Asda Athletes

Have had some great news this week after being up to our local Asda to meet Becky and make plans for more visits.

On the back of our results in Poland and Germany Morgan and I have been selected for the RYA Tailored Support programme. This is for the top 3 UK boats and gets us extra training and overseas regatta experience. Our first TS event is going to be 3-4 days coaching with our National Squad Coach and a 3 day regatta in Lake Garda at half term. This should be a fantastic experience and get the Winter training off to a flying start.

Morgan and I have had a good week in Cornwall at the 29er Nationals. We had two very good days in qualifying and were tied on points for the lead in qualifying for the Gold Fleet. Our results in the second half were steady, and we finished 5th Overall with the National Junior trophy to take home.

We hope our results here and in Germany will qualify us for training and a regatta on Lake Garda in October, and will see us into the National Squad, and hopefully the tailored support programme for the top few boats

Have just got back from Poland after the European 29er Championships.

Being relatively new to the class we had given ourselves a target to make Silver fleet (top 60) in the 116 boat fleet. In fact we exceeded our expectations, and made it to the Gold Fleet where we finished 22nd and 3rd British boat which was a great result for us. We were top under 16s at the event.

Poland was fantastic, with a fabulous beach and local town and night life.

We headed off to the Worlds in Germany with some great experience and confidence from the event.

After Poland we travelled straight to Travemunde in Germany for the World Championships. This was a huge event with 216 entries, and again we had targeted a top half result. Again we outstripped our expectations and after 3 days of qualifying races were lying 3rd overall!

After this we moved into Gold Fleet which was tough, but nevertheless we finished 21st overall, second British boat, and best of our age which was great.

As a bonus we got to take part in the harbour racing; as in the picture. This was a rapid fire elimination event with 16 selected boats, one from each country entered (see picture) This was really exciting in front of 2000-3000 spectators and in a very busy harbour entrance. After making the last qualifying place in our heat we won the final and the event.

We are now entitled to use GBR21 as our sail number, a reward given to the top 25 boats each year at the World Championships.

Charlie and I got together a couple of weekends ago for the Endeavour Trophy in Burnham on Crouch. This is an annual event where the National Champions from 25 of the biggest classes are invited for a weekend championship. It is probably the most prestigious dinghy championship in the UK.

It is sailed in large heavy over canvassed dinghies called Topper Xenons, so a windy weather forecast was not what we wanted!

It stayed windy all weekend, with long upwind legs against the tide, which left us very underpowered, as we were the only team to be sailing together as Juniors, and were very light. However we had a fantastic weekend, learnt a lot, and will try very hard to qualify again one day.
http://royalcorinthian.co.uk/gallery/2000530-1521/