Team racing round up!

The mini finals were cancelled due to a lack of wind.  All teams went swimming and Spain are crowned champions!

Couple more photos from the mountain lakes!

Last day consisted of breakfast with the Irish and Spanish teams and a quick windsurf whist waiting for the taxi!

And some final thoughts:-

Mimi: "Ledro is THE place to be - huge shifts!  And everyone should meet the Danish, Irish and Swedish and Spanish and Germans - they are awesome"

Georgia: "Wonderful event - I recommend going when there is a thunderstorm"

Dan: "Great place to sail with good breeze for team racing"

Jenny: "Lake and sky blue, trees all green; teams all amazing, lush ice cream.  Sailing and swimming are great"

Brooke: "Was a great learning event.  Team has gained in all aspects. Great team with good synergy."

/out

Day 3 and Gold Silver splitp

First up,how beautiful is the race course?  Doesn't compare to Pwllheli of course but ....

Today is the first day of Gold Silver split.

First two races against Slovenia and Norway were wins!

Followed by a loss against Germany.  Asked for redress as sequence started we got back to the start after the previous race - none given :(

Loss against Denmark.  Jenny was pinning a boat - Mimi cried for her to cross the line but the Denmark sneaked through!

Next up was Belgium, was looking good as Dan pinned the competitor, but confusion caused Georgia to tack not duck and .....

Final race agains Sweden was abandoned due to wind.

2 wins 3 losses - more tomorrow.

Dan forging international relations!

Day 2

After a few more losses we won against DEN.
So 2 wins and 5 losses

So today was twice as good as yesterday!

From Brooke on the course "Sailors are great and have lots of enthusiasm, and are improving with each race."

Lying in 14th overall, inline with their seeding.  Fleet splits tomorrow - goal now is to win silver fleet.

Results from day 1 and start of day 2

After 6 losses, GBR finally got a win against NOR in their final race!

This was followed up with a 1235 win against SLO in the first race today.

Next race was against SWE.  GBR winning all the way to the finish, Mimi took a penalty turn right at the end and told Jenny she should finish in 2nd.  Mimi was luffed up at the finish line and could not get across.  Very close but we lost with a 1278.

From Brooke at course side "That was so close, they are trying to coordinate the team racing with sailing fast.  They are very optimistic that they are improving!"

Opening Ceremony

First Day

Race 1 lost against FRA.  Good start from GBR but FRA put in a excellent mark trap and took it with a 1,2,3,8.

Race 2 lost against GER.  In a winning position after Georgia put in an excellent mark trap.  But one GER and three British sailed through the finish line on the way to mark 3 and all got 10 penalty points each.  A mistake not to be repeated!

Race 3,4 to be sailed against TUR and ITL.  But wind has died an currently all group B teams swimming to keep cool.

Spirits are high and the team are working well together and really despite the results are doing some excellent team racing!

And on to the team racing!

Our team in the Euros have done 'just' enough to qualify for the team racing competition.  Unlike the Worlds and the other Continental championships, the European championships hold the team racing as a separate event.  By coming in the top 16 European counties in the fleet racing  you qualify for the team racing which is held in Ledro Italy.  We have qualified as team no.16!


The team, Georgia, Mimi, Dan, supplemented with Jenny Cropley (Will, Murray, Jemima, and Josh having moved on to other classes), spent Sunday at Grafham Water under the expert tutorage of Peter Saxton.  This was followed up by an excellent roast dinner (many thanks Sue!) and and evening briefing.
Monday was spent punting on the Cam, visiting the American military cemetery and relaxing before an early flight Tuesday morning.

Tuesday afternoon was spent practicing and swimming (very hot). All asleep by 8:30 and looking forward to racing tomorrow!

Last Post

Team all arrived safely back at Gatwick last night with Tim and Carla being greeted with a magnum of champagne each for all their efforts, a big thank to the team for that, it is much appreciated.

