US Nationals and World Championships 2017- Long Beach, LA
Hi everyone,
Just got back from the most incredible two weeks- LA was amazing!
We had a day off before everything kicked off when we got there, so Dad and I decided to go sight seeing. We went all round LA, doing the walk of fame, Chinese theatre, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood sign and drove round the studios. It was an incredible experience and quite surreal.
Over the next few days, we had training and then US Nationals. The sailing venue was beautiful and interesting in terms of weather. The wind always came from a south westerly direction off the Pacific Ocean. There seemed to be a pattern:most days the breeze started off fairly light early in the morning, then built. Around 2 ish, there was 20 knots.
The US Nationals was a 4 day event from Wednesday 25th - Friday 28th July. This was a warm up event for everyone for the World Championships which started on Monday 31st July. We had a range of conditions which was fantastic for a process event before Worlds started. Given this was only our second ever event (Emily and I), we were delighted with our results: 27th overall/ 3rd girls overall/ and 1st Youth Girls. In essence this made us the U19 LADIES US NATIONAL CHAMPIONS! Based on this, we felt in a good position to start the 29er Open World Championships on Monday.
After a weekend of chilling and completing the measuring process, we were set to kick off Worlds. The wind was much lighter for the Worlds and we didn't see so much of the 20 knot sea breeze come in. On most days in the afternoon, the wind went crazy flicking around 45 to (on two days) 140 degree shifts. Locals said this was extremely unusal. This lead to some courses completing more races than others and being out on the water until late afternoon/ early in the evening.
After an intense three days of racing, the qualifying series was complete. We achieved Gold Fleet (other fleets were: silver, bronze and emerald) and we learnt a ton in the final series. We were very happy with our results: 49th overall in a mixed open fleet/ 7th Girls in the world and 3rd YOUTH (u19) LADIES IN THE WORLD!!! Very exciting!
From here, my next event with Emily is the 29er Europeans which is the World Sailing Youth (u19) World Championships Selector event where only the top British boy and girl boats are selected from each youth pathway class, to represent Team GBR. Fingers crossed. It has been a personal target of mine for the last 2 years.
Everything's going to go a bit hectic with As Level Results and the Europeans, but I'll try and keep you as updated as possible.
Hats x
