming so they decided safety first and sent us in. The storm unfortunately didn’t come through for another four hours so we sat ashore under postponement looking at the wonderful 15 knots of breeze that was out on the racecourse!
Today gales have come through – they sent us out and tried to get a race in but it was just way too windy out there. I think less than half the fleet would have been able to get round the racecourse so it was probably the right decision to send us back in.
Postponements are always frustrating but you just have to try and stay relaxed. If you’re on the shore, you just try and switch off so that you don’t get tired throughout the day – we find things to do like play cards or read a book. We’ve got the Harry Potter disk set in the van so we’ve been listening to a fair old bit of that this week!
It’s just a case of trying to kill time without getting stressed and looking out the window at the weather the whole time. If you’re on the water it’s a little harder because they can fire the race off pretty quickly, so you have to watch what’s going on, try and take downtime but also keep a slightly higher state of readiness and alertness so that you’re ready to go. I find waiting on the water very hard and very draining.
We had a good couple of weeks of training out here before the Worlds. I really enjoy getting some good venue time in before an event – it gives you good confidence. We’ve stayed in the same accommodation the whole time so that feels like home from home. We really feel like we know the tides and conditions out there – they're pretty straightforward but it’s just nice to have built the confidence of being here over a period of time.
This season has been a difficult one for us. I was ill at the beginning at the year, and then when I finally got back in the boat – albeit in a very reduced capacity – straight away Kat hurt her back, probably partly due to her not having sailed as well. We were out longer than we expected and we’ve struggled to readjust our own level of expectation. We’ve been wanting to be at the front of the fleet, but when you haven’t sailed for a long time you’re pretty rusty and you shouldn’t be expecting that so we’ve tried to change our expectations here.
We would have been looking for a top three here had we had an ideal winter – now we’re just looking at top ten, and to try and achieve what we achieved last year with everyone having moved on and build from that.
We’ve still got a long way to go to the Games, we know we’ve got medal potential in us, but I think it’s important for us not to over-expect here as we’ve definitely suffered from that earlier in the season.
Looks like we’re about to finally be sent out for some evening racing, so I’d better go and get ready!
Penny