Our results maybe be not what we would have liked but we have learnt lots of stuff that all of us will take forward to our next event : here are some of the things we talked about on our way home :

• being more organised means Carla is less on your case
• leaving watches, boat papers and rash vests  in your hotel room is a pain
• we are good at wearing sunglasses
• long rash vests , leggings and good suncream stop sunburn
• buying kit at the event can be expensive
• getting enough sleep in important
• the food is not always what we get at home but we need to eat something
• tracking shows what you are doing if you can remember your race
• you dont just pay bills if you are not sure about them
• other countries spend more time sailing than we do  
• FRA, GRE, sent their top sailors to this event rather than Worlds and so did some other countries
• its hard to go Portugal in July and sail an optimist when you have never done it before
• meeting other countries is fun

We wish Georgia, Murray , Josh , Jemima and Will all the best in their new classes 420, 29er and Laser and expect to see Mimi and Dan back in their Optimists after a short break .

Carla and Tim

saturday morning

so it is our last day and the sailors have  one last race before the great pack up.. and the news is that all teams have issues some you want some you don not . ITA think their gril can win unless she has a DNE should she race and risk DNE or should she stay ashore ... the leading GRE who won last year got DNE for not doing his turns .. FIN have had their 2 sailors re instated .. FRA AUT leave tonight before or after the party .. do we ask parents to help or not.. Coaches had their night out and some were  somewhat worse for wear  this morning but you will be pleased to know our Tim was not feeling too good and was out of the clutches of the older coaches and asleep before our sailors . Our sailors also went to bed early . AUT team leader went back to her room to update her blog after 11pm and found NZL with her sailors in her room.. not happy.

We are booked fifth in line to give back our charter boats so just enough for Lukas to be less thorough but time for us to get back to our party .. the trailers have been retrieved from up the road and put in each teams space int he boat park.. a premier valet trailer  parking service ..

Carla bit worse for wear as the parents had a party two doors away from her until 2am last night unfortunately and she and Sally Burnett had to listen to it .. .. Sally was  abit brighter than Carla as she turned up her air conditioning to drown out the noise rather than just hoping it would all go away .. her mood was not helped by the organisers re opening the late payment fee debacle . GRE, CRo and GBR have all been told that the other two have paid however we all know that none of us have or intend to until the organisers proof how they made the calculation and out federations agree it . we al know if we pay we will never get it back and none of us are happy nor is IODA and next years NoR will be amended so there is no chances of misinterpretation by anyone..

its 15.01 and they have completed one race 5.00pm looks too early for being in the charter

Brooke has left for the UK , Dan is flying home home with is dad as its an easier option to go to liverpool than get him back to Wales from Gatwick ..

the witches of tavira went out for a for a last lunch and are planning their ski and shopping trips for over the winter  as tonight they will be managing organised chaos tonight hoping for damage limitation

fridAY

Another similar day on the water today, with same tricky wind and current. Two more races completed.

Sailors still struggled to sail consistently throughout the whole race, resulting in some mixed results. However, for those that spotted it some port bias on the start line in race 11, led to some brilliant starts, especially by Mimi and Jemima.

Other than a few of the starts, the highlight for today has to go down as a much improved day for Murray! Well done!

Coach and team leader still in the dinghy park (waiting for protest time 1915) whilst kids are relaxing back in the hotel pool!

Final race tomorrow before the great pack up. Lots of sailors had mixed days and several of differing nationalities were seen in tears at the end of racing today, The race officer said that the second discard was making the sailors jumpy hence all the recalls and BFD's.

Some sailors from a an unnamed country caused their team leader such a problem last night that their class assoc has asked for them to be suspended from the competition . Think it might be cheaper to keep them here than book new flights to send them home.  their facebook pages rather gave them away ..

Lots of swopping going on in the hotel last night be sailors more interested in good souvenirs than their race results, no doubt there will be more tonight however Carla has eyes and ears everywhere as all the team leaders work together and a coach did ask her at breakfast whether all her sailors were in bed early last night ..

