Two weekends ago the South West Shingles YC, a select invitation-only group of esteemed yachtsmen and seafarers who have all experienced notable calamities afloat, kindly organised their annual regatta and end of season dinner in the form of a fund-raising event to support our Olympic Campaign. After a busy afternoon of seven short sharp races in a fleet of J24s from Parkstone YC the members and their guests enjoyed an entertaining dinner at the Royal Motor YC during which a raffle and auction was held. We’re hugely grateful to SWSYC Commodore David Latchford for not only organising the event, but encouraging so many local businesses, individuals and organisations to so generously donate a wide variety of items for the raffle and auction, ranging from fine wines and restaurant vouchers to sailing, rugby, flying and shooting days, and a number of artistic works including the star lot an original oil painting by Duncan Macgregor (no relation!). Much fun was had by all, and the level of support was really quite overwhelming. Many many thanks to all who came and contributed to raising a significant sum, which will go a long way to help cover some of our costs in the run up to the Games.

Last week we were in France at a grade 1 event in Saint Quay Portrieux, on the North Brittany coast. Fourteen top women’s teams took part in a pretty packed schedule, starting with a single full round robin over the first three days. Conditions were fairly light, and we put in some pretty long days on the water, however our efforts were rewarded by finishing second in the round robin on 9 wins and 4 losses. Proceeding directly to the quarter finals, we dispatched Rita Gonçalves (POR) 3–0, before facing Anne-Claire Le Berre (FRA) in the semi-finals which we again convincingly won 3–0. In the finals we were up against our long-term rivals, the French team of Claire Leroy who have been one of the most dominant competitors over the years. Racing was nip and tuck throughout, we had a strong start going 2–0 up, before they clawed it back to 2–2. In the deciding final match we came away with the all important win to take the overall title :)

This week we’ve not been on the water, but catching up with the never-ending admin and gym work. On Tuesday Lucy and Kate joined fellow Team Volvo for Life sailors Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison and Nick Dempsey at Apple’s London store on Regent Street for the launch of the new Volvo Sailing App. Available on iTunes for the iPhone and iPad, the new app combines the latest news and events, a basic guide to Olympic Sailing for non-sailors, and top tips from the experts for those looking to improve their sailing techniques.

Meanwhile Annie has been putting our brand new V70 to good use, towing a RIB down to Barcelona where we’ll be training against the Russian team for ten days. Check out our facebook page for photos of Annie’s trip including crossing the Millau Viaduct. Many thanks to Volvo Cars UK for their continued support, they’ve also just re-launched the VolvoCarsSailing.co.uk website which is well worth a visit.

Next week we’ll all be in Weymouth again, for a detailed review of our performance in the last quarter with all the coaching, technical and support staff. Fitness tests here we come! Then off to catch some sun in Barcelona… :)

We’ll leave you with this little promo tape of the TVfL sailors selected for the 2012 Games.

Cheers,

Lucy, Annie and Kate x

This week the heater has been turned down a little so the shorts and t-shirts have been put away for another few months but the breeze has been awesome. The last two days we have had 20–30 knots while training against the Russian team and a couple of wipe-outs to go with it!

Tomorrow it looks like the wind should die a little (below 20knots at least!) so hopefully we will head out to the Nothe course where the spectators will be next year and beat the Russians in some training races!

Once that regatta is finished we have had a slight change of plan and will now be heading back up to Sheboygan to race in the Open division of the ISAF Nations Cup Grand Final. With there not being much racing until the World Championships in December it will be a great opportunity to get some racing in against some different opposition.

We’re really looking forward to heading Chicago later today… and maybe a spot of shopping along the way! We’ll keep you posted on the racing too though.

Lucy

On Sunday we fly to the States for a fortnight on Lake Michigan. We’ll be training with our American rivals Sally Barkow for the first week at the Sheboygan US Sailing Center, and then heading on to the Chicago Match Race Center for an Open Grade 3 regatta against some American male match racing crews during the second week.

Obviously it is important to spend as much time training at the Olympic venue as possible in the build up to next summer, but having spent so much time there recently it will be nice to have a change of scenery for a couple of weeks before we really get into our full winter programme back in Weymouth.

We trained in Sheboygan before the Worlds last year; there is an excellent specialist match racing facility there, you can just charter Elliott 6ms and there has always been a good mix of sea states. As a town it is not the most exciting, which our coach says is a good thing! But the sailing is excellent.

Some people might find it strange that with the Olympics getting so close now we would chose to train with someone who could potentially be one of our main competitors at London 2012, but at this stage you need to be racing regularly against the top sailors in the world and Sally is one of the best.

We have a good relationship with Sally and her team and the training we have done together has always been very productive as we can push each other hard to a certain level without giving away any of our secrets. When we need to do a bit more in-house training and test a few bits and bobs out that is where the boys come in very useful.

