An interesting start to the year!

Wednesday 4th January, 2012

Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2012 is a successful one :)

We’ve had an interesting day today, appearing as special guests at the “groundbreaking” ceremony to officially mark the beginning of the £3.5M Sealife Tower which is being built in Weymouth. The 53 meter tall observation tower will be a striking addition to the seafront, due for completion ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games, and will provide 360 degree panoramic views of the Jurassic Coast, rolling Dorset countryside, and the race area for the 2012 sailing events.

After being kitted up in our hard hats and high-viz jackets we wielded the ceremonial spades for the cameras, before a being hoisted by a crane nearly 40 metres above the ground to appreciate the views. An enjoyable if not rather nerve-racking ride, braving strong winds and Kate’s fear of heights! It’s certainly an interesting perspective of the waters we know so well, though I’m sure it’ll be a more comfortable trip once the tower is completed :)

Check out the video and photos below…

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We’re now packing in earnest as on Friday we leave for Miami, where we’ll be training then competing in our first event of the year.

Lucy, Annie and Kate x

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Busy busy busy…

Friday 28th October, 2011

Over the last few weeks we’ve been keeping ourselves busy in Weymouth, Poole, Weymouth, France, London, Weymouth and Spain!

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

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Windy Weymouth

Thursday 6th October, 2011

We’ve been getting the training hours in during the last two weeks in Weymouth in amazing conditions. Last week during the ‘heat wave’ we trained with the laser radial girls which I have to admit was quite entertaining at times, but a great week despite it starting with a fitness test!

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!

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Heading to Lake Michigan

Friday 2nd September, 2011

We’ve had a two week break since the Test Event and we’re really looking forward to getting back into training properly again.

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

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