Today was a lot of fun. It was good to get a session in this close to when I’m leaving in 3 days for Worlds. Good to keep my feel so that I’m fresh when I get in the boat in Greece.
However, today’s conditions were probably the opposite of the conditions at Worlds. But probably the most fun type of conditions you can get at Fremantle; a north westerly, quite a lot of wind, 20 to 23 knots. Because there are no islands in the way, in this wind direction there is with a sea breeze here, we get the waves from thousands of kilometres away, so they’re really big!
In this session we sailed for 45 minutes upwind, then racing for half an hour and a quick downwind due to the amount of wind. It was probably a two or three-kilometre downwind but it took only 10 minutes.
So, it was a nice way to end in ILCA 4 in my last training session in Australia in this rig. It was fun. A good way to finish off. I probably didn’t learn as much as I could have in lighter conditions, but I’m so close to worlds now, it’s not as much about learning. It’s more about refining those little things before I do lots of learning at Worlds.
My aim at Worlds is to have some consistency. At these bigger events, it looks like for a lot of people at their first big events they get a top five or something and that’s the big moment of their regatta, but the rest of it is pretty mellow. Therefore I’m aiming to be consistently having a race I am satisfied with. I don’t want to have 10 races I’m frustrated with and just one or two I think, well that was awesome, because that’s not what wins regattas. So yes, I’m looking forward to the opportunity of this experience and to learn, grow and develop as a sailor and as a competitor.
Charles Allen Toyn 