Sorry we’ve not been updating our site for so long. It’s been a hell of a time the last 2 months juggling sailing, gym, school and traveling for competitions!

We flew in to Amsterdam 4 days before the start of the regatta and jumped straight into the chartered boat that we got on the day we arrived. Jet-lagged and tired, it was just a short sail to get used to the new systems in the boat and to make sure everything works. Coming into an event with so little time and a boat we’re unfamiliar with, every hour that we can get on water definitely counts.

Arriving to some sunshine and warm weather was a pleasant surprise for us but a short-lived one. With only the first 2 days being nice and ‘warm’ (by warm i meant 18 deg celsius), the weather started turning on us, returning to the usual bleak Medemblik weather. The day before racing started, the temperature fell to a high 0f 13 degrees in the day and this stayed till the end of the regatta. Making it bloody cold, especially when the wind picks up.

Day 1 of the regatta didn’t get off to too good a start for us, finishing in the 20’s for the first two races. A turnaround in the last race of the day saw us rounding the top mark first but we fell back slightly to finish 6th in that race; a bit of an uplifter after two bad races at the start.

When we thought day one was bad, we didn’t see what was coming in day two. Finishing in the teens in the first race was pretty average but in the second race where we rounded the top mark in the teens saw us finish with a DNF (Did Not Finish)! The light prevailing winds of the day started to deteriorate and shut down by the third leg of the race making the racing very tricky as guys on one side of the course would get a fart and start moving and then stop after a minute and the guys on the other side of the course would get the next fart and move. Positions shuffled and see-sawed heaps throughout the race ending with more than half the fleet scoring DNF.

Day 3 was the first day of the ‘Final’ series where the fleet is split into Gold & Silver and we just managed to get into the Gold fleet. Our turnaround came when we finished 5th in the first race of the Final series, only to have our mainsail halyard break 5 secs before the start of the second race causing our mainsail to fall on us as we watched the fleet take off at the start gun while we retired for the race.

A few more ups and downs occurred in the last 2 days of racing with us clocking an OCS (disqualification from a premature start) making this regatta one that we had heaps of letters on the scoreboard instead of numbers. Finishing 38/81 overall wasn’t where we thought we would be but learning from the bad and taking the good away from this event, we know we will grow from strength to strength as we get more racing under our belt.

For now, it’s straight back to Sydney where we face our Uni exams in a week’s time. Of course, not without first indulging a couple of stroopwaffles…

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