First at 2023 Sail Freo

I competed in the ILCA 6 which is the Olympic class boat for women and the youth class for men. I have just transitioned to this class. I started in the ILCA 4.7, the youth class or rig and then moved up into the 6 at the start of this year. I returned to the 4 for about 6 weeks when I went to ILCA 4 Worlds and now I’m in ILCA 6 full time until I’m heavy enough for ILCA 7. I’m not yet heavy enough for ILCA 6 but am too heavy for ILCA 4 however the 6 fleet is older than competitors and therefore is a more experienced fleet and so I am learning a lot more. This fleet are also competitors more than my peers in age and life stage.

As a two day regatta this brought a variety of conditions which is a fair test of who the best sailor was, sailing in different conditions. So not favouring good heavy wind or light wind sailors. You need to be good in all conditions. I was glad I performed well in all conditions. The first day was relatively windy around a 20 knot onshore breeze.

And not so windy and a different kind of wind on the second day, it was zero or close to zero knots for most of the day but when the odd cloud came through it picked up to 8 to 10 knots. By the last race it was gusting about 12 knots. 

There were 8 ILCA 6 sailors competing but all the ILCA boats started together so there were about 25 boats on the start line. And the top 4 ILCA 6 sailors were pretty close for the races. Especially on the second day it was pretty competitive. No one sailor got out front and locked up the wind, there were a lot of lead changes which was a bit more fun. 

I was glad that I could win it because it was my home event, so all the people I know around the club were there.  It was run by all the volunteers I know, all the local volunteers so it was a well run event. Thanks Mum and a shout out to all Team Freo Volunteers!

I did a couple days of training leading into it, in quite a lot of wind, so I was quite tired by the first day. So I was glad I could still perform well a lot of the time despite being tired. I could still go back to the basics.

All up, glad to take away the win in a very competitive fleet.