Its been a good few weeks for me, finishing with an amazing regatta in Kiel where I won the third World Cup event in a row, winning every race to discard a 1st!!!
I left for Sweden Three weeks ago for some training at this years Europeans venue Landskrona. It is a pretty interesting venue sailing in the waters between Sweden and Denmark. The first few days were pretty full on, sailing in winds of over 30 knots and it wasn’t exactly warm. We sailed with a good group of sailors including Swedes, Norwegians, Germans and Austrians.
The highlight of the week for me was watching the Volvo boats race past on there way to Stockholm. We went out on the rib and watched the boats hammer past as the sun came down. It was good to see some familiar faces on the boats as we waved them by.
After a good training camp we loaded up the boats and rib and drove down through Denmark to get the ferry over to Germany and then on to Kiel. After a bit of a logistical nightmare I was saved by the match race girls as they managed to organise accommodation at the Kiel Training Centre for me, thank you!!!
I took a couple of days off the water to prepare my boat and have a sneaky round of golf as I was pretty tired from the previous weeks training.
The first day was a pretty long tow out to the race course in a light breeze. On arrival the wind came in and rose to around 12 knots for two good races, I started well in the first to round 3rd round the top mark and move in to the lead by the end of the run and go on to win the race. In the second race I got away well again and lead round every mark to take the second win of the day.
The next two days saw glorious sunshine but not enough wind for sailing so I managed to really frustrate my self on the golf course ahhhhhh.
Day four was a great day for racing with a increased sea state for the 15 knot wind conditions giving some great surfing conditions. After a poor start in race one I took the lead by mark 3 and went on to win the race. The next race proved a lot easier after a great start I lead around mark one and went on to win again. The final race saw the breeze drop and a lot of general recalls with 13 boats getting black flagged. I started cautiously but went on to win the race. Some days sailing feels so much simpler than others!
Going in to the medal race with a perfect scoreline discarding a 1st things were still extremely tight between the top 10. My only way to guarantee victory was to finish in the top 3 if the kiwi was to win the race. The course was just off the harbour and conditions where gusty and shifty 6 -15 knots.
I made a great start at the starboard end of the line and lead out to the left. Once tacked I crossed all the fleet to round mark 1 first. On the run the Croatian made a large gain as we rounded the gate at similar times. I pulled away over the next two laps to take the gun.
It was a great feeling to have won the race to make it a clean sweep, This meant that I had also won the overall Kiel week prize along with the German windsurfer. We were presented a huge trophy at the prize giving.
I have just returned from a fantastic day at Wimbledon. I was invited along with other Gold medalists to be guests in the Royal box for the day. It was great to meet up with the other guys and girls and have a fantastic day watching the tennis. Oh the strawberries and cream were so good too!!!!!!
I am eagerly awaiting my new Orange Mountain Bike this week for a trip up to Wales to test it out and then its off to Canada for some pre worlds training. I have never been to Canada so Im looking forward it.
RSS Feed