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October - November 2002

Last week we sailed for the first time since the worlds. This is because I needed to rest my dislocated thumb in order for it to make a full recovery and not cause any problems in the future. Last week my physio said he was happy for me to go sailing again so long as it was strapped up, this coincided nicely with our inland championships and national ranking event on the weekend of the 9th/10th November.

We travelled up to Rutland on the Friday before to get the boat set up, it was quite nerve racking the thought that we had not sailed for 2 months and our first time in the boat would be the first race. Since the worlds Rob Andrews has been appointed as the new class coach, and the rest of the squad had been doing some training and seemed a lot more organised then in recent times, which added to our nerves.

The racing was exceptionally shifty, and quite light. We made good starts in all the races and were 1st at the windward mark in 4 out of the 5 races, we ended up scoring 2,1,1,1,1, which allowed us to miss the last race and still win. A mention should go to Nick Asher and Elliot Willis, this year's 420 national champions. Despite only sailing the boats for a month or two they were our closest competition and finished 2nd overall, definitely names to watch in the future.

We also have both completed fitness tests in the last week. Nick did very well, his fitness is of a very high standard, he has a good power to weight ratio and good aerobic fitness. I was a tiny bit down on my aerobic fitness from the test I did just prior to the Olympics, but I would expect that at this time of the year, but the good news was my body fat was down and my upper body strength had improved a lot.

The time off has been really good to help get us more organised and make a plan for next year, we are flying to Gran Canaria on the 27th November to train and race for 3 weeks, then in the new year we will be based in Palma during January and February. Closer to home, this weekend we have another national ranking event in Warsash this is also our national championships, I will let you know how we get on. Thank you for your continued support.