The weather systems that have brought so many gales to the UK shores over the last few months sweep up the Atlantic creating as they do large swells that crash quite spectacularly on to the western shores of Europe. Cascais on the west coast of Portugal is ideally situated to catch the best of these monster waves, ideal for surfers perhaps, not that ideal for sailing high performance skiffs, particularly in the lighter wind ranges.


Our first two camps were typified by these conditions on one memorable day we would be one side of a wave whilst our training partners would be in the trough the other side, all that would be visible was the top of there mast! At 8 meters tall plus another half meter for the boat that made the waves just short of 8 meters! Pretty extreme conditions by any standards. The difference in wind speed between the top and bottom of these hills was also pretty extreme, more so in the lighter wind ranges when we would be overpowered going up the wave only to have to run into the middle of the boat in the trough with the sails backing! Not pleasant and pretty hard work to boot. Thankfully these conditions are, we are reliably told, confined to the winter months. We left these camps with the old saying ‘ its not normally like this here’.

It’s a long way to Cascais which is situated on the out skirts of Lisbon. We drove all our kit out a week after leaving Miami and stayed for a weeks training. Flew home at the end of the first week, 2 hours or so into Heathrow then two and three hours respectively back home to Bournemouth and Weymouth. A week at home then fly again back out to Lisbon, grab a taxi and we are in Cascais. Our second camp we attempted to travel and sail on the same day, leaving Weymouth at 04.00 hours via Bournemouth to collect Chris and Ian Barker, who was on coach rotation between camps with Tom Saunt. Fly from Heathrow at 09.00, which we very nearly missed, thankfully BA are pretty lenient on check in times. We landed in Lisbon at 11.30 and were on the water by 15.00. Needless to say we were shattered by the end of that day and elected to travel the day before training for the next week.

Iker Matrinex and Xabi Fernadez have won two 49er World championships largely the ones since 2001 that we haven’t. Pietro Sibelleo and Gianfranco Sibelleo are the Italian masters of grade one regattas they win more of these than any one else and are well respected as some of the fastest 49er sailors in the world. Not a bad training group in our opinion and so it was proved to be we got our arses kicked at the first camp, got a bit better during the second and finally felt we could hold our own by the end of the third.

Pretty lucky really given that Rodion Luckyluca and George Leonchuk had turned up. That made every 49er world champion since the Mackay brothers won in 2001 and all of the Athens medallists to train against. Pretty high standard but time will reveal if these boats are still at the top of the game in the next few months as the coming season develops.

Our training was tight and hard work to boot 3 hours on the water a day plus one to two hours of fitness work. Some days we don’t stop from eight in the morning to past eight in the evening, rigging the boat, sailing, de rigging, checking, tuning the rigging, keeping the boat maintained and on the water as well as preparing new kit, we put a new mast together during the second camp which is normally a full days work in the work shop at home. Briefing and de briefing making notes of what we have learnt and what we would like to learn, it really is a non stop process and at times it can seem like the sailing is a small part of the game. On the water we create exercises to test our skills on the racecourse, from sailing along side the other boats to test speed, starting, mark rounding and racing skills are all tested and analysed as we strive to improve. Improvements don’t come in big gains they are the culmination of small improvements. We try to improve as much as we can but will happily take anything that will make a difference. On the racecourse a few meters will be the difference between passing in front of the opposition or having to pass behind, hence with the loss of passing behind small gains translate in to large gains during a race.

By the end of each week we are pretty shattered yet the weeks at home are no rest either, fitness training takes precedence over sailing yet we have still got 3 0r 4 days in at home. Boat preparation and maintenance continues at our workshop and we have to catch up with the daily chores of life and keep on top of the admin and logistics. There are ferries and flights to book and accommodation to source. Thankfully we are largely sorted on most of this for the remainder of the year. It has been a hard and busy few months and hopefully we are now ready for the racing.

Probably the most important year in the Olympic cycle most countries will define their Olympic representatives this year. All countries must make the qualification standards at either this summer’s world championship or in January 2008, which is effectively, still in this season. It is the time that every competitor must start to perform and this will undoubtedly be borne out in the results, expect to see more teams fighting at the top and maybe a bit more of variety in the top 3.


The British as always will be well represented as a group we have collectively set the standards and raised the team level once again that the GBR representative will be in the formbook, pre games, for a medal.

So we have a competitive task in hand for the Olympic spot and there are no easy tickets in this game.
It is a pity that the strong countries have to leave medal contenders at home; it is unlike athletics where the games are all about the fastest in the world, would we ever see this change in sailing? Unlikely - firstly there is the team racing issue to contend with then the fact that a few country’s would dominate. However there would be some fantastic racing during the build up to the games and it might increase the media aspect. We can but dream and until then we have a competition to win.

SH