Tim and carla still in boat park writing this up because at 70 euros for the week for poor internet did not seem to be worth it to get anymore . Charles Ainsworth  arrived to day to collect some optimists from Blue Blue and has been mistaken for Carla's husband several times .. they are not sure how to take this!! Charles has joined Brooke and Graham for dinner in town.

thursday

no news yesterday after racing because we did not leave the boat park until 7.45 as they did three races, coach then stayed until 8.15 for protest time!

the FRA of todays conditions on the water "sometimes in the middle sometimes on the left sometimes on the right between 8 and 10 knots "c'etait tres difficile"

We agree! throughout the day the current (with the wind) built up to around 1.5kts, making the beats long and challenging. It goes down as another mixed day for GBR... highlights in the very challenging conditions were a top ten for dan, and two top twenties for Mimi. Wally of the day award today is evenly split between most of the boys as when the wind dropped from 10 to 3kts in race 2, they did not change their rig set ups!

we are going to look at some of the tracking tonight, or in the morning, as Tim has already looked at it and there are some useful points to be made!

Graham Whiteley made a surprise visit today which Dan did not know about until this morning .. Our dough nut supply will be drying up tomorrow as Liz is going home ..Brooke jumped on KEA with the canadians to go and watch some racing .. carla snuck off the island over the way on the ferry for a swim in the Atlantic which was lovely .. sailors have gone home while Carla and Tim wait with all the other coaches for protest time

parents and trackers

The boat park has filled with a lot more parents who obviously cannot resist the pull of sun and sea in portugal and have come to join us. I am sitting writing this next to a Czech parent who like you is biting his nails while he follows his sailor  on the tracker.. however it could be less stressful or maybe more so as his daughter  won both races and we are now going for a third..

The Slovenian team leader told me today over lunch  that his coach  was so exasparated by the parents of his sailors phoning the sailors to give them tactical advice having following the tracking that he said to the team leader that unless it stopped he would leave the championship or ask the team leader to confiscate all the sailor's mobiles phones. Of course GBR parents dont do that or do they ? 

Tim will update later about the conditions on the water .. but it looks from the results as though the wind was stronger today

and Carla is happy because her daughter did ok in Flanders in the 420 her last event before coming her in ten days to compete in the 420 European champioships.. we recommned the 420's eat at the hotel ,bring industrial strength mosquito spray and suncream and long sleeve rash vests and leggings but they know all of that already havimg been in Argentina and Israel .. Capizzano the brilliant photographer will be here again.

Tuesday late news

So after my breakfast meeting I caught the ferry and went over to the Club to buy Will a new rash vest having spent 18 Euros the day before on two protest flags as they are mandatory here ! 

We had some hanging about and then they launched, the Team leaders and country reps are not given sandwiches but a proper lunch under the shade we can all meet up and exchange views. The  intention was then to update the blog but once the racing starts it is not possible to access a computer because all the parents are using them  to follow the racing . I was about to use Tim’s laptop at the club when I was offered the chance to go out to the race course on a 1973 Moody 44 ( for robert weg customised in the clyde in 1974 with a doghouse ) with some of the other team leaders . It was good to see what the conditions are like out there for the sailors and a rare occurrence for Carla to go on the water. 

. 

After being collected from the yacht "KEA" by Tim after racing we then found Will in a protest which kept us at the club until 8.30pm. He got 3 points added to his score for being outside  the holding area the start of racing  five other sailors got the same penalty but only Will and one other went through the protest as the other s did not bother to turn up. For Will it is another thing off the list . He has now been in a protest . Some other sailors incurred points for being out of their spaces in the boat park before their flight had been called . BUL girl  got a DNE on the first day under rule 2 but nobody seems to know exactly what for but obviously serious.

 Josh got his first ever yellow flag yesterday, Jemima did get off the line. Georgia is trying to hide her sunburn from Carla but she spotted it this morning so it will be white leggings and no sympathy for Georgia  today .. For our sailors this is a hard event. FRA , GRE and IRL and some other countries have their worlds teams here as they are not going to NZ.  GRE  sailors are sailing a minimum of 15 hours a week  and we would be lucky to get that in two weekends and they are used to these conditions while we are not.

