Just finished an intense 4 week block of sailing, exhausted is an understatement!
It all started straight off the back of the Mull trip in my last post. I sailed with Jamie Calder out of our home club, Royal Forth Yacht Club (RFYC) for the first of the 4 weeks where we settled back into the boats after a long time spent away from the water due to exams. We had amazing conditions, just like always on the Forth, good breeze and nice waves; even the sun popped out for a short while at the beginning of the week. We were fortunate enough to have Tim Hulse come up from down south to coach us on two of the days, he helped us refine our sailing in preparation for our trip to Germany the following week.
Part 2 consisted of my trip to Germany for Kieler Woche with Jamie and Calum Rosie. Kiel week is an amazing experience! If you have the chance to go for any reason at all, GO! We drove from Edinburgh down to Newcastle and hopped on an overnight ferry that took us into Amsterdam. About 7 hours later we arrived in Kiel where we set up camp in the van and the awning.
Our trip to Germany involved 2 international regattas, 9 days of back to back racing, 1 day of training before hand and my birthday. I sailed in the open Radial event first, it was a pretty windy few days which suited me well and I was very very happy to achieve my best international result to date by finishing 5th overall out of a fleet of 120!
The second regatta was with the big boys… the olympic class week. I sailed in the 110 strong Laser Standard fleet, 5 of which are competing in the Rio Olympics. It was a big learning curve for me with this being my 3rd full rig event and my first international event. Not a result to take away but a lot to work on, which is exciting!
I was shattered by the last day, but I have to say it was great to spend the trip with these guys!
The end of my 4 week block of sailing included: packing up in Kiel, my flight home and another amazing weekend spent on the Forth training with Jamie and Tim Hulse. We had great conditions (bar the rain) with some big waves and strong winds. A very windy Sunday saw Jamie and I sail through a squall that an easy jet flight about to land in Edinburgh had to change course and avoid, I’m pretty certain its the fastest I’ve gone in my laser! Great fun and lots of good points to take away and work on.
I have a couple of weeks at home before I leave again for the 2 remaining international regattas. Until then I’ll be doing some coaching, yacht sailing at RFYC and carrying on my work in the gym. So keep checking in for more updates soon!
Lewis
Radial Open Results:
Standard Results: