Saturday

The weekend of the 10th & 11th of November saw the first of the Mirror National Youth Development Squad sessions in the North.  It was held at Hollingworth Lake Sailing Club, the home club of Stuart Bithell, who started sailing mirrors at Hollingwoth Lake and ended up at the Olympics.

With this in mind we started our first days training. The pre-briefing bacon butties were great and much appreciated, as most of the squad had already been travelling and rigging boats for quite a few hours.

The 2012/13 NJS started their first 4 day residential with the land day at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Acadamy (WPNSA) on Saturday 27th October. After the warm up the whole squad was ready for their fitness test. During the day we completed agility, leg power and arm strength tests. We also did a bleep test which is harder than it sounds but all the effort was worth it because the Mirror fleet proved to be the fittest double handers, beating the Fevas and Cadets.

On the weekend of the 20-21 October about 300 sailors, including a good contingent of mirror sailors from around the country, descended on Oxford Sailing Club for the RYA Eric Twiname team racing Championship. Our team from Yorkshire Dales SC consisted of: Matt Lulham-Robinson, Ben Lulham-Robinson, George Richards, Helena Watkins, Will Hide and myself and our mascot, Helena’s hamster.

A crisp and cold November morning with light winds and a chill in the air, the boats were rigged and the bacon butties cooked. The coach for the weekend, Sarah Richards, set the focus for Saturday on starting and the first exercise was a 9, 6, 3, Go start where we would have a practice start on the 6 and then the 3.