All over

As those of you who've been following our progress will have seen the event is over and finished in serious controversy.
The medal race was run in extreme conditions. Breeze up to 22kts and a large sea running along with a reduced fleet weight made for an exciting race. The medals swapped hands a number of times on every lap! Every boat on the course capsized at least once with most twice or more! For us with no pressure it was great fun and we very nearly won, pitch poling within 100 yrds of the finish (There's some great pics on the Internet). The Danish who were leading going into the race snapped a mast pre-race but managed to borrow a boat off the Croatians and get back to start 3 mins 56 behind the fleet! They sailed round without the spinnaker and finished 7th winning the Gold by a couple of points from Medal race winners the Spanish. As you can imagine the jury room was a busy place when we got in with numerous protests as to the suitability of the conditions and whether the Danes result should stand given the fact they used a different boat. The protests carried on late into the night and resumed in the morning. We came back down to find out the final result. And it finished as it stood with the Danes in Gold the Spanish 2nd and the Germans 3rd. I'm sure there will be a lot of talk as to whether the decision was right but I personally feel it was a good decision for the sport. The fact that the Danes did everything possible and the act of sportsmanship by the Croatians is something the class should be proud of.

For us the chance of a medal slipped away the day before. Its hard to put into words how it feels to have worked for so long and have it slip from our grasp. I'm finding it hard to know how to feel. Just so frustrated and down. I guess you put on a smiley face and say its just motivated us more for 2012. I've certainly learnt more about myself these last few days then in a long time.
Looking back its easy to see where we've made mistakes in the build up this last year and it seems the only way to have realised the problems is by having experienced this. People say its a great thing to have experienced an Olympic Games but to tell you the truth its been one of the worst weeks of my life and bar the adrenalin of the Medal race its felt horrible, mentally trying to stay on top all week. All I really want to do is go home but we're out here for another few days packing up before heading to Beijing for the Closing Ceremony.

We've been on the seawall cheering on the remaining classes in the medal races. The team has done phenomenally well. And a lot of credit has to go the the support staff that go through the same stress as us without the action. Its been great seeing most of the team realise their deserved goals.
Massive sympathy for Nick, I can only imagine what it feels like to have come so close, and of all the people who you'd hope it'd never happen to it would be Nick.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us this last year and special thanks to my parents, brother and girlfriend who travelled out here. I sorry we couldn't make it a more enjoyable experience.

After a rest day keeping out of the sun we started race 7 confident that we were on top of the issues of the other day. Unfortunately we misjudged the start line on account that we felt the pin end of the line was drifting. We protested on return to shore, requesting redress but it was denied due to lack of proof. So another terrible result to add to the score sheet. Pretty gutted!

Anyway we managed to follow it up with our best two results of the event a 3rd, then a 2nd. This leaves us 8th overall. A lot further back than we'd have hoped but on the positive side around the same position as we were in last year and we managed to turn it around then.

Yesterday, although scheduled 3 races we never left the shore due to the wind never blowing more than 2kts. Which leaves us today with another 3 and the probability we'll lose the rest day tomorrow to do the missing 3. At the moment we are waiting for the wind to settle enough to lay a course in as its offshore.
Just crossing fingers we can complete the series.

And we promise we haven't given up and we are still enjoying the Olympic experience!!!

Second day

After our great first day, the second days racing was the kind of day we'd been hoping wouldn't happen. The breeze was good and there was a large sea running from just about every direction. We had good starts but during the first race the mainsheet got caught around the camera tripod on the back of the boat and snapped one of the bridles. We were able to keep racing but its hard to know how much it cost us especially as it was a boat speed type of course. The race officer was turning the races over so fast that by the time we'd fixed the mainsheet the next race's sequence had begun. We got another good start but seemed to lack the pace to take advantage of some of the opportunites that came our way. On reaching the finish we lifted the centerboard to find in covered in tar! Not very helpful. By the third race we still had no definate answers to what was going wrong thanks to the mainsheet and the tar and so maybe lacked the confidence in our decision making that is usually so good. Anyway we had another poor result.
A pretty depressing day. Its dropped us to 9th overall but on the plus side there's still potentially 10 races left so plenty of time to catch up. Just got to cross fingers we have a better run of things and that the wind keeps blowing!

