That have been the conditions here on the UK South Coast for the past couple of days. Dartmouth last weekend was slightly different with some sunny spells and a lot of waiting for breeze. With the Atomic team a lot of effort had to go in figuring out the new rig and sails after they had been lost to Alex Thompson, Ben Ainsley and Lewis Hamilton.
The event was interesting to do and again there was plenty of opportunity to learn. The boat started going faster and faster throughout the event but with a day lost to light conditions there was just not enough time to make good for the issues of the first day. And a fifth in the overall standings after Sunday was a decent result taking into account that a lot of work was required to get the rig-settings sorted.
On the way home on Sunday I stopped at Weymouth (location for the 2012 sailing events of the Olympics) to have dinner with a Dutch friend and her matchracing team. That was a really pleasent meal but 5 days of yachting myself and their 11 races that day made for an early evening. However the girls managed to have a great day on the Monday afterwards and went on to finish 5th at the UK Women’s Matchracing Nationals (and it was their first event!)
For me the past week was about trying to settle properly back in Southampton; a couple of visits to the gym and because of lack of interweb at home quite some time in the library (getting used to life in four weeks again…)
But it wasn’t to be like that… After failing to go see Batman on Wednesday (to long a line to get tickets) I got asked to be ballast on board a J80 during Matchracing practice of one of the English crews on Thursday. I still don’t really understand why I agreed to go with the forecast as it was but luckily it turned out to be quite a nice day out on the water. And not just a nice day out but for a novice great to have the opportunity to pick up some tricks and tips on matchracing.
Now it’s weekend again and the weather is still really poor. I went down to Hamble to help getting 40Degrees ready for some minor work to get her ready for the season finale. Today was supposed to be the first day of three days of the final F45 event on the Solent for the ’08 season. Bad weather and a busy agenda for everyone involved saw the day cancelled ahead of schedule. Saturday is off as well for Atomic as there are issues getting the crew down to the boat but Sunday is still on. This has given me the chance to accept an invite to go sailing on a Daring. Although the weather is still not very promising I really look forward to go sailing some smaller boat and be more involved in the general sailing side of things.
Life is good!
Ciao!