Brooke ( Mimi’s mum ) has arrived and has promised Carla and Tim an evening off as she is taking the team out to supper in town tonight . Tim was in a coaches meeting last night to talk about future race management and Carla was in the bar being plied with cocktails by the French , all the interests of Anglo French relations  of course but not sure her head thinks it was worth it this morning .. and she has a  team leaders meeting at lunchtime to discuss the worlds bids  .. more politics. The lunch was more popular yesterday but Liz Hampshire was mobbed when she arrived in the boat park after racing with the Portuguese version  of chocolate dough nuts yesterday. Now Liz is here the Bar has had to produce tea for these English people . they have every sort , green tea, white tea raspberry tea everything but ordinary English tea.. we have all our swop shirts and so Dan has started wearing one to promote them today

It is bright and sunny an the sea breeze is coming .

politics

Yesterday Carla’s day started with a breakfast meeting with the European vice president of IODA Johanmi from Finland wanting to discuss the late entry charges as several countries were asked for these at this event and the possibility of getting the Worlds back to Europe.  The decision on where 2013 worlds will be is decided at the AGM  in New Zealand in December. All countries have a vote and the European countries make up the biggest group however because of the costs of getting there, lots of European nations are not going, France and Greece and many of the smaller nations Monaco, Malta, San Marino, the Baltic states and old eastern block countries such as Czech republic  etc are all not going so will not be there to vote. Vagelis , the Greek coach  told me that one of his parents had worked out it would cost 5000 Euros to just get the parent  and his sailor to New Zealand before including  the costs of sending the coach.

The issue is how to get the votes of those not attending to the meeting and to be sure that not more than one European country  bids for the worlds as that could split the vote and we could be all having to find yet more money to go to South America or Asia again. None of those countries will be easily persuaded to vote for Europe because for them it is  expensive in flights and living costs, the  same issue as for us going to them.  Many countries have raised the issue of the costs of going to NZ with IODA but the answer is the countries voted for it.

Some European countries are finding the entry fees for this event high as traditionally all the sailors stay together in one hotel and such hotels are more  expensive.  It also hard for the event organizers to find sponsors to help with the running costs of the event and the organizers are dependant on their club volunteers to do all the event management. Its not the number of sailors which is an issue because 230 is quite small by our standards its all the complexities of providing lunch , transport full measurement, international PRO , juries etc and dealing with all the different nationalities.

There is nothing like being here to remind you that we live on a small damp grey island off northern Europe and drink bad coffee ( apologies to  Tarek, Mimi’s dad who is a coffee trader and trying to change that ) and only speak English and some poor French . 

Tough day on the water today... we had a sea breeze but it was less predictable than before, and a fairly strong westerly current also complicated tactics! Generally the brits struggled to combine all of these factors throughout a race, and the phrase "i was doing well at one point in the race" was certainly over used! Conditions were such that even the top sailors made a lot of mistakes.

We are expecting similar tough racing and conditions tomorrow, with the possibility of an third race as well. Main focuses will be learning from todays lessons, and how to turn promising parts of races into good scores across the finishing line!

Today's champagne moment was without doubt a brilliant port end start by Murray, whilst the wally of the day award also clearly goes to Will who was penalised after a protest for being out of the waiting area, however, after preparing and handling himself very well in the room the penalty was only 5%, so 3 points!

Whilst the team and coach were working very hard in tricky conditions, Carla continued with her 'politics', going for a lovely sail on a large 1970's yacht with the Italian, Austrian and Belgian team leaders and country representatives!

Early bed for the sailors tonight, some of whom were feeling fairly tired! More info tomorrow...

Todays race track

Today produced a surprisingly good sea breeze. By race time, we had a 13-5kt breeze oscillating around 15 degrees. One of the main challenges was a 5 boat length a minute current with the wind, which along with the consistent quality of the fleet meant that starting was more of a struggle than many of the team  are used to. This was a main focus of the debrief and should hopefully improve tomorrow, certainly the sailors themselves saw how useful a good start was from today's racing!

Highlights from the racing included top ten's for Josh and Dan, and a consistent set of results for Mimi, and some good starting by Georgia.

