What a way to finish a busy couple of months! A wet, windy and cold week in Holland has left me exhausted from the last two months but a nice point to take a break and have a few days recovering at home.

My hectic 6 weeks of sailing started in Hyeres, France where we had the third World Cup regatta of the year. We had mostly light sea breezes making for some tricky racing. I had some great starts and first beats over the couple of days of qualifying but was being let down by some downwind decision making. I qualified for Gold fleet in 23^rd position and with some consistent racing in the final series finished the week in 24^th. I wasn’t throwing any particularly special races in but always seemed to be in the mix and managed to eliminate having any bad races which had previously pulled me down in the rankings. I was really pleased with the result, I’d been working hard the last couple of years to improve in these light conditions and the work seems to be paying off.

From France I headed straight to Lake Garda in Italy to get training again ready for the Eurosaf regatta we had the following week. I did a lot of cycling as I was trying to get back into shape after a quiet period due to my wrist injury. I also got some good hours in training on the water in the famous Ora winds which we never really saw the full force of until the sun came out properly during the regatta but still, we had some great conditions! I struggled to get into phase with what the wind was doing for the first couple of days and with only two days and a new race format I failed to qualify for the 25 boat Gold fleet. We missed a day’s racing due to no wind which cut down the opportunities to jump back up the rankings but I did my best to make the most of the final days racing we had. We had three races in what were some of the craziest conditions I have ever raced in but they were all great fun! I finished the regatta in a disappointing 32^nd. Nothing seemed to click for me this week and I just put my priorities in the wrong places which left me missing the gain feature on the right hand side of the course. For me it was great practice though as this is the type of sailing I struggle with.

I stayed in Garda an extra couple of days where we did a bit of speed work and a long downwind session which was cool. From here I flew home to take a few days rest before heading back out to Medemblik, Holland for the last stint of my European trip for a couple of months. I was hoping to get on the water for a quick sail the day after I arrived but the wind and weather didn’t play ball so it was straight into racing the following day.

I opened my regatta with a poor result but managed to pull a string of consistent results together and scrape qualification for the 25 boat Gold fleet. Over the next 6 races I had some big ups and downs but didn’t have enough to pull up the tough fleet. It was weird and different racing with only 25 boats but it bought back the satisfaction of making Gold fleet again so was pretty cool. I finished the week in 24^th position, nothing special but a consistent series and another confidence boost for myself knowing I can race in and around the top 20 in a range of conditions.

Home time! I arrived home a couple of days ago and will be taking some time off out of the boat this week. I have been very tired from the amount of sailing and will now focus on trying to refresh for the next couple of months sailing. Next week we have a few days training in Weymouth before Sail For Gold regatta, can’t wait to get back down there after all the constant travelling!