Volvo

It’s been a bizarre week of racing that I am relived to be coming home with a bronze medal in my pocket.  It’s certainly been a week of ups and downs not just for me but most of the fleet.

The first curve ball was thrown at me before racing even started.  Luckily Steve (my Husband) came out for a few days while I was training, to keep me company before my house mates, the Match Race Girls (Annie, Lucy and Kate) flew out.  He was planning a relaxing couple of days in the South of France, no chance!  First day of training and I noticed something strange with my steering, Steve took the back hatch off to discover a serious crack in my steering quadrant, and it looked like it could go at any moment.  He spent the whole of Wednesday covered in epoxy repairing it for me, before being dropped off at the airport Thursday morning to fly home.  Thanks Hons, I owe you some Moules and Frites!

We lost a couple of days training due to strong winds. I think it’s the first year I can remember the practice race being cancelled, so it was straight in to race one, 15 knots and great surfing conditions.  I got a 6^th and a 3^rd which was good enough to place me 3^rd overall; however both of those races could have been thrown out, as the race committee posted the wrong course on the board.  Luckily no one decided to protest, but that was the start to the bizarre week that followed.

Helena Lucas, 2.4mR

 Most of the fleet collected letters, either OCS or DSQ; I got an OCS in the second race on the Wednesday, after having a bad first race, so you can imagine I was not a happy bunny! (Thanks to my house mates they cheered me up that evening and I got a second the next day.)  We were also moved to an entirely different race course. Apparently the Star class, who we were sharing with, could not see us and thought it was dangerous.  So we ended up with the RSX’s (not sure if that was any safer!)  This then opened another can of worms regarding the mark colours, change of course and other aspects of the sailing instructions that I won’t even go in to. 

Anyway, come Friday and the last day of racing I found myself in 4^th one point off Thierry [Schmitter, Dutch 2.4mR sailor) in 3^rd, but 5^th was only a point behind.  I decided the only way to deal with it was to go out and sail my own race, which seemed to work as I finished 1^st and with Thierry in 9^th I was now in 3^rd with a bit of a buffer and just one race to go. However I decided not to make it easy for myself in the second race and had to go back at the start and play catch up, but I did enough and clenched the bronze!

I certainly did not feel I sailed my best, but luckily enough the rest of the fleet apart from Damien [Seguin, French 2.4mR sailor) did not seem to be on form either and were making mistakes.  Damien however put together an amazing series to win with two races to spare!

What was great was Annie, Lucy and Kate won the match racing!  So we were a medal winning apartment.  Also the Skandia team GBR girls, showed the boys the way for once, winning 6 medals to their 2 (although their medals were gold!.) Also  Team Volvo did a great job with 4 medals, (two gold a silver and a bronze)

Helena

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