Sam Davies diary
Wednesday February 6th 2002, Author: Sam Davies, Location: United States
It is a bit of a jump, from offshore racing in the Mini Transat last year to Olympic sailing in the Yngling this year. Races are now 5, not 5,000 miles. There are three crew, not just me. There is no GPS, VHF or kettle on board our Yngling! You finish every day before dark (usually!) and get a nice meal, a shower and proper bed every night!
Olympic sailing sounds very glamorous - training in Miami during the winter months while your friends and family are battered by the winter gales and rain in the UK - but in reality we are working so hard that the pleasures of the venue never get appreciated.
Our general training day starts at 0600 or 0630 in the gym. We each have an individual fitness program, based on our position and requirements within the boat. There is a weight limit (205kg) so we have target weights to reach or maintain, but also we need to be physically fit, with strength in specific areas. Our programs have been designed by Pete Cunningham and Matt Scott and they are also working on our nutrition.
We get breakfast at 0900, then it is down to the boat to meet our training partners and coach. There we make a plan on shore of our goals for the day, specific exercises each team wants to do. The weather forecast is analysed, as if it were a race day, so that we can continually learn about the local conditions and build our knowledge for when we actually race here.
We have been doing a lot of tuning. There is so much to be learnt with these boats as they are new to the Olympic level (of technology, funding etc.) In some areas we make dramatic changes. In other areas we are refining to very small adjustments to get that last tenth of a knot in boatspeed. Tuning takes a lot of time and patience. Some days you learn heaps, other days can be frustrating - one day we sailed miles (it seemed like we were going to the Bahamas) and the only boat speed difference we could find was when we had weed on our rudder!
After sailing, we come ashore, crane the boat out, rinse everything, measure all the settings, write everything down in log books and de-brief with our coach and tuning partners. By this time it is usually 1830 and getting dark. Just enough time for a shower and dinner before bed! Usually we are so tired by the end of the day, especially if it has been windy, that we manage little else!
Today is our only day off for the three weeks we are here. We are all catching up with sleep, home and other bits and pieces (in my case, rather a lot of laundry!) We have just finished racing the Miami Olympic Classes regatta.
The regatta was our first event as a team. We managed fourth place, behind the three top American teams. We sailed conservatively and consistently, never outside the top nine, but never better than third place. The top two Americans seem to just have a little better boat speed, which gave them the edge this time.
Next week is another training week for us, and we are joining in with the US sailing team training camp. We will be again concentrating on boat speed. To continue to sail these boats competitively we will need to spend many hours on the water and basically try to get above everyone else on the huge learning curve that we are experiencing in the Yngling class.
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