Volvo

“We have been working hard this week in the run up to Skandia Sail for Gold regatta as it is obviously a massive event for us. That said, we had a plan coming into the regatta and that wasn’t necessarily to end up on the podium, (although it would be a bonus!).

We had a brilliant first race, finishing second, but a gutting second race because we got an OCS and that really affected our overall standing today. It’s disappointing but we have to use it as a learning curve and the lesson is we have to be more carful on the start, we just can’t afford to make silly mistakes like that. That’s the main aim for this regatta; to learn as much as we can.

We are not looking for a podium position here and are realistic about what we can achieve. We are using this as a training event, because although we live in Weymouth and get to sail in and train here a lot, we don’t get to train against other people which is essential if you want to win races. All the other 470 girls are here which is brilliant and we need to use that to fill in any gaps in our experience as a team. For example today was great for us, 8-12 knots and that showed in our first race. But there are other conditions we aren’t so good in, and that’s just down to lack of time together. But we are working on that and train in all conditions. It’s challenging but it’s all about our communication onboard, which is improving all the time.

Tomorrow is looking like it is going to be really windy, so again we have to adjust our style. We surprised ourselves at the Worlds as it was a big breeze event which we don’t consider our strongest point, but we finished fifth! That boosts our confidence going into the rest of this week as it is set to be pretty windy!

Tonight we will just chill out and tomorrow we will come back focused, we know what the problem was today but we also proved what we can do out there in our first race. As a team me and Sarah are definitely getting there and hopefully that will show the rest of the week.”

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