What a whirlwind! 2 months in Europe has flown by. Here's a quick recap:
The team headed off to Palma de Mallorca, Spain in the beginning of March to train and prepare for the Princess Sofia Regatta at the beginning of April. We were reunited with the rest of the 470 fleet after spending most of the winter training stateside, and were able to have a great few weeks of training together with boats from around the world! (Special shoutout to our amazing training partners ITA 3 and ISR 15!) Coming into the Princess Sofia regatta we were feeling very fast and excited to race.
Princess Sofia Regatta
The regatta had 10 races overall -- 2 races per day for 5 days. On day 1 we had some of the most wind we've ever raced in with gusts as high as 35 kts! Thinking back on that day there were lots of injuries, broken masts, and capsizing -- very full on conditions. Day 2 was a bit more tame, with winds only up to 25kts... Ultimately the regatta was an incredible learning experience for us, highlighting areas for improvement in our game. We finished up 24th overall and excited to head into our next training block.
But first.. a week in the UK!
After about a month and a half in Mallorca it was time for a break before heading off to the next event in France. Because we are limited on the number of days we are allowed to stay in the EU, we decided to go visit our good friends in the UK. Big shoutout to the Heathcote family at the Warborne Farm for hosting us and teaching us to properly shear sheep! Here were some highlights:
After our brief visit to the farm, we headed back to Mallorca to transport our operation to Hyeres, France. Travel was very smooth -- we took an overnight ferry from Palma to Barcelona, and then drove about 6.5 hrs to get to Hyeres, a beautiful little town not too far from the future Olympic venue, Marseille!
Upon arrival we got right back into the swing of things feeling refreshed from our week off. The French Olympic Week began with heavy winds again, but we felt much more prepared this time. We started off hot with a top 5 in race 1, and what was looking like another top 10 in race 2, but then disaster struck when we capsized on the final reach due to a faulty rudder line! Lesson learned, the line system was replaced, and we will never have issues with the rudder coming up ever again. We were most excited about the speed gains we had made in big breeze, especially on the upwinds. We were cruising! As the regatta continued on we had some great starts and first beats, but struggled to maintain positioning on the downwinds. We knew we had it in us to get good results but couldn't manage to put all the pieces together. It was very frustrating and as those negative emotions grew we got further away our goal of making the medal race, and ultimately ended up not qualifying into gold fleet by 3 points. Silver fleet racing became our opportunity to practice what we wanted to work on. We used the rest of the event to learn as much as possible, and to try things without caring too much about results. We finished up 30th overall, a bit defeated, but with a lot of lessons learned. We have a clear picture on the work we have to do leading into the next big events this coming fall, and are excited to jump into the next training block with this motivation.
A big thank you to our coach Yevgeniy Burmatnov for helping us through and guiding us on this journey, as well as the Windmark Sailing Foundation and the Oyster Bay 470 team for the continued support towards our sailing endeavors. We could not do this alone!
Now it's time for some R&R at home before returning to France to do some training in Marseille alongside the rest of the 470 fleet. We're also excited to be spending time at home in Oyster Bay and Sayville in June and July. For more team updates make sure to follow us on Instagram @nb470racing !
Upcoming events:
Worlds Test Event - The Hague, Netherlands, 10-21 August
Europeans - Cesme, Turkey, 10-18 September
Worlds - Sdot Yam, Israel, 21-29 October
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