You are here: home > diary > february 2002

February 2002

Portugal- Carnival regatta

We have just had a really good weeks training with the Portuguese and Spanish. The weather has been fantastic, with good sailing conditions everyday. We have been based at Villamoura which is an odd tourist town in south Portugal, I have not used my jacket once, as the weather has been warm and sunny everyday! We learnt a lot of techniques in the light conditions and are still exceptionally fast downwind. Chips Howarth came out and coached us for four days and then Paul Hobson from North sails came out for the 2nd half to help us with our sail development.

At the end of the training we entered a 3 day regatta called the Carnival regatta, which is for all sorts of different classes, and although there were not many 470's in total there were over 700 competitors from the different classes! There was a large high pressure over use during the event which led to light sea breezes each day. The Portuguese boat of Alvaro Marinho/ Miguel Nunes new the local conditions well and rarely went the wrong way, we managed to take the odd race from them but they were the clear winners, we took 2nd overall comfortably and came away feeling like we had sailed well in the light, choppy conditions. Tomorrow we have to get into our car and drive for 12 hours to Valencia, where we will get an overnight ferry to Palma to leave our boat then fly home for a weeks break. Despite the great weather and training I am looking forward to going home and having a break, I am feeling pretty worn out at the moment. Our next big event is the Princess Sofia trophy in Palma which is the last week in March, I would like to really pack in the hours of fitness training before the event so I am feeling on top of it when the hectic racing season starts.