Asda Athletes

After two and a half years sailing together, three selections trials, two seasons as members of the RYA National Youth Squad, two French Nationals, a Flanders Youth Regatta, two World Championships, two boats, many many suits of sails and many many breakages on surviving our A-levels (just) and turning 18 putting us out of the age range for the National Squad Izzy and I have decided that the British 420 Nationals will be our last competitive event.

I will be going on to study Marine Biology at Plymouth University and Izzy will be taking a gap year whilst she decides what to apply for. Of course, we will be continuing with our sailing, Izzy plans to sail an international 14 with her dad and I plan to take part in university sailing and hitch a ride on almost any boat I can!

Thank you ASDA for all of your support so far although I won’t be continuing a serious long term campaign in order to focus on my degree there’s no reason why I won’t be hopping in a competitive boat soon- watch this space!

420 Nationals were the last event for many of 420 Team GBR as many are moving out of the class. The event this year was fantastic with a huge amount of socialising as well as competitive racing.

The aim of this event was to relax and enjoy it after our more serious previous events this summer. This largely went to plan however we sustained a large amount of damage.

The first damages were our fault as Izzy misinterpreted a call I made meaning that she thought she had space to continue where we didn’t causing us to hit another boat creating a hole in ours. Fortunately the other boat, which was brand new, came away unmarked. Next we were rammed by the jury man in a RIB causing serious damage to our rudder and rudder stock forcing us to go in to repair it and after not finding suitable spares left us missing two races and having to claim redress. We were allowed redress meaning that we got an average score using the results up to the races of 10.9 this was a little disappointing as the races we missed were in our favourite conditions however it was better than maximum points which you get for not participating in a race.

Our final damage was a hole in the kite as it got caught and ripped during a capsize in the last race. At this point we thought it was all over as we knew we were just 7 points ahead of the girls in 2nd and we thought they had passed us. We continued to the finish and sailed in with no idea where we had come we finally got onshore to meet the race leaders and a number of boats which had retired as the conditions were too rough for them. I looked frantically around to see if the girls were on shore as this would mean they were in front of us. Izzy shouted “They’re there” without needing to know what I was looking for, I looked where she was pointing and saw Sarah and Molly sailing in. This must’ve, but didn’t definitely mean we’d done it.

We didn’t know the results until we made it up to the clubhouse where they were printed. There we found that we’d had a 14th in the final race making us LADIES NATIONAL CHAMPIONS and 6th Overall.

Find the final results here

And the daily event reports here

After the worlds I managed to snatch 4 days at home. In this time I had time to relax and try to wind down after 3 weeks of almost solid training and competition before celebrating my belated 18th birthday with my friends from home and visit some of my family.

On Friday 10th I was lucky enough to have Olympic sailing tickets and was even luckier that the Men’s medal race hadn’t been sailed the day before allowing me to see both the 470 Men and Women claiming their Silver Medals. The atmosphere on the Nothe was amazing and after years of seeing these guys training and improving in Weymouth I’m so glad they achieved because it definitely was not easy!

Straight after the Olympics I hopped into my car and drove to Pwllheli in North Wales to coach and support the youngsters from my home club Burghfield and the Optimist British Nationals. Although the conditions were tough with a few days of no racing due incredibly high winds all of the kids worked really hard and I’m glad I was able to support them. After all, without the support I had from Burghfield in my early years there’s no chance I would be where I am today.

On the 23rd July I flew out to Austria, just 3 days after arriving home from the French nationals. We arrived to meet my dad who had driven one of the two 6 boat trailers from Southampton to the Austrian National sailing and training institute.
As Izzy flew out the day after me I started the event preparing the boat and carrying out some repairs from damage we had sustained at the French Nationals.

Soon enough the boat was back to its fit state and Izzy arrived so we set it up for training. Training went well as we found our grove in the new conditions on the lake and, with some difficulty, found the best ways to deal with the gusts and shifts. We eventually found that sailing on the very large lake Neusieder See was more closely related to sailing on the sea than a British lake with slow oscillating wind shifts as opposed to faster less predictable shifts.

Saturday saw the GB teams measurement and the event opening ceremony. After staying up until 1am to watch the Olympics opening ceremony I have to say it was nothing of the sort. Our ceremony did show some similarities as we regained the company of Team GBR’s Callum Airle one of the seven young sports people to light the Olympic Cauldron.

The Worlds were difficult with some of the most changing results I have ever seen both on the water and on the results sheet. Racing saw boats slipping from the top 10 to the 30’s due to both the closeness of the racing and the challenging wind shifts. Whilst the results sheet saw good days, okay days and those days no one really wants to talk about. Izzy and I started well putting us in 18th after the first day, we then struggled over the next few days pushing us all the way to 33rd at the end of qualifying meaning we just scraped gold fleet.

In between qualifying and finals we had a lay day in which I went to Vienna to explore the city and it was amazing. With little time we only visited a few monuments, the large market and the fairground. The fairground was by far the most impressive with a 100m chairoplane from which you could see the whole of the city.
The next day saw a great start to the finals with 1 bad race and a 9th and 22nd, Izzy and I showed our first signs of moving back up the results sheet. Day five saw no racing putting us in 23rd with one more day to go.

The final day once again saw another long wait leading to a lot of bracelets being made out of whipping twine among the team. After about 5 hours of sitting around we were eventually released and able to get our final race in. Before the final race we had our usual quick chat with our coach who told us to follow our instincts, give it our all and give him a moment that took his breath away. Izzy and I told him that our goal was to beat a 9th as after stacking up 3 this seemed to be our sticking point. The race was hot, challenging and very tactical but eventually we crossed the line in 6th, we were all ecstatic.

We finished the Worlds in 18th leaving us 2nd British Girls.

See the full results here

After a gruelling couple of months wading our way through A2 exams it was time for Izzy and I to get back on the water properly. After largely land based training in order to make time for revision this event was largely to get ourselves back into racing mode.

France gave good sailing conditions with around 15- 20 knts of stable breeze and large waves nearly every day. Racing went well with particular improvements seen in our boat handling giving us more speed, control and stability around the later parts of the course.

The racing was testing with a tight fleet and made more difficult as Izzy was suffering with a sinus infection. In the end we landed mostly solid results but due to an early black flag (where you are awarded maximum points for the race if you are caught over the start line within the last 1 minute of the start)we were limited in that our discard had already been used.

After lots of lessons being learned we ended up 19th over all and 4th girls.
We’re now home for two days to wash everything and re-pack ready for our flight to Austria tomorrow. Stay tuned for the 420 world championships updates or follow the class Facebook or Twitter

The two 6 boat trailers and two RIB’s are already in transit!