Another week in Weymouth

While I was nailing down my training/competition schedule for the circuit earlier this year, I decided to forgo the ISAF world cup event in Kiel and instead stay in Weymouth to train for the three weeks between Sail for Gold and my final event of the season, the Laser European championship. I thought it would be good to settle down in one location for a bit and looking back on it, I’m happy I made that decision. The featured photo is of a rare sunny day in Weymouth. The photographer does a great job of making this place look like a tropical paradise.

Despite the chilly weather and its perennial gray-ness, Weymouth is a great venue that provides a wide variety of conditions. There are also plenty of Olympians staying here at the same time doing their final preparations for the games in 6 weeks, so the training has been diverse and competitive.

I got right back into training just two days after Sail for Gold ended. I was pretty tired from a breezy SFG, but had the opportunity to train with the Aussies and Kiwis so I didn’t pass it up (thanks for letting us join in boys). Spent four days with them in solid breeze and by the end of those four days, I was pretty fatigued and ready for a change of scenery.

Luckily, my buddies Jesse and Zander Kirkland (49er reps for Bermuda at this Olympics) had the same idea after their week of training, so all of us escaped Weymouth and went to London for the weekend. Jesse and Zander have some childhood friends from Bermuda that live there, so we met up with them and went to an open-air music festival Friday and Saturday and drove back to Weymouth on Sunday. It was a great change of pace from the training routine and I left the weekend recovered physically, recharged mentally, and ready to get back at it for another week.

So far, it’s been a good week and looks like its only going to get better with a solid forecast and more people showing up. Some coaches of various Laser sailors have come together and organized a 5 day coaches regatta that starts this Sunday, which should be very competitive and a great way to cap the three weeks here before the Europeans.

Finally, since Kiel was the last event of this year’s ISAF world cup series, the final standings for the series were released yesterday. I was able to have consistent enough results (participation didn’t hurt me either) to finish runner up in the final standings to Aussie Tom Burton.  This doesn’t mean a great deal other than its kind of cool and that its the summary of a pretty successful year. Check out ISAF’s press release here: ISAF Sailing world cup winners decided, and check out the final standings here: ISAF World Cup Standings Laser Standard.

All is good people!

Updates from training and/or the coaches regatta to come…