Almost half way through the year (2014)

Its coming to the end of June 2014 and we have managed to get it together as a team again. We now have a regular 6 and 4 floaters in the team. This has allowed us to work together to improve our boat handling, and recently we are managing to get the race strategy and tactics right. We are on the water as a boat and team for a little over a year now - starting with a team with little racing and in the case of three no sailing experience. But we read, we practice, we talk about and we video our moves. Sometimes (!!!) I do push hard and expect a lot, but there is no point taking part unless your are competing and doing the best you possibly can. Its about concentration, attention to detail, never allowing your mind to wander off, pushing yourself and constantly looking for ways to improve. This means you have to think about the race afterwards, talk about it, and find ways to do it better next time.

We stepped back to White Sails at the start of the season, and that was the right thing to do. We need to master two sails before taking on a third.

We had three goals this year :

1. a top 5 in DBSC, regularly mixing it up with Persistence and ACT2 ... the first part of the season ended last week and we took first in ECHO (29 boats, 8 races with 2 discards - first with 16 points where the next boat had 29 points) and first in IRC (13 boats, 8 races with 2 discards - first with 8 points where the next boat had 10 points). 
2. a top 3 in the ICRAs (Irish Cruiser Racer Nationals) White Sail (Corinthian Cup) ... we managed a first in ECHO with 4 straight wins, and a second on IRC with 4 second places (to White Lotus who was brilliant and had 4 firsts - well done Paul).
3. a top 5 at CORK WEEK ... well that's the week after next. There are currently 20 boats entered in our class. We move the boat to Cork next weekend. There is a lot of local boats so I am not sure how we will manage against local knowledge. I am reading everything I can about the area in advance. So that's the next big target - A top 3 would be great (see www.corkweek.ie)

We are still not working and taking full advantage of the wind shifts, but are managing to get goods starts and work hard to find clear air.

For a quick view of the team in action see link below : Video of ICRA 2014 - Warrior in Action