Europe 2022

To start off we would like to say thank you again to everyone who has supported us to compete at our recent Olympic Sailing events in Europe. It wouldn’t have been possible for us without the support we’ve received. We are incredibly grateful and feel privileged to have the opportunity to chase our dreams. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

It is safe to say we faced many challenges on this trip, and ultimately, we never had our chance to get the results we deserved. In short, B caught covid the week before the European Championship, and C caught covid day two of the Junior World Championship… gutting. This considered, it was still an amazing trip that we will never forget, and we gained valuable experience from the races we did get to do.

At the first event in Kiel Germany, we finished a respectable 39th. For our first international 49er event together, we thought we sailed well and learnt plenty to take forward to our next events. When we first arrived, we got to put our racing boat together for the first time and catch up with close friends we haven’t seen in years. We found the 49er FX fleet was friendly and it was easy to get into the rhythm of being on the circuit again. In fact, we were first to the top mark in the first race, straight into things! We narrowly missed out on Gold Fleet, and we can pin that down to a handful of costly racing mistakes we expected we might make in our first event.

We arrived early to Aarhus, Denmark for the Euros with a week lead in. On the way home from the boat park after rigging up, B had the sinking feeling she had covid. She tested positive and then started her week of isolation, with a timed run to be well for the event. By some miracle or talent, C did not catch covid off B! There were a few factors that made racing this event difficult. Firstly, B was still not fully recovered for racing. Secondly, we had just swapped to the new style kite which has higher load. We were not sure if B was going to cope with racing, we considered withdrawing, but we decided to give it a go considering it was such a well-attended event and we desperately wanted the racing practice. We showed amazing potential around the racetrack, getting to the top mark in the top 5-10 every race, unfortunately our gybing on the new style kite let us down in the breeze. We eventually pieced together a 7th place finish; we know those are the results we are capable of. After three(ish) days of competition, we retired from racing as B had reached her physical limit. We have no regrets for pushing this event as hard as we did.

We took a week off after Euros to recover, get in some fitness and fly straight down to Italy. We spent a lot of time in aircon avoiding the heat wave, and took the opportunity to experience Italian culture in the evenings. We can confirm that Italian Gelato is amazing.

Finally, we trained up to Lake Como for the Junior Worlds. We were very excited for some awesome skiff sailing conditions on the lake and to finally get some decent training. We had the full works of conditions in our ten-day lead in, including thunderstorms, sea breezes, and days of no wind. We felt good in the boat, and we sailed really well in the practice racing. All good signs for the regatta. We were 5th after day one, which was a strong start to our hunt for a medal. Then the morning of day two, C was feeling slightly off. We did go racing, but C was quickly battling with headaches and soon sounded like a frog. By race two, we knew we were in trouble. We made uncharacteristic mistakes and could not figure how to work around them. C, sure enough, tested positive after racing. This was the end of our event due to local regulations. It was a tough end to our trip for sure. We had very high hopes to walk away with a medal from this event, and we are gutted to have that chance taken from us.

Sitting lake side after the regatta, we agreed that this trip was our best one yet. We are sad, but we are very proud of ourselves for making this trip happen and for taking every opportunity to race. It was very enjoyable to see our hard work show in our racing, knowing most mistakes we made were from lack of 49er racing experience. We have a clearer picture now of our gaps and what we need to achieve from our training. We still have the drive to continue and get a result we deserve.

We are now cramming study, figuring out our finances and planning our next steps. Ideally, we can find the support to get to Australia at the end of this year to get more racing in and purchase more new style equipment.

Thank you again, @yachtingnz, @bobbystaffordbushfoundation, @uoasportandrec, @masseyalbanyrecreation, @hpsnz, @nzlsailingfoundation, @torbaysailingclub, @newworldbrownsbay, @wallacecotton, @milfordcruising.

Nga mihi,

B and C