GBR Match Race Girls » Training

Good day at the office!

Lucy — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:27:23 +0000

One of those days today which made me remember why I love doing what we do! We had a great day of training in gorgeous conditions, sun and 13 knots building to 19 later on. We squeezed inside Portland Harbour (in the small spots left over from the 500 oppies) and started with some pre start exercises against Sofia Bekatorou’s team (GRE) and finished with some actioned packed racing against Sally Barkow’s team (USA).

Training again tomorrow then we have a three day Grade 2 event as a warm up to the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta, the final stop on the 2009/2010 ISAF Sailing World Cup tour.

Lucy

Perfect conditions in Weymouth

Lucy — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:17:10 +0000

Our training for our next event, Skandia Sail for Gold is well underway now and we are enjoying perfect conditions for our training in Weymouth. Annie, Kate and I have some specific areas to work on before the start of the event on the 9th August however mostly we will just be race training from now on and next weekend we have a Grade 2 regatta here to test preparations!

In the recent release of the Women’s Match Racing World Rankings we were thrilled to hold on to our no 1 spot and we are now really looking forward to racing on home waters again. Currently we are training alongside 500 optimists doing their National Championships and I don’t think WPNSA is going to get quieter any time soon!

Lucy

Back to sunny (ish) Weymouth

Lucy — Wed, 05 May 2010 08:44:40 +0000

After last week’s drifting Ally, Annie and I are back to Weymouth this week for a few days training. This week Nick Cherry is with us as training partner and we have Si Shaw coaching us, so we’re looking forward to making steps forward, focusing particularly on our down wind tactics and communication.

Yesterday we had good day in around 10knots and it is looking similar, perhaps a little lighter today. We’ll be down here until Friday when we will pack up the two Elliotts here ready to go in a container to be used for the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Medemblik, Holland in a couple of weeks.

Next for us is the European Championships next week in Austria.

Lucy

Ready to rock and roll.

Lucy — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:12:06 +0000

Annie, Ally and I are back in Palma now preparing for the Princess Sofia OCR regatta, the second ISAF Sailing World Cup event of the year. Having finished second at the Miami OCR in January, we’re looking forward to racing again and putting our training to the test.

After attending the City Livery Yacht Club‘s fitting out dinner on Monday night, I arrived out in Palma early on Tuesday morning and we’ve now had three good days training, two of which we spent 40 mins each way on the tow to get to our racing area, but it has definitely been worth it to check out the conditions on the other side of the bay where we will be competing next week. So far it has been light this week but we are expecting a little more wind tomorrow and in to the first days racing on Sunday.

The entry list has recently been posted showing the 24 teams that have qualified to sail at this event — and there aren’t many of the top names missing from it, so bring on the racing!

Lucy x

Update from Annie:

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Video diary from Palma

Ian — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:54:16 +0000

See below for a video diary compilation of the last couple of weeks training in Palma :)

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Not so sunny Palma…

Lucy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:47:09 +0000

Well, the rest of the squad arrived and the wind, rain and more depresingly SNOW arrived too! Our idea of coming to Palma to get some warmer weather training didn’t seem to smart this morning as four of us were frozen to our bikes while on a 1h30min cycle! Luckily it warmed up a little and the snow stopped before we went sailing today allowing us to get a good session in, working on our downwind communication between the three of us. In for lunch at the moment and about to go out for another quick boat handling session…

Sunny Palma

Lucy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:54:31 +0000

We’re coming to the end of a great week of training in Palma, the sun has shone for us and despite breaking a rudder yesterday!….we’ve managed to get a load of hours on the water. For training partners this week we’ve had the joy of Nick Cherry, Ed Hill and Katie Mac’s presence and we’ve had Si Shaw coaching us working on upwind tactics. Nick has been snapping away so we’ll hope to get some pictures with you soon! One more day to go and then a weekend off before the squad come and join us next week.

Bye for now x

Perfect conditions…but we’re not sailing in them!

Lucy — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:24:26 +0000

We have just had two beautiful days in Miami, however unfortunately we’ve not been sailing! The boats have been unavailable while they are prepared for the Rolex Miami OCR, so it has ‘forced’ us to have two days off to go shopping, visit the cinema and enjoy the sun… it’s a hard life!

Our training over the last week in the American boats and in this venue has been really useful, and we have gained a lot from it even though we had very light conditions towards the end. After a couple of days rest and relaxation we can’t wait to get racing, which starts on Monday, however before that each team has two official practice sessions, along with registration, weigh-in, etc to completed over the course of the weekend.

Lucy

Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta

Lucy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:30:47 +0000

We’ve now been in Miami preparing for the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta for a few days, and have had some great practice sessions. Having spent the last few months since Sail for Gold training in our new Elliott 6m boats we’re looking forward to competing again and finally testing how our training has been going! The regatta will be the first for us in the 2010 racing calendar, and the start of this year’s ISAF World Cup Series which we’re keen to defend having taken top spot last year!

Currently we’re chartering a boat for practice here, getting used to the conditions (and the climate, slightly improved from the UK!). We’re training against the other GBR team of Katie Archer, Nicky Muller and Lauren Martel, and have three more days of practice until racing starts on Monday.

There will be 24 teams from 16 nations competing from the 25th through to the 30th. With 206 matches scheduled in total it is going to be a busy week for all, in the first stage the fleet will be split into three round-robin groups of 8 boats. We’ll keep you posted!

Lucy

Palma training

Lucy — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:42:07 +0000

After managing to escape the snow on Wednesday by flying out of one of the only airports open in the UK, we’re now in Palma for a week of training before heading out to Miami next week. The container with our two Elliott 6m arrived yesterday and hopefully tomorrow we’ll be out on the water and training through to the 13th.