Sail for Gold after a busy few months...
Written by Lucy Macgregor | 02 June 2014
It’s that time of year again, Sail for Gold Regatta is upon us!
The last couple of months have been super busy going from event to event and squeezing in as much training as possible and this event is the last in the line for a little while…..which is a slight relief if I’m honest. All has been going well for Walshy and I. Generally we have been really pleased with our speed in a range of conditions and as a team I think our racing together is coming together well.
Walshy and my last event was Holland regatta which you may have seen didn’t end too well for us….Having been in touching distance to the medals for the first few days we had a disaster on the Thursday by breaking our rig in a capsize. Let alone being a very expensive, it was also on the first race of the day which meant we lost that whole day of racing and dropped down the leader board significantly. We carried a spare rig out to Holland with us so by the next morning we were back up and running – only to be greeted by no racing for the day due to lack of wind, extra frustrating!
Back in Weymouth this week we have a new and mainsail up so are in to checking in with the settings required for these. We have had the weekend training and then racing starts for us 12.30 on Monday. Unfortunately entry numbers are down big time for the Nacra 17s at Sail For Gold Regatta which makes the event quite a challenge to work out what to get out of it. With time running out far too quick in the campaign it is really important to make the most of every hour on the water.
This week our racing tactics and communication is hard to work on because it isn’t that realistic to the 80 boats we will be facing at the Worlds however there are other areas we can look at. Something that we have been doing a good job of so far but haven’t put much effort into so far this year is our boat handling and in the short sharp races we will have this week, it has quite a high importance. This and getting our heads around the setup of the new rig and mainsail will certainly keep us busy.
Racing times for us alternates with Kate and Kat in the 49erFX this week. 10.30 and 12.30 are the times you need to remember and twitter and the event website www.sailforgold.co.uk are the places to go to keep up to date with how we are doing…..no excuses now!
Finally, I have to admit seeing the range of sailing abilities out on the water in Weymouth this weekend has been great. From the beginners using the Andrew Simpson Sailing Centre to the youth sailors racing in the Laser Europa Cup and the potential and past Olympic medallists training for Sail for Gold it has all been covered. Awesome that our sport allows this to all happen on the same piece of water and from the same venue…love it!
Lucy
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