Three and a half weeks on the road now feels like five minutes as I embark on the 26-hour journey ahead of me to get home, however, the Royal Youth Nationals feels like a decade ago. Four members of the 2011 Youth Team (including me) along with our coach were attending as a training regatta in our build up to the ISAFs we all had in mind to test our skills against international competitors in a range of different conditions so to know what we had to come back and work on.
Hayling Island we quickly found out was extremely tidal and the wind was varying from 1 to 17 knots over the two prep days. The first two days were a mixture of windy and railing conditions leaving me in 10th on day 3, first girl and first kiwi. My male windsurf counterpart – Sven Pederson – was only a few points behind me and with amazing tactics and racing managed to pull ahead to 8th by the end of the regatta in extremely light and tidal conditions. I had a mixture of top fives and outer-top tens as the conditions were extremely hard to pick as the tide was going several different ways across the course. Overall I stuck with my same position against the Brits and won first girl and placed 11th out of everyone. Our laser radial girl, Molly Meech also place first girl and 8th overall, whilst Michael Cate finished up third in the fleet.
The regatta had such a variety of conditions and I’m feeling very competitive from the light to the heavy, and although I still have a lot I can work on from it, I’m very happy with my result as I’m sure our whole team was with theirs. After a long drive across London the team dropped me off outside some hotel just outside of Stansted, after waiting outside knocking for half an hour the owner eventually came out and almost had a heart attack when he saw the size of my luggage (as I was carting around my rig bag which was full to the brim of RS:X gear). Another pub dinner and I was on my way from Stansted airport the next day set for Hyeres, Toulon, France.
Ready to live the French life for the next two weeks I was staying in Le Calypso Hotel 30 metres from the beach and a seven-minute cycle to our launching area. A proper French breakfast every morning I trained for 3 days in the first week as well as exploring the local Centre-Ville and the neighbouring towns. It was harsh learning to keep on the opposite side of the road as well as getting myself organised without having anybody else there.
Being the first RS:X through measurement opened me up to having a completely free weekend which was especially good as a storm was on it’s way. I spent Friday doing photography for some kiting and windsurfing friends and Saturday getting overcharged for an hour shortboard in L’Almanarre, and exploring around Hyeres on bike. By that evening I was extremely exited to begin the regatta.
The first day I had one good start, one absolute stunner start and two average starts; sadly the stunner was abandoned. It was such a different experience racing in a large fleet with a very high quality, and I think this shock is what slowed me down, as I didn’t really get into the groove of things until the end of the second day. My first six races included a 33, 31, 34, 36, 32 and a 26 putting me in 71st overall out of 79. Starting the fourth day I was in the silver fleet hoping now there would be twice as many people behind me; although partly true I still could have been racing better as I got caught up in a couple of incidents where I was in the right which serious harmed my positions ending with a 23 and a 28. I’ve always generally thought my best conditions are light wind, however on the last day we got a half planing race and then a full planing race and I got two top 15 races with a 13 and 14 where the other New Zealanders all got top 10!
Overall I ended up 66th which was 27th in silver fleet, I also think I was the 5th youth, behind two Polish girls and two Israelis. Managed to sneak my way onto a press boat and take photos for the medal race as well which just topped off my trip. I learnt so much from the regatta and met so many new people. Now to head home and put it all to work!
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