Exams almost over - preparations for the summer

With Ed having finished his summer university exams and myself within a fortnight of finishing my A-levels, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and can't wait to get racing again on the international circuit. Unfortunately with Sail For Gold overlapping with some of my exams we were not able to do the event down in Weymouth this week but instead watch with interest at the Olympic selection battle!

Ed is spending some time prepping the boat with new ropes/blocks ready for the European championships in a months time. The European championships are in Helsinki in Finland, the event website is http://www.49ereuropeans.org/ and it should be a great event for us to learn from and continue to progress up the international ladder. We then head on to the 49er Youth world championships which is the first time the event is being run, with a maximum age of 22. We hope to finish in the medals in this event as we feel like we are amongst the best of the people in this age category in the world in the 49er, despite the fact that we will still both be only 18 at this event.

To see the ropes we use on the 49er visit http://www.englishbraids.co.uk/.

Also, check my Facebook for the latest training videos!

All the best,

James

Princess Sofia Regatta

Ed has been ill recently with Glandular fever. This has been a large setback for the team as we have not been able to train since mid February. I Made the late decision to sail with another crew for The Princess Sofia Regatta that took place 2-8th April. I wanted to do the event with someone that I thought I could learn a lot from, namely, Simon Hiscocks (Simon won Olympic silver in Sydney and Olympic Bronze in Athens crewing the 49er so isn't short of a bit of knowledge). I found the event incredibly useful and sailing with Simon was a great opportunity.

We both hope that we can get training again this week. However Ed's recovery has been relatively slow with the possibility of the illness returning if we go in too hard.

All the best,

James

Palamos Review

Hi everyone, just a quick update and review of our performance at the Palamos Christmas Regatta in Spain.

18 European 49ers were at this event, four of which were Brits.

We didn't let ourselves get disheartened by a slightly disapointing first day. We felt we had actually sailed relitively well but lacked the finishing touch. This may have been partly because it always takes us a while to get back on racing form with such long gaps between events.

Racing was cancelled on day 2 due to lack of wind. The breeze had switch round to the south and it had gone from close to freezing to 15 degrees c in one day! Shirts off football on the beach resulted in a good few minor injuries.....Still felt good to be doing this on the 19th of December!

Day three and we showed some form over 5 races. We were on the water for close to 5 hours making it an extremely tiring day. We got 3 3rds, a bullet and a 6th shooting us up the overall results. We were easily the most consistantly performing boat of the day and we felt we had sailed well in quite challanging conditions at times.

Day four brought large swell and a stronger southerly breeze. We didn't sail as well as the previous day but came out of the day with some great positives to move forward on. By the end of the day we were lying 5th overall but extremely close to 2nd.

Medal race day and we are keen to gain as much experience in this situation as possible. We are 19 points clear of 6th and therefore have nothing to loose. At the last windward mark of the race we are second and choose to gybe hoist with the leader. It was the long gybe and seemed the sensible option in the extremely light conditions. Unfortunately the wind filled in on the right looking downwind comprehensively meaning we finished the race in 5th place with our close rivals both just ahead meaning we stayed were we were overall.

So 5th overall in an international regatta and first Brit (unfortunately all the best Brits were not here), but still it was good to get some racing practice and give us some clear goals before the 2011 season.

Our next event is Palma at the end of March in which we hope to improve from last year's result of 41st. Our support from sponsors Ocean Air Blinds, RS Racing and English Braids allows us to compete at this level and concentrate solely on performance (and passing a few exams).

All the best and a Happy New Year,

James&Ed