Well 2011 started badly for me with a small operation to remove an infection caused by an ingrowing hair?! the operation did not go as planned and led to around 5 months of enforced inactivity.... (Which explains the lack of news for the first half of this year!).
During this time i was able to go coaching carefully at the weekends! working again with the excellent rya north zone feva squad who went on to dominate at the Eric Twiname Championships and helping out with the 4.7 NJS who i coached at there European championships in Holland during July before doing another road trip down to La Rochelle for the Laser radial youth Worlds. I have great memories form La Rochelle where i finished 4th myself (despite laeding for much of the week) at a Radial Worlds and also being the venue Myself and Ed first qualified for the Olympic Performance squad in the Tornado. The Sailors did great with a number of top tens and podium finishers in the different categories, if we had had a touch more wind i think they would have destroyed the opposition.
I also had some fun coaching the RYA's new womens skiff program in the RS800, the weekends were generally brease on so there were some great capsizes to watch! but was great to see the quick progression by everyone....
Luckilly for me i was all healed up by June as i was asked to do mainsheet on GAC Pindar at the fourth event of the extreme 40 world series in Boston. Having always helmed in the past this was obviously going to be a challenge switching roles but despite leaking hydraulics (there were beats where i had to just continually pump to keep the main in the same palce.. not great) i did a fairly good job and was asked to crew for the rest of the 2011 series. The team was new to the series so were pleased to finish off the bottom of the pile for this event.
Next up was Cowes... This went brilliantly for us, Mischa Heemskerk joined the team on mainsheet with me switching to Jib trim and tactics, Ian Williams continually improving on the helm and Jono Macbeth on Bow. We were a relatively heavy and strong team, Jono in particular helped make up for me still being below usual fitness levels. Great boat handling and speed meant we made the best of some good starting and tactical calls in the mainly windy week, 6 days of racing in those boats is crazy hard! We were pleased to finish in 6th place overall and the sponsors were obviously delighted to see the big improvement in results infront of there guests.
Trapani (Sciliy) followed on in september, the start of a very full on 6 weeks for the extreme 40 teams, with 3 events in that very short period. Mischa had prior comitements so i switched back to mainsheet, with PG from italy Ed from Aus coming in on trim and bow. We never really got going, so many changes to the crew all at once took its toll and we finished in 8th place.
After a couple of days back home and a brilliant time at the Richmond - Blair wedding it was staright back to building the 40 again in Nice france. This became one of the most frustrating events ive sailed in the extreme 40's, very light winds in the afternoon led to early starts in the morning to get 3-4 races in, in the drainage winds. Maybe an hour back at the hotel, before lunch and then back out for some very light shifty races over the coirse of a long afternoon waiting for the occasional puff of wind! we had moments of brilliance in the light stuff, but seemed of the pace in the morning races and altough close to the middle of the front runners we ended up in 8th again.
Next up Almeria.....
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