Limp flags and very quiet waters beyond…

And yesterday we had what our coach calls a ‘racing day’ when one mistake in each race cost us 4 or 5 places. In the first race we tacked too close to another boat coming into the windward mark and had to do a 360 degree penalty; then in the second race we gybed out of the last whisper of a dying breeze after being first to the windward mark. Frustrating!

We are one point above our rivals in the trials which of course is too close for comfort. But there should be more breeze today and we are keeping our heads up.

Today will be our day!

And here is a great picture of us training in a nice breeze before the regatta started.

Then into the dock came this creature

A manatee, or sea cow. They are the size of cows too! They come into the dock for a drink of fresh water from the hose pipes, very endearing with their big seal-like eyes; but the propellor scars and barnacles on their backs tell a different story.

Then yesterday we were hooning downwind in 20+ knots and came to a juddering halt as we hooked a lobster pot with our keel. Fortunately no damage that we can see but it was a heart-stopping moment.

Day off today (although I am don’t think I’ll be able to keep away from a bit of boat tweaking…), then registration for the regatta tomorrow, boats back in the water and a test sail before racing starts on Monday.

This is it!

The doctors say all I can do is strap it, ice it and take painkillers so that’s what I’m doing.

The regatta starts a week today, 28th January so send lots of healing powers over the ocean. We still have boat preparation to do and were hoping to get more training hours in, but the fates have blown different challenges our way.

Thanks for your messages and responses.

Your all Greek mythically
Jxx

And one with Miami in the background.
This is sailing in January!

The boat has been named ‘Ryushin’, a Buddhist name meaning ‘Dragon Heart’, which we hope will be a good omen for China (it also makes a great logo!)

Dusk was falling by the time we finished installing kit and rigging her, here is Matt paddling her across the dock.

and us toasting her in the dark!

By this time we were hot, sweaty and far too dirty for our new boat, but very excited and happy to have her on the water at last. Today we will take her out sailing, anticipating a lot of tweaking and fiddling still to get her right but it’s SO good to have a boat again.

In case you were wondering about the weather over here, take a look at this natural swimming pool we went to at the weekend. Bliss… although I did dream that it was full of crocs! (it’s not)

Frustrating but we’ve done everything we can to speed up procedures and now have to be patient and speak nicely to the harrassed girl at the shipping agents. Crossed fingers for tomorrow. I’ve read lots of Hemingway (and contemplated a visit to his house in Key West, sadly we have to stay reasonably close to the container drop off point in Coconut Grove just in case. The six toed cats, descendents of one of ‘Papa’s’ can been see on ‘cat-cam’ though). I’ve also done my outstanding marking, knitted and am even contemplating looking at the manuscript of my sadly-neglected novel today. But the sun is shining! Us vitamin-D deprived Brits need to get outside…

Yesterday we went to the Everglades and went on an airboat ride.

Here is Allan bracing himself for a fast 360 degree turn. I did have an image of him sliding out into the croc-swamp…

I’m not terribly keen on crocs (have enough bits missing already, thanks), but the ride was great fun and I liked the swampy, tropical landscape. Bought some giant mangoes on the way home from a stall called ‘Robert is Here’, which had its own musician playing Country as people bought avocadoes the size of footballs and collards (greens) half the size of my kitchen.

Hopefully going for a swim today but not here!
And say a few prayers to the God of Amenable Customs Agents.

Love to all at home
Jx

The glamour of Olympic sailing… an industrial estate outside Southampton, waiting 6 hours for the container to arrive.

So we’ve just finished our last training session in -17 wind chill. No other nutters to be seen in Weymouth bay apart from two 49ers and they didn’t stay out long. But it did give us a chance to test our final bits of equipment before Miami so was well worth it (they need tweaking, naturally). I am now trying to channel the fit out of the new boat into a suitably dormant part of my brain until after Christmas otherwise I won’t sleep!

And another bit of video of us sailing.

Flying 1st Jan to the sun!

I have also been trying some amateur filming:

Talking of World Class Day, we all got glammed up for the Skandia Team GBR Awards Dinner (aka ‘penguins and princesses’) on Friday night, and a glittering affair it was. I’m not sure my scabby knuckles really went with the post-box red nail varnish (my new seat bites!) but you have to make an effort.

The evening was great fun - the Champagne helps - and inspirational to see all our World Champion sailors up on the ‘Skandia Stairway to Heaven’ as well as on the dance floor later on.

And another video clip; gybing practice with the new seats, they do lurch about a bit alarmingly, but we’re getting there.

Miami in a month!

…

On returning from Rochester we spent less than a week on British soil before flying to Beijing on a recce with the rest of the GBR paralympic squad.

The purpose of the trip was to check out facilities, access, transport, jet lag/recovery etc. in advance of next year’s games. We spent two days in Beijing before flying on to Qingdao (China’s ‘Sailing City’). Beijing was incredibly busy (we arrived on a national holiday, with crowds flocking to Tian’anmen Square for kite flying and photos ops next to the floral display depicting the Parthenon - for Athens - and the Great Wall, of course, for Beijing). The roads were gridlocked - sit facing backwards and pray - and the notorious smog gave everything a peculiar ghostly air but we had a fantastic time nevertheless, hauling wheelchairs around the Forbidden City and down the long corridor of the Summer Temple.