We were really disappointed to finish seventh at the Test Event. You never expect to win a medal but we certainly hoped to, and that is definitely where we should be aiming at this stage of the campaign. There were a lot of could’ves and should’ves from the event, but if anything it has given us a bit of a kick and instead of feeling downhearted we are feeling quite confident as we know what things worked and where we can make plenty of gains. The things we had been working hard on in training we executed well, but it was simple things that let us down. The trick is pulling that all together when it counts. No-one has pulled away from the rest of the fleet and become the ones to beat next year, so the next 11 months is going to be equally important for everyone. We got what we deserved at the Test Event, but we now know the areas we need to improve on, and the hard work on that has already started.

It may not sound like a break to some people but during our two weeks’ off Kate and I, and our sister Nicky, all crewed RS200s at the RS Games at Weymouth and Portland. I sailed with Dave Evans, one of the Skandia Team GBR 49er sailors, and the event was really great fun. There were 160 boats in the RS200 fleet and the whole event felt like a massive reunion because there were so many people there who I knew from Youth and other types of sailing! I personally don’t feel I’ve done enough fleet racing recently and it can really help in your match race sailing, especially in the more shifty conditions, where you’re trying to pick shifts better. The skills are there but they just need polishing up so we will all be doing a bit more fleet racing this winter as we get ready for the ISAF Worlds in Perth in December.

We’ll keep you updated on our progress!

Lucy x

The season started with a silver medal in the first world cup series event in Miami, this was a great way to start the season however also showed we needed to make the most of the forthcoming training.   After Miami we based ourselves in Palma, Mallorca for training where we brought in different coaches and training partners, a huge leap forward before the main season commenced.  The next two World cup events were in Palma and Hyeres, where, unfortunately we ended up with a 5^th and 4^th but were still showing a lot of potential.

In June the RYA chose to mix and match teams, with the match race squad reducing in numbers and some crews changing.  One of those changes was Ally leaving our team and Kate, Lucy’s younger sister, joining the team.  Although this was a difficult change at the time, it did happen very smoothly and we are delighted to say, after following her Engineering degree, Ally has settled into a fantastic new job with a lot of potential.  While having to juggle both university and sailing, Kate is working extremely hard but fitting in really well and the three of us are really enjoying working together.

The summer was busy with events, including the European championships where we achieved a Silver medal and a Bronze medal at the Stena Match Cup, Sweden.  One of the bigger events of the year was the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in the Olympic venue, Weymouth.  Although we were a new team at the time we were feeling good in the running up to the event and were hoping to medal.  The first 2 rounds went well for us until we reached the quarter finals where we were up against the American team, we managed to fight back after being 2-0 down to 2-2, then unfortunately lost the deciding race meaning we did not make it through to the semi finals.  In the following round we were back on form and ended up 5^th overall but were definitely disappointed with our week.

Most classes would have had time off after their busy summer however we were straight back into it with the World Championships just around the corner!

For the worlds the Sonar was used instead of our Elliott 6ms, meaning we had a lot to learn about the boats in the 2 weeks training we did.  We had two great weeks training in Sheboygan, USA and Cowes, giving us a good feeling going into the regatta which was at the end of September in Newport, Rhode Island.  The conditions for the week were tricky but it was great for racing.  We sailed through the opening rounds very smoothly and made it to the semi finals against two times World Champion Claire Leroy from France.  The semi finals was extremely close we were 2-1 ahead in the series but behind in the race with a penalty going round the final windward mark.  Getting rid of a penalty on the final leg is never easy especially against a team like the French.  We managed to get back into the lead making sure that the French were ‘hooked’ to windward of us, this meant we were able to sail them up the course allowing us to get our penalty in, set the spinnaker and finish ahead giving us our place in the finals.  The finals were against another two times World Champion, Sally Barkow from the USA.  Once again the racing was very close.  Each match finished with the boats no more that 2 boat lengths apart, in the final race we managed to give Sally and her team a Penalty pre start allowing us to have our best start of the week 2 lengths ahead of her allowing us to extend and finish the event as World Champions!

We have recently returned back from a cross country skiing camp in Font Romeu in the Pyrenees, along with our physiologist, physiotherapist and 10 other sailors.  Whilst the UK had lots of snow, we unfortunately didn’t have enough to go cross country skiing so did 3 days of 5 hour hikes as well as a lot of indoor games and swimming.  It was a fantastic week for our fitness as well as being good fun despite the blisters.  After our various delays in Barcelona airport due to the snow in the UK we all went to Birmingham for the Sports Personality of the Year Awards.  Being around so many talented athletes was an amazing experience and very inspirational. It was also a great party to finish the year with!

