Being so long and narrow you can see how quickly the bow and stern can swing round, and just how wet these boats can be! In our role as observers (positioned further back behind the camera man) clinging on was at times pretty difficult… but an amazing experience :)

I was lucky enough to be asked to join the umpire team for the event as one of the five observers. The role of the observers is to stand at the back of the racing yachts radioed up in communication with the umpires, and to call the boat’s heading and whether or not we are overlapped with the other boat in tight situations. Sounds easy right? Well it isn’t too bad until you add in the need for us to hang on for dear life as the transoms are swung on full lock by the helmsmen and the scoop fills up with water from the wave that has just passed over your head!

Our final role is to call if and when there is ever any contact between yachts, or as I had it yesterday, between stern and the committee boat (the good thing is it is generally not hard to tell because if there is contact, it’s often going to happen very close to where your standing!).

Despite the occasional fear, so far it has been an amazing experience seeing how the teams work together and operate these power houses of yachts and to see the options the afterguard take in each tactical situation — sometimes not a world apart from the Elliott 6M racing we’ll be back to at the end of the month!

The event website www.louisvuittontrophy.com has up to date information on results, and good live coverage of the racing, but I will try and keep you posted on my experiences too!

Some photos of the action below… the rather fetching fluorescent arm-bands are to help the umpires see our signals!

Lucy