I also managed to cajole the rest of the team into visiting Yonghegong, the Tibetan temple in Beijing, famous for its ‘yellow hat’ Buddha and a giant, 18 metre high standing Buddha, carved from a single piece of sandlewood.

This trip was a great thrill for me - I’m fascinated by Buddhism and was delighted to read this weekend of Jonny Wilkinson’s interest - and was equally delighted to see my fellow team members sitting quietly in the peaceful courtyards soaking up the atmosphere and watching the locals pray and give offerings. And we touched the lucky turtle - you can’t miss out on the such chances when you’re going for Gold!

In Qingdao we were received with overwhelming hospitality and graciousness, although I do have problems with the delicate Chinese hostesses trying to take my heavy bags from me. I might only have one leg but I’m in training! The Seaview Garden hotel couldn’t do enough for us and again I found this slightly unnerving, most of my travelling has been in beat up old buses or under canvas and the few hotels I have stayed in were the sort where you use your sleeping bag rather then risk their bedding… It’s a different world - China that is. Qingdao - a city most people will never have heard of - has a Hong Kong skyline and the glitzy malls that go with it. The locals say that even they can’t keep up with the pace of change, with new buildings sprouting up daily. The Olympic venue is already completed (an entire dockyard was moved down the coast) and excitement is building.

You can catch glimpses of ‘old’ China though; men playing Mah Jong on a street corner, scrap waste piled precariously on an ancient bicycle, in the markets where the bored shop girls play with their hair and hiss at your feeble attempts at bargaining. Everyone is friendly, no one is threatening, you don’t get hassled or even stared at particularly (and we were a fairly distinctive group with Steve striding around in shorts on his prosthetic legs) and I have never felt so safe in a foreign city. They have lovely dogs too! (although this was in Qingdao - rumour has it that dogs over 14 inches high are banned in Beijing…)

I then managed a whole week at home before getting up at 5 am (on my birthday!) to drive to Weymouth for Squad camp. Good weather for October so we got out on the water and tested our prototype tilting seats. We now have to get the system perfected in time for container loading on 3rd December as we’re off to Miami for the Olympic Classes Regatta in January. I did manage to catch up with friends and family last night for a bit of a birthday bash which was great and much needed. Thanks for coming everyone - I’m having an amazing experience but I do miss my pals.

And talking to my friend Kirsty, who is a film maker, this morning, I realised that the actual racing side of this is a bit of a mystery to many people, so I’ve decided to start making a video diary and will post up clips. An ABC guide to paralympic sailing, or something similar. Lets hope we don’t have any more broken masts or spectacular broaches (that’s when you get knocked on your side).

The week’s training hit an initial hiccup when we realised that there wasn’t enough water at Shumway Marine to launch the Skuds. So we improvised with some injun-style paddling and keels at half-mast (all very complicated when you have to winch your helm in and out of the boat…) Once we did get out on to Lake Ontario we experienced massively varied conditions, from flat calm and shifty to huge rollers - great fun to surf home on after long upwind tuning runs.

Rochester Yacht Club is a superb facility and we were wonderfully looked after all week (a special mention for Jack Allen, the Great Britian ‘ambassador’, the ‘hoist hunks’ who hauled the boats in and out every day and the cook made sure this vegetarian got fed in the land of steakouts). A very big thank you, too, to Skip Shumway who sported a wonderful variety of outfits (from yard-man to Commodore) on a bewildering array of motorised vehicles and - heroically - provided beer and pizza to magic away our hangovers after that ‘morning after the night before’ container loading experience…

Unfortunately the practice race was canned due to too much wind and the first day to not enough. We started the regatta-proper well, first to the windward mark in Race 1, but then struggled with the varying conditions until the last day when our performance again picked up. We came 3rd in Race 10 and were 2nd round the windward mark in Race 11 when our spinnaker pole launcher broke and we had to fly the kite for the rest of the race with no pole.

As you can see from the photo this made for some tricky and spectacular gybing, as the kite initially wouldn’t fill and then, as we managed to catch the breeze, we suddenly leaped forward with a great crash as the pole was pulled out by wind power.

Overall we came 8th and so hung on to the top of the fleet. The Americans have been training as a squad, and this advantage was reflected in their results: 4 boats in the top 8. This means we were 5th country and are still in with a good chance of a medal. But there is much to be done and no room for complacency. It was fantastic to be sailing in a big fleet and to be part of such an inspirational event where wheelchairs are left on the pontoon and prejudices well behind the start line.

The cameraderie and hospitality in Rochester were exemplary, but don’t let this fool you into thinking the competition was less than ‘tooth and claw’. Much was at stake for all the sailors, not least country qualification and selection for the paralympics. We successfully qualified GBR for the paralympics in the Skud, however the our performance was not good enough to qualify us as the selected team at this regatta. We hope to remedy this at Miami in January. We are still the top British boat - we have been since the trials started - and are already planning our strategy to build on what we have learned and improve our performance. Meanwhile we are off to China on Friday on a recce with the rest of the squad. So the next report on this website will be from the site of the paralympic sailing competition, 2008: Qingdao!