Now we have a couple of weeks off over Christmas before beginning 2011 with a visit to the boat show where Annie and Lucy will be doing talks on the 8^th and 9^th. Then we will be back out to Miami to start the 2011 World Cup Series and into some training before the main events begin. Our aim for 2011 is to gain qualification for the Olympics. We’re on track so far and we’ll do everything we can to stay there!

Thank you for all your support this year, it means a great deal to us.  We hope your had a Merry Christmas and have a very Happy and Successful New Year!

From

The GBR Match Race Girls.

We arrived at CNEA in the early afternoon and despite some confusion (mainly because we don’t speak French, and they not much English) were shown our rooms and the ‘facilities’.  The excitement of having a room each soon wore off when we realised that you can touch both walls when standing in the middle, and that the beds are designed more for 470 helms than Star crews (or more for Lucy and Kate than me!).  With reports confirming our fear that there was not enough snow to ski, and nor will there be (until we leave on Friday, when naturally heavy snowfall is expected!), we went to look around the facilities.  These were installed in 1968 for the French to train here prior to the Mexico Games, and as some pointed out, have not been updated since!  Hence the gym and weights room require some creative thinking to complete our normal workouts, but luckily Pete is on hand to help out and we’re warming to the retro style weight lifting!

So, with no snow or skiing prospects, we’ve not been allowed to sit around enjoying French cuisine (if only that were possible, the food here is… well just imagine bad school dinners), but we have been hiking.  Pete found us a guide and we’ve been on 4 — 5 hour hikes.  Today we climbed over 1000metres in minus 23 and about 30 knots of wind… but it was actually kind of fun.  Despite a few blisters, frozen water bottles and attempts at falling into freezing rivers (Flash and myself), we’re all alive and have just finished our pre-dinner stretch and swim before football later this evening.  Tomorrow we’re off to the summit and are leaving at 8.30am, so we’re back before it’s dark… umm I’ve just realised that’s 8 hours of hiking… HELP!!!

Annie x

Prior to travelling to St Thomas (US Virgin Islands) for an event tomorrow evening, Annie, Kate and I have run away from the snow at home and are doing three days training in Miami on the way. The conditions have been fantastic so far, yesterday I was given 25 degrees and 10 knots for my birthday, and we had similar today. We are currently working on some boat handling with just one boat but we will be back after competing at the Carlos Aguilar Regatta to do some two boat training.

The photo shows a friend we recruited to come sailing with us yesterday!

Lucy x

Today we had ideal conditions with a light breeze and a bit of swell we raced all day, putting ourselves under a bit of pressure and remembering how to sail the Elliott 6M again!  The Russians have had a great year with results so we’re looking forward to the week focusing on some boat handling and speed work, much of which Annie and I have had very little time working on so far with Kate.

We’ll keep you posted,

Lucy x

Since finishing Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta with a slightly disappointing result we have had a good month away from the Elliotts. After couple of weeks off (for me at least, Kate went straight to Commodores Cup Regatta and then straight from there to the RS200 National Championships!) we were straight into training for the Worlds. This year the Worlds slightly bizarrely won’t be in Elliotts but are being held in Sonars, 4 up… enter Mary Rook. Kate, Annie and I were extremely happy with our crew work during Sail for Gold so finding a 4th was quite tricky as we don’t want to disrupt the dynamics of our team, but also want to use the 4th to add as much as possible to our current team and create a strong team of 4 like no other. Over the years Mary and I have sailed together a lot in Match Racing events and as a very good all rounded sailor with a very competitive nature, Mary is a great asset to our team and after much deliberation, will be doing bow for us freeing Kate up to take a more tactical role.

Our training started in the Sonars in Sheboygan, USA in the first week of September with a training camp racing against two of the American teams and focusing on getting used to sailing the new boats, the boat handling and tuning of them to get round the course as efficiently and quickly as possible! There was of course a few days of multiple bruises particularly for Mary and Kate! However it was a really good week and we came away confident with our handling of the boats round the course.

Next up was the get our boat on boat skills up to scratch in Sonars so after a day turn around we were training in Cowes for two days against Ian Williams and then in Weymouth for two days against Paul CJ and our Paralympic team. We had an awesome couple of days in plenty of breeze against John, Hannah and Steve with then passing on all their gems of knowledge about the boats they sail day in, day out. Many thanks to them for that!

All that brought us up to next Friday and Since then we have all had the week to ourselves and it’s quite amazing that we still all choose to go sailing in it! Annie is at the Swan World Championships this week sailing the 82ft Nikata, Kate is off to Palma for a few days, Mary is training in Weymouth in the Elliotts and I was racing with the Louise Morton and ‘the girls’ on her Quarter Toner, Espada at the weekend for the Nab Tower race.

We leave for the Worlds on Sunday, practice is Monday and racing against the 19 other teams will start Tuesday so wish us luck and keep following our progress!

Lucy x