The Alfred's News The Alfred's News Winter Edition 2018 | Page 24

Members’ News
Josh Dawson 470 Class
Arrived in Palma to rain and sub 10 degrees. Our
lead up didn't go as planned with sickness striking
the team right before racing started. We pushed
through and managed to qualify for gold fleet by
the skin of our teeth! From there we focused on
improving our starts which is what we felt were the
missing element to the race equation. Although we
didn't finish with the result we were looking for we
made a lot of progress in the right direction.
We are now on our way to Martigues, France for
the International 470 Spring Cup, before heading to
Hyeres for the Sailing World Cup.
Thanks for everyone's continued support back
home and we will continue to work hard to achieve
our goals.
Natasha Bryant and Annie Wilmot 49FX Class
We arrived in Palma on the 21st of March, that day we set the boat up ready for training. We sailed for the next 6 days,
experiencing as many conditions as we could. Unfortunately, I caught a virus and was bed ridden for the next 5 days
leading into the competition, it’s not the ideal lead in but we made the most of the situation.
The first two days were light and tricky, we learned
some tough lessons during the qualifying but
managed to secure enough top ten scores and
make gold fleet. The first day of finals racing was
22-25 knots and with big waves, we are really happy
with our speed so as soon as we can keep the boat
upright throughout the whole race in conditions like
these we’ll be in great shape. The last two days
were picture perfect and we are really proud of our
efforts in scoring multiple top ten results! We
finished off the regatta with two 3rd places on the
last day, proving that all the work we’ve done back
at home after Miami has paid off. We have
improved on many aspects of our racing always
learning, we notice that as we learn we make some
new mistakes later on in the race but we’re really happy with our progress and can’t wait to keep working away on
these new learnings.
We’ve now got another week in Palma which we will spend training and some exploring, it's important to enjoy the
journey and the places we race in. Yesterday we went on a hike around one of the beautiful mountains, it really is a
beautiful place. On the 16th of April we pack up and are heading off to Hyeres for our 2nd World Cup this year - looking
forward to some more racing and building on our experience!
To all of our supporters at the RPAYC we would like to say a huge thank you for being there and sharing our journey with
us. It makes so much of a difference to know you are behind us and as excited about our sailing as we are. Thank you for
your support and we hope to make you proud! Onwards and upwards - enjoy your week! Tash + Annie.