January - April in the blink of an eye!…

I think the last time I blinked it was Christmas?! 2022 so far has absolutely flown by and it feels quite scary that we are near the end of April and Spring is now in full swing - thank God!

I have now completed over 750 hours of clinical placement for my Physiotherapy degree after spending 8 weeks in the Paediatric Physiotherapy department within Hampshire Health Foundation Trust. This winter has certainly been challenging managing the time pressures of 40 hours/week of clinical work, a long commute, evening coaching and mentoring sessions, weekend sailing as well as the associated training so I have definitely been neglecting my friends and family (sorry!) but it is soon to be the summer break where I can hopefully catch up with everyone and come out of my busy shell with plenty of time on the water!

The Dinghy Show back in February was awesome to host and there was a chance to really catch up with so many people face to face, another reminder of how much more engaging conversations can be in real life. We hosted a fab session on how to keep girls and women involved in sailing past the junior & youth classes. It was great to hear different perceptions and challenges from different areas of the sport and hopefully we can keep the conversation going well into next year!

I was really excited to be back with SailGP GBR in San Francisco at the end of March for the Grand Final of Season 2. Whilst we were out of the running for the $1,000,000 race, we were still trying to get the best result possible at the Mubadala San Francisco event and set ourselves up in the best way possible for Season 3. I have to say I felt a bit nervous getting back on board following the collision we had in Sydney, it really brought home how quickly these things can happen but as usual, its a case of getting back on the horse and as always it is a wild ride in the F50 so the adrenaline was definitely pumping! The role of the 6th sailor is really evolving and its awesome to be at the front end of it. Saturday was classic San Fran conditions and it’s a really awesome spot to race under the bridge, conditions on the Sunday were not typical with a really changeable offshore breeze which made it really hard to get a course set, the racing was even more wild with some rolling swell coming into the bay, turning the F50 into a turbo charged bucking broncho! We raced really well and ended up 2nd in the San Francisco event and 4th overall for the Season - it’s all on for making the Grand Final in Season 3!

UK Sailing has started to pick up again now that the weather has improved and the days are nice and long, I am involved with coaching 2 boats based in the Solent who have Fastnet 2023 Campaigns underway so we have been getting the wheels in motion and working on some of the basics on the water to get some strong foundations of boat handling and sail changes before getting into more of a race focus as we go through the season!

I’m also really excited to be racing at the 5.5M Worlds this June in Hanko, Norway with Lou Morton and Annie Lush so we have been getting preparations underway under the watchful eye of Dog - Andrew Palfrey and Sam Haines with some fab input from the small keelboat Queen Shirley Robertson.

This week is the first of the RORC Offshore Races so I am heading to Le Havre with the JPK 10.80 Ikigai who is one of my coaching teams, the forecast is light but it is a long Bank Holiday Weekend so hopefully we make it back in time so that I can put a few more words into my assignment which is due next week!

Happy Sailing Everyone! : )

January - April in the blink of an eye!…

The diversity of our sport….

Sydney Sail GP