UK YOUTH SQUAD CAMP

It's not all sunshine and fair winds after all, last weekend was a bit of an odd one at North Berwick.  We had some pretty one track racing, which was very tough and not as exciting as usual, but happy to take the win nonetheless.

After the North Berwick weekend I travelled down south with my mate Jamie for some training at Stokes Bay and a training camp with the Youth Squad in Weymouth.  

The weather at Stokes was a bit hit and miss, but we definitely got the best of the day on Thursday with a few hours of quality training on the water.  The forecast for Friday wasn't looking so great so we made the decision to go for a bike ride instead.  I was staying with my friend Jordan so it was great to have the local knowledge on the ride.

We then all travelled through to Weymouth on the Saturday morning for the squad camp.  It was great to be in the team environment again, it makes such a difference when you are with a good group of sailors all with a similar mind set.  We did a 4 and a half hour session each day with a pretty comprehensive debrief after each session.  I'll be honest, I wasn't sailing my best over the weekend but it's good to get the mistakes ironed out before the big summer events.  I've got lots of learning points to take forward and work on for the summer, so super excited to get started.  

I'm currently out in Kiel, Germany for Kieler Woche; and I think i'm right in saying that it's the biggest dinghy event in the world!  Racing starts on Wednesday, so I've got a few days to get prepped and ready to go.  

Follow the results here:  http://manage2sail.com/de-DE/event/kiwo18#!/results?classId=StdM

Lewis

UK WORLD + EUROPEAN SPRING QUALIFIERS

After a busy week at uni with graded presentations it was nice to get out racing again for the second qualifier of the year.  I travelled down a little earlier this time around and flew on Thursday evening – this meant myself and some of the other laser guys could get some training in on Friday.  Racing began on Saturday and we were sent out into Weymouth Bay where we completed 1 race.   After race 1 the visibility became very poor and racing was abandoned for the day unfortunately, but thats the game we play!

Sunday was slow to start with poor visibility again and very little wind, we were held ashore until some breeze filled in from the West.  The fleet eventually got 3 great races sailed inside Weymouth harbour, but me being I me I managed to disqualify myself from the second race for being to punchy on the start line.  Not ideal.

Nevertheless I was very happy with how I sailed over the weekend – especially with my starts (bar the black flag disqualification).  My starts are what I wanted to work on so its great to be able to feel them going well, particularly under some pressure of a very high quality fleet.  Very happy to have finished up 13th overall and 4th Under 21, even with a black flag!

The week following the Weymouth qualifier was testing week in the gym which all went to plan!  The testing led nicely into a breezy qualifier at Stokes Bay, definitely some heavy feeling legs!  Saturday brought 3 races in great conditions with 15 – 20 knots of wind and the infamous solent tides.  I struggled in the breezy conditions to say the least.  My boat handling on the start line felt pretty rusty and that didn’t set me up very well for the rest of the races.  Disappointing to be so far down the results with a  26th, 23rd and 17th but I’m happy its exposed some weaknesses to work on in time for summer!

I arrived at the club on Sunday, rigged up ready to go and tried my hardest to ignore the 30+ knots that was whistling around.  That 30 knots didn’t ease off, and we were left in the hands of a vote – to go sailing or to call it a day.  The vote swayed in favour of staying ashore, and soon after the official flags were hoisted and everyone was sent on their way.  With such an early call off, it left my mum and I with a bunch of time before our flight later that evening, so we decided to spend the day in Portsmouth!

The weekend following was spent back at home, with the next spent in the West coast for a Scottish Keelboat Academy Weekend just before travelling back down South for the Youth Nationals.

Lewis

Weymouth Qualifier:
http://www.kbsuk.com/laser/events/showrace.asp?EventID=94&RaceURL=%5Bresults%5D/wpnsa2std.2017nh.html

Stokes Bay Qualifier
http://www.kbsuk.com/laser/events/showrace.asp?EventID=95&RaceURL=%5Bresults%5D/stbaystd.17nh.html

Standard Ladder 2017:
http://www.kbsuk.com/laser/events/showrace.asp?EventID=95&RaceURL=%5Bresults%5D/stdlad3.2017nh.html

A WEEK IN WEYMOUTH

It’s been a while, time for a wee catch up…

After my training with Alexi at the Royal Forth Yacht Club it was time for my second semester at Edinburgh University to kick off. With Uni ongoing with assignments and deadlines dotted around I spent two of my weekends at home and sailed out of Royal Forth. I had one weekend spent sailing with the university at a team racing event which was a change to the usual laser! Another weekend was spent coaching the current Scottish Laser Development Team and training with the Scottish Keelboat Academy. It was great to get a wide variety of experience on the water in different boats and different disciplines.