Two more races are scheduled for tomorrow, so lets hope for a good sea breeze again! Same timings as today, all boats will have trackers - and we hope they will all be working and there are also some great photos of the team taken by the official photographer Capizzano... Murray may have a future as a pin up !! and the boys also got a top photo last night .. Boys also learnt that Tim was not born yesterday after trying to help themsleves to his tv cable when theirs had already been confiscated by him.. Will won wally of the day and the penalty was being driven by Carla in the RIB back across the river to the hotel pontoon . that could have been more risky than racing with out a watch .Jemima is starting over tomorrow with starting of course being her focus.. we know she can do it because we have all seen her do so..

Carla was out to lunch again to day ( politics politics) working hard to see if the Worlds can come back to Europe and supplying Sally Burnett who is tied to the tracking system with ice cream. Liz Hampshire arrived to day and brought our swop shirts and  welcome supply of cakes to the boat park after racing.

launched

Updates from the UK back up team ..

Marcus Lawson  has sent us the tracking microsite http://www.optiworld.org/MiniSite/trackingEuro.php
Nick Voller the event photographer http://www.capizzano.com/europti/index.html  Capizzano is the most brilliant photographer and he was at the opening cermeony last night ..
Fiona Rainback has unravelled the late entry fees so we are now all legit and ready to race.

Its good to know we have a good support team in the UK.

Flags are just moving so it could be a long day here and its cool enough for Tim to be wearing a fleece  

SWE are siitng next to me already to race with a litre of water each in front of them . HUN are issuing information about a Worlds in Ballaton for 2013 a rival bid to ITA 's proposal for Garda . The 420's went there fairly recently .  

Race Day 1

Today is the first day of racing so last night the sailors were all quite jumpy… with their routines disrupted by the opening ceremony and all of them being in the dining room at the same time.. Teams usually have their own times for meals and their own particular table in the dining room. Our sailors were not immune to this and the boys had their television cable confiscated when they were found no where near ready for bed when checked on. This was to be followed by iPods etc if no improvement 15 minutes later.

It must make for an interesting holiday if you booked yourself into a nice quiet hotel to find 150 children staying in the same place. The sailors tend to go around the complex in packs  the CZE coach who is actually Portuguese said if he could not find his girls he only had to find the GER boys. (Lots of countries have different nationality coaches AUT have a Croatian coach, IRL a French one)  I think our boys are feeling rather pale and interesting and playing on their British reserve in the hope that the girls might come to them.

Last night at the opening ceremony we wore our new team shirts care of Henri Lloyd. The boys looked fine but us girls were not so sure about the sleeves or the fit on the shoulders but you can see for yourselves on the photos but we are at a sailing regatta not Ascot so maybe it should not matter. In the parade there was this dark patch where we were in navy next to GER and GRE both in black, POR were also in navy. ESP were in red as were DEN and AUT; BEL and ITA went for a lovely bright blue. I can never understand why with red green and white flag Italian sporting colour is blue perhaps I will ask them today. For years ITA have worn Slam kit but the ITA federation has lost them as a clothing sponsor.

The event lunches were not a great success yesterday cheese and ham sandwiches with lettuce and tomatoes wrapped in foil with a prawn canapé thing, a cereal bar an apple and small water each.. so the sandwiches were sort of eaten as were most of the cereal bars , the prawns in this heat we gave a miss to and I had eight apples left. So for us it’s back to breakfast rolls with provided lunch as back up. Murray and Will make lunch with an additional number of rolls, as growing boys they are always hungry and never refuse food.

. Liz Hampshire arrives today hopefully with our swop T shirts. Mimi’s family arrive tomorrow but she is not exactly sure who is coming but is looking forward to them getting here. Dan has lost all communication with north wales after his phone got blocked, something Will and Josh deny all knowledge of …. Martin has been doing great work re engineering our gazebo with bamboo poles and rocks so it does not blow itself to pieces, IRL gave up on theirs yesterday and we snuck under FIN’s  to eat our lunch before their arrived in the boat park yesterday.

We have heard that the Flanders guys spent eight hours on the water for one race. Not fun but that could be us today as it is overcast , was raining in Lisbon yesterday and no promises of a sea breeze today …Alan our  CRO race officer affectionately known as Mr Teflon because nothing sticks to him will no doubt do his best .

More later