Opening Ceremony, problems and first days racing

For most of the sailing team with ourselves included, didn't have the time to fly to Beijing and back for the Opening Ceremony. It required leaving on the morning of the 8th and not returning till midday on the 9th. With our racing starting on 10th there just wasn't enough time.
Instead the team put on a dinner with a live BBC feed so we could watch. The whole team dressed up in team uniform and there was a great atmosphere with everyone cheering every time a Brit came into shot!

The 9th we'd planned to have as a rest day but with a few jobs left to do on the boat we went down early to sort them. Unfortunately whilst doing this we discovered a slight void in the bow where the gel coat had sunk and so needed repairing. Fortunately we have a boat builder out here to help but after filling and sanding it back he discovered more holes. In the end we spent the whole day down at the boat park. Not quite what we'd had in mind for a day off.
After spending so much time in the sun and with racing starting the next day we gave the local opening ceremony a miss and chilled out in the hotel watching it on TV.

First day of racing for us yesterday. Both pretty nervous. We had three races with the first two run in around 6 kts but the last a bit touch and go when the wind dropped to 2kts on the first beat. We managed to stay on top of the nerves and finished the day with a 3,4,5 scoreline. One we'd have been very happy with if you'd offered us that at the start of the day. This puts us leading the regatta!! A pretty nice position to be in but more importantly no bad races picked up.
I spoke to friends back in the UK and they said they'd been up at 6 to watch the racing live! Pretty cool knowing we've got all this support.
Today we move course to racing area B a bit further east and away from the marina for another 3 races. If we get all the races in we have a rest day tomorrow.

Measurement

At the Games the measurement procedure is a pretty long process, each boat taking around 2 hrs to check. Most of these checks are the standard things that always get checked at any large event but with the Olympics there are so many branding regulations even sail manufacturer logos have to be the right size! The other different thing is the stickers. According to our coach the last few Games there have been professionals to apply the stickers (National flags / Letters / Names / Event logo) to the sails and the hull. Unfortunately for us this year there aren't, so we've had to apply them ourselves. This was taking some teams up to 4hrs to sticker a main sail! We managed to do it in around 1hr but have just been informed that the stickers themselves might be too poor a quality and might fall off and that a new batch has been ordered! Pretty annoying if that's the case, at least we only wasted an hour not four.

Entering the Olympic Marina and Shanghai Holding Camp

Sorry I haven't added any updates to the blog for awhile, its been fairly hectic!
We flew out last Tuesday with fellow Devonian sailor Joe Glanfield as well as a number of other athletes including Linford Christie! Though Linford was in first class he still said 'Hi' to us. We are so separate from the main scene in Beijing you don't think about seeing other athletes.
We arrived in Qingdao to heavy rain and the forecast of more the following day with a potential typhoon warning in the near vicinity. We went down to Yin Hai marina the following day with the hope of sailing our kit round to the Olympic marina, a couple of miles down the coast, but on arriving at Yin Hai we found 20kt winds and waves breaking over the sea wall into the marina. After checking the slipway, which is a floating pontoon, we found it moving up and down by about 6ft and decided there was no chance of launching without serious risk to our equipment.
We left the boat till the following day and went to explore the Olympic marina on foot. It gave us a chance to register and find our way round the new buildings that have been built since last year. This includes the athlete accommodation block which will be a 5 star hotel. Though we're not staying there we have access to the facilities which include plush rooms, swimming pool, food halls and a massage spa.
The team has done a great job and made it a much more pleasant place to relax whilst waiting for races.
We managed to tow round the following day as the wind disappeared again. It was made harder by the massive swell left over from the day before and would have been much easier to sail had there been any wind. Thanks to Jez the Finn coach for stepping in and helping us.
On our final day before the holding camp we went down early and squeezed in a sail before having to jump on the bus for the airport.
The last few days have been spent in Shanghai resting and preparing for the real thing. It's a bit of a shame to not have been able to join up with the rest of Team GB but the main holding camp was in Macau, which for us was nearly 8hrs travel away.
We're now back in Qingdao and have four days before racing starts. Today we are measuring in our boat and equipment, cross fingers everything's fine!