Olympic news update on what British Sailing Team Lasers are currently doing…

Well in short this is actually quite a quiet time of year for us BST Laser sailors. We are well underway transitioning into our winter training, which usually means moving abroad to somewhere warmer. Whilst we do brave the Weymouth conditions out in November and sometimes December, our hours are dramatically reduced, our efficiency goes down and it can get particularly unpleasant to spend a lot of time outside. It’s a bit like if you have a normal job and you came to work on one chilly winters morning to find your boss had sold all the office windows…. not ideal.

So, for the next few months we are basing ourselves in Vilamoura, Portugal. Vilamoura is a great place in the winter (I’m sure it is in the summer too, although I have never been). Flights are ridiculously cheap, with an average return price from Bournemouth about £28, although I did get a special offer a while back of £4.99 each way. It’s more expensive for us to actually get to the airport! God knows what Ryanair do to the planes to make it that cheap but so far so good and we are yet to have any bad experiences.

Once there, the location is quite nice with cheap accommodation, food and transport. The climate is also pretty mild which means you can spend hours outside with quality cycling and sailing sessions, with weather rarely forcing you to change or cancel plans. In total I am spending 51 days out there, so hopefully we can rack up 3-4 times more sailing hours than here in the UK.

The next big event for us are the Laser World Championships, to be held in Melbourne, Australia in February. Most of the team are going out to compete, including myself, and it is sure to be an epic fight, especially as our Olympic trials are still open with no one selected for GB at time of writing.

Otherwise there is not much to report from us British Sailing Team lads. I’m am currently on a mandatory 4 week no-sailing program, having had my lovely big toenails removed a week ago due to repeated ingrown episodes, so am struggling to adjust to a normal, lazy paced life.

Caio for now.

Sam Whaley

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