After that busy block it was very quickly the middle of February and I was faced with a weeks trip down to Weymouth for the first World and European Qualifier of 2017 and the second Under 21 UK Youth Squad camp for this winter.

After a short wait for wind on Saturday the committee held 2 races in Weymouth Bay, The racing on Sunday was held in the harbour with a nice westerly breeze instead of the southerly breeze like the day prior. Over the weekend we completed 5 out of the 6 scheduled races in nice mild weather! I sailed a relatively consistent series with a 15th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 19th which put me 16th overall and 7th Under 21.

Monday through to Wednesday was a solid block of training with some nice big sessions in Weymouth Bay.  Thursday was blown off due to storm Doris but we had some beneficial land sessions and the time allowed me to get on with some boat prep!

With the week over I was back in the books with two presentations counting towards my grade during the week following the qualifier.

Lewis

Weymouth Qualifier:
http://www.kbsuk.com/laser/events/showrace.asp?EventID=93&RaceURL=%5Bresults%5D/stdwpnsa1.2017nh.html

UK LASER STANDARD U21 YOUTH SQUAD

A few weeks ago was my first U21 Standard Youth Squad camp!  It was a great four days to kick off the start of my winter training.  The camp was a prime opportunity to chat with the coaches and the rest of the team about the 3 qualifiers that have just past to see where we could all improve (see my other post).  It was also a really good chance to discuss next summer and my target events for the year ahead, exciting times!  The week was pretty tough for me as I had a lot of uni work to catch up on in the evenings; I had a report to hand in on the Friday of the camp and I had to catch up on the four days I had missed, I had a few late nights but it’s all done now!  All in all a great week with good improvements and lots of takeaways to work on.

I flew down from Edinburgh to Southampton on Monday night and hopped on a train to Weymouth.  The camp started on Tuesday and after an introduction to the team we quickly got on the water.  The main focuses of the camp were downwind turning, downwind tactics and match racing tactics.  We headed downwind into Weymouth bay on one of the days; here’s a short clip of the downwind turning I’ve been working on…

Thanks to Alex Mills Barton for the filming.

The match racing was very hard!  We were fortunate to be joined by a few of the sailors from the British Sailing Team who taught us a thing or two… or three… or four… about match racing tactics.  Loads of fun and heaps to learn which is super exciting!  We rounded the camp off with some short races in Weymouth Bay; a perfect chance to piece together the points discussed and consolidate them as much as possible.

We finished early on the final day of the camp which allowed me an hour or two to get some boat preparation done before my flight back home; it’s pretty hard to find the time to work on my boat when its kept 460 miles away! The boat is now all ready for a trip abroad this Christmas!  The rest of the team and I are heading out to Palamos, Spain for the Christmas regatta on the 15th.  I’ve not been away from home at that time of year before so that might be a challenge ,but I will be home just in time for Christmas Day.

I have a busy block of training at the moment including some training as part of the Scottish Elite Squad and the Scottish Keelboat Academy, looking forward to it!

Thanks for reading,

Lewis

UK YOUTH SQUAD CAMP

The big summer trip has begun, and what a weekend to start it off with!  Sunny Weymouth provided the team with champagne sailing conditions 4 days straight with 20+ degrees and fair winds.

This was my first trip heading down south that I was been able to help with the driving, which made it a lot easier for my Mum. We arrived late Friday night, with the camp kicking off the next morning.  The camp started off with a short briefing and we swiftly got on the water for a great session in the sun.  We sailed in the harbour for 3 days and out of the harbour on the last day to get a contrast of sea states which was very beneficial to me; I managed to take learning points away, from all 3 coaches we had, in the different conditions.

Wearing my summer wetsuit in Weymouth certainly wasn’t something I was expecting to happen!

At the half way stage of the camp we were fortunate enough to have the British Sailing Team psychologist Sophie Walton answer questions we had about the up coming competitions and how to deal with our mind-set and behaviour.  The main thing I took from this was to be an individual and not to be led by anyone else when it comes down to my routine and what works best for me.

The day after the camp was finished we all drove in convoy to Holyhead, Wales to catch the ferry across to Dublin, Ireland for the Youth World Championships.  Due to traffic accidents we decided to travel through Snowdonia National Park on our way to Holyhead.  The scenery is really quite impressive and we took a few stops on the way to take it all in! After a 2 hour ferry crossing we were docked in Dublin and we only had a short 30 minute drive to Dun Laoghaire Harbour to drop the boats off at the venue.

The World Championships start on the 23rd July, until then I will be training and getting used to the venue and my surroundings.  Watch this space for a post competition update!

Lewis