Sailing Magazine
by Roger Hudson – Coach, Manager & Mentor
Thanks for all of the support. We had some long days out there, sometimes starting races at 19h00!
We are all very much in good spirits over here. We had a few cold beers and a nice team dinner last night and celebrated a unique gold fleet result for SA.
In context, this is a very solid and fair result for the boys and where they stand in the overall scheme of things right now. We played at a specific angle for this worlds, trying to get a great result in expected light wind conditions. But as it turned out the event was mostly pretty breezy (12-15 knots) and as a result we had to fight very hard for everything we got.
We are not upset for one moment that we didn’t get the conditions we expected and planned for. On the contrary, we are pretty stoked that the guys sailed a good hard regatta against a tough fleet and came away with a very fair gold fleet result.
Everyone is still smiling, especially Sibu who has taken a massive amount out of this campaign. He is also now a gold fleet Olympic class sailor, not bad at all.
It is never easy, but we are making strides on many fronts. I watched it all with intense interest and helped the guys as much as possible. I must say I am very proud of the guys, how well they started and how much they fought and adapted. And especially how they kept their heads up all the way.
I believe we could have dazzled in light winds as we showed in the pre-worlds (5 – 8 knots), but it was not to be. Looking forward we need to keep focussed on building the all-round 470 package and I believe the major success will come when the time is right.
