Vita and Ryan's 470 Campaign - December Update
23 December 2020 - from Vita and Ryan
Cecil Wright & Partners are delighted to sponsor Vita's campaign to make the 2024 Olympic Games.
We have hope!
With big international events on the horizon we are accelerating our training whilst holding our breath that they will go ahead.
We have withstood another month of training in Weymouth before heading out to Vilamoura as the lockdown situation was uncertain and we didn’t want to take the risk of getting stuck out there unable to train. Plus who doesn’t love getting hypothermia 😂
We closed up UK based training with a productive Weymouth camp last week. Now it’s time to test our organisational skills; we have to pack all our equipment for 5 months abroad on the international circuit. We will leave for Vilamoura for pre-Worlds training at the start of January and return from Hyeres after the Europeans mid May. Over the past couple of weeks we have been doing work on our Cecil Wright sponsored race boat, getting her all tickled up and ready for 4 major events, in particular the Worlds and Europeans as these our funding selection events. We are so grateful to be going into such a critical event period with a new boat where we can have confidence that it will reflect our sailing performance. We have also just got a new mast as our other one was bent, so we are now all set up to be the fasted boat on that race track!
This month we’ve had a few camps with world class coaches which was massively productive and we feel like we really taken a big step up. In particular, we tackled our windy upwind technique, pumping, and downwind rocking which has really boosted our confidence going into this event period.
This week however we’ve been in a mad packing frenzy to get our all our kit ready for this string of events- the packing list is endless! It won’t be coming back until after the Europeans in May so we need to make sure we have
everything we could possibly need to operate kit at the highest of standards over 5 months.
This is all possible. We are very lucky to have an elite athlete exemption so we can travel for training camps and events without having to quarantine. We realise that we are incredibly lucky to be able to continue campaigning through this hectic time, and we cherish every moment we get on the water (even if it is in 2°C!!).
We have more exciting news; we are super excited to announce our new partnership with Vitality beginning in the New
Year! They advocate healthy living as a core principle and that is what we are all about! So we are thrilled that they can
embark on our journey with us.
Upcoming events...
• Training regatta - Vilamoura, Portugal, 15-21 February
This is a coached regatta for all the teams who are out training in Vilamoura this winter. It will be really useful to have
an event in our Worlds venue.
• World Championships - Vilamoura, Portugal, 4-13 March
• Princess Sophia regatta - Palma, Majorca, 26 March - 3 April
• Hyeres regatta - Hyeres, France, 17-24 April
• European Championships - Hyeres, France, 30 April - 8 May
I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Year despite the circumstances! For us personally, our Christmas holiday has become an ultra competitive chess tournament, in the midst of packing, making spares and collecting various boat bits!
Our main expenses in the new year will be accommodation, as we will be spending the large part of 5 months abroad staying in varying standards of airbnbs! We share accommodation with other squad member to keep the price low. Additionally we have to put significant funds towards transportation of kit; the ferries in particular are very expensive (usually around £1000). We share the load with 2 other teams so the cost gets split 3 ways which makes it more manageable.So here we go; World Championships take 2!
As always, we would be so grateful if anyone has contacts in any of these venues or knows of anywhere we can stay.
This has greatly helped us in the past.
Any contribution to travel, accommodation, entry costs (etc) will be massively appreciated and will go along way!
If you want to help us out on our journey to Paris 2024 or want to chat, then please give us a call!
Vita – 07586349225
Email – vitaryangbr11@gmail.com
For some gnarly pics and updates on our progress, check out:
