I have spent most of the last month in Palma! No complaints its a beautiful city with some amazing cycling in the mountains and of course great sailing conditions!   The first couple of weeks I spent training with Bjornar from Norway and Will from GB.  Once again RCNP have been the perfect hosts and made us feel so welcome.  We had a really productive time on the water, with some great tuning sessions and finishing up with some racing.

Bjornar flew home for a week before the start of the regatta. However I decided to stay and Steve (my husband) flew out to have a holiday.   Every morning I would go for a bike ride in the mountains enjoying the stunning scenery and then we would go and explore Palma.

After a few days off I was ready to start focussing on the regatta. Ian my coach is in big demand and  I have to share his time with the Irish 49er team.  He always coaches them in Palma so the last two years Steve has stepped in to support me on the water and it was the same this year.

Steve and I have a good track record at this regatta, winning the last 2 he has supported me at so we were really keen to make it 3 in a row! However we had tougher competition this year with the top 7 in the world present!

I had great start and was leading after the first day. The second day also started well in 20knot breeze and big seas, I secured a 2nd in the first race. The second race was looking good until I fell off a massive wave and broke the jib Cunningham! That was the end of racing for the day for me! The third day was completely wacky and there was no racing, which left me lying second but equal points with Heiko in first going in to the last day.  Unfortunately I had a rather rubbish day and dropped to 3rd allowing Damien to beat me by one point!  I must admit I was rather disappointed by the result, but some good lessons to be learnt from regatta.

So I’m home for a week before going back to Palma for a week’s training and then driving on to Hyeres for the next World Cup regatta starting on the 25th April.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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