Photos from the Nationals

I’m STILL to finish the report for the 2009 nationals, but I thought I’d upload a few photos taken by Fotoboat.com

These were taken on the 1st day, in relatively flat water and around 20 knots of breeze.  On the Sunday the camera boats didn’t go out, so we have little record of the huge conditions that the fleet enjoyed.  Anyway, thanks to Fotoboat for the great coverage of the event. If you haven’t checked them out yet, jump over and see if they have a photo of you.

Top mark, 1st lap 1st race. We rolled the guys in front of us here during the hoist:

Getting ready to gybe after the first mark rounding. Backs need to be straighter really, but we were looking for depth so we weren’t pushing it too hard:

Bottom mark, ready to drop.

49er Nationals 2008

We’re just getting ready for the 49er Nationals in Weymouth this weekend.  I personally think it’s a shame that it’s only a 3 day event, which is nothing compared to most other classes getting week long events for their National Championships.  Anyway, 3 days means that you really have to get the good results in early to do well, so it’s going to come down to who has the best start on Saturday.

We’ve worked hard on fitness over the last few months since Kiel.  We’ve both been riding 3 or 4 times a week for about an hour and a half each time.  We’ve been hitting the gym very hard, trying to get the extra weight needed (and have seen an increase of 3kg to bring us up to 150kg since Kiel) and have worked on flexibility and overall conditioning to reduce injury risks etc.  Although we were fast in the breeze in Kiel, with some good boat handling in the big stuff, the extra weight should help us out for the next windy event.  Lets hope it’s the Nationals.

I’ll keep you posted on how things go.