The National Squad arrived in Northampton on Saturday 24th November for training focused on boat set up and handling. Saturday was damp and while the parents made themselves comfortable in the warm club, Catherine and Alex drilled us with the whistle.

On the first few days of November, six teams met at Restronguet to test their mettle against a tough forecast. Mostly, thankfully, the forecast did not live-up to it's promises, although there were some nasty squalls to keep everyone on their toes and in the water in some cases.

The national youth development squad, south zone had their second training weekend at Warsash sailing club on the of 3-4 November. The focus of the weekend was boat speed.

We arrived to about 20 knots and after a quick briefing we headed out to do a windward leeward course to get comfortable with the conditions. When everyone was happy we did follow my leader into upwind and did tacking on the whistle so that we could compare speed and find out who was going fastest.

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.