I'm sorry, recently I haven't had the time to think straight, let alone muster the brain power it take a dyslepstic like my self to write a blog update. Though by the very nature of you reading this, it would suggest I am beginning to at least, find a bit of time. That said, attempting put something legitimate enough together while your elbows are pinned to your side in the smallest of easyJet seats is neither easy or efficient. Stand by this could be my messiest and potentially longest post yet!
Right where to begin..... When I last left you we were finishing up our training Palma before a brief spell back at home. I use the word 'home' in the loosest terms. As ever, and like with most things I made life hard for myself on the way home. While trying to collect my hire car, I was informed that in today's world you are required to have your National insurance number with you, due to both my naivety and my age (mostly my age) I am not particularly familiar with my National insurance number, and what was worse is that the one person who would be familiar with it - my mum (I'm such a grown up) - wasn't in the country to offer assistance. After a few disjointed phone calls with various neighbours and friends, Windsport legend Elizabeth came to the rescue. Throughout the Melee I ended up chatting to the car hire staff a lot, and after taking pity on the tired bumbling Cornishman, they very kindly upgraded my hire car and I rolled home in a little more style and a little later than I had anticipated.
I had a few days at home where I did a number of things including cut down a tree, mowed the fields and generally tried to make sense of the spaceship car I had ended up with. The weather was so nice and it reminded me of how perfect Mylor can be. Despite that, I really was only home for a few days, alongside my Olympic sailing I am also finding as much time to spend on the Foiling catamarans as well. We had arranged some days training in Weymouth where we could work with another boat and try to push our selves forward as much as possible. It was a brilliant few days, after spending so much time sailing around on our own Jon and I relished the chance to match up with another good team. I think we learned more about the boats that week than we had done in all the time sailing them last year. It was all in preparation for the up and coming event in Cannes early the following month (more info on that to come later in this mess of a blog)
The final day of Phantom sailing was a bit of a battle from start to finish. Following a slightly longer morning sail than planned, I was already slightly behind schedule. That combined with some 'lovely' good Friday traffic made getting the the airport.......challenging. Finally I met Nik and after creating a mega bag with all sorts of boat parts in it, we raced through the airport for our flight out to Palma. The first relaxing part of the day happened at 22.00 that evening after we landed and in a bid to make up for the craziness of the day went straight to the frozen yoghurt place for a come down.
We were back in Palma for the princess Sofia regatta. Despite the slightly aggressive time schedule Nik and I felt quite well prepared going into the regatta. The training earlier in the month and time on the water for me back in the UK had been really productive. It was the first time we has raced our older boat 'Peggy Sue' in a long time. I'm not entirely sure but I would imagine she was probably the oldest, or at least the most used boat on the beach that week. As racing kicked off, it was clear that Peggy Sue and ourselves needed to get to know each other again. It's amazing how 2 boats that are 'exactly the same' can feel so different. Day 1 for us was a sighter. But as the week went on we began to find our feet on the old girl again. Nik and I became more and more competitive in the full range of conditions, it's clear that we have made some great steps forward of late. It felt really good to be consistently racing at the front of the fleet. We had some cracking races in some perfect Palma conditions. After our disaster start we fought our way back through the results and by the end of the regatta we got the chance to compete in our 2nd medal race. With large point gaps either side of us we consolidated a fantastic 7th position with 5th place in the medal race. With all things considered Nik and I are absolutely over the moon with another great result. The consistency is getting there.
While away in Palma we have managed to now put together our calendar for the majority of rest of the season. Very excitingly we are headed back out to Rio for some training camps alongside Ben and Nicola. This will be great experience for us and we will do everything we can to assist the guys in the build up to the summer.
On top of all that excitement, after Racing in Palma I was off to the south of France to drop the Nacra before the next Hyeres World Cup and then go onto the beautiful Cannes for the first of our 2016 Flying Phantom regattas. This is what all the training pre Palma had been for. However we haven't had the best of luck with these phantom regattas, and very very unfortunately this was no different. After a fault on the team trailer when the guys were only just on the French side of the channel, there is just now way we can get the boats to Cannes safely and in one piece. Because of that Cannes for Jon and I is another missed opportunity to push ourselves at the front of the phantom fleet. We are really dissapointed with the situation, but surely now we have used up all our bad luck in the Phantom world. The next regatta will go blissfully, I am sure! And that just about brings us up to now, with the Cannes regatta over before it had begun, Jon will stay in the UK and I am as I mentioned earlier on one of Easyjet's finest somewhere about France.
I will be home for a little longer than planned which in someways isn't a bad thing, will give me a chance to wash some underwear for a start. There is only so many times you can wear things before back to front and inside out still doesn't work! The next trip for us is towards the end of the month, when we go back out to meet Peggy Sue in Hyeres for the ISAF World Cup regatta. It's an important event for our German friends and training partners so we will both be looking to build on our good results in Palma.
For now its back to sitting with my elbows pinned to my sides, put on some good music and as they say 'sit back, relax and enjoy the flight' ... Is that possible? Beats me!?!
Yew! TP