Styles and May update

News from the British Tornado aces

Just a quick update on what and where Team Styles and May are now. We have just arrived out in Martha's Vineyard USA for a training camp in preparation for the Tornado Worlds which are to be held here late in Sept. We have a week of training and then back home for a short break before coming back out for the Worlds proper.

We were hoping for the same weather we had when we were out here in July temperatures in the 30s and sea breezes. But today this was not the case with a low pressure system giving us wind from the North East at about 20 knots. The boat's rigged now though and we have the coach coming out here tomorrow which will be good. Looking forward to getting the new boat all sorted and testing the regatta kit for the worlds.

On another note we have just come back from Athens where we have been for the majority of August training and then competing at the Pre Olympic test event, a pre cursor to the Olympics in 2004.

The Athens event was a great learning event for us and the whole of the British Sailing team, getting used to the heat and avoiding the effects of dehydration, keeping out of the sun (bit of a change from normally being a sun tan man). The conditions we sailed in were a mixture of thermal winds, sea breezes, and then an offshore gradient wind called the Maltemi. The combination of these three provided a different scenario for each day we raced. This meant a tough job for the Met staff which the RYA brought along. But more importantly it meant that we had to be even more vigilant ourselves whilst racing, in order to be in sync with the wind shifts and trends.

We spent a good period of time training before the regatta working our boat to get the most speed out of the borrowed mast we were using. This was an issue for us all week and unfortunately we were unable to get the same good speed as we are normally used to with our own kit. However the regatta was about learning about the Athens venue and the conditions and thus we got stuck into the racing and working out the favoured tactics for the different course areas we sailed on.

The racing was close fought, with the entry limited to two boats per nation the fleet was very competitive, the same quality as the worlds will be in a few weeks time. We never felt happy with the boat speed and this made the racing even harder for us, but we managed a few good individual races. The overall positioning saw us in 11th, close on points with the boats just in front of us. All in all a tough regatta, and we will need to be spending much more time in Athens in order to learn the venue and get accustomed to the changeable nature of the winds.

Now looking forward to the worlds and that next challenge. All the best and good sailing

Cheers

Hugh Styles