British Sailing Team Blog: Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson
3 January 2012
Well, we hope everyone had a great Christmas and new years!
Now the fun begins on the count down to the biggest sporting event ever to be held in Great Britain. Only just over 200 days left at the time of writing....
2012has started with a huge fireworks display in London and hopefully we will be on fire come the 29th July for our first race of the Olympic games in Weymouth.
We have a bit to do first. At the World Championships in Perth Australia last month, Iain damaged his back badly which meant we could not finish the event. This was a huge blow and Iain has been recovering well back home of the Christmas period. It should not keep us out of training for long but is a reminder of how easily things can go wrong.
On the plus side, we were leading the event after the 4 .5 races we sailed. The new boat is going well and we were really enjoying the racing. Sod's law hey, but better now than in 7 months time!
The next few months are Big months! The gym(when we get over our respective bugs) will be hit hard and the sailing program is very intense in the next 200 days to help get things right for the games. In the last Olympics we made huge strides in the build up to the games and we plan to do the same this time.
We hope you all have a great 2012 and please cheer us on in the months ahead!
All the best
Bart and Iain
5 July 2011
Andrew and myself have just finished a good week down in Weymouth. Back to basics style with long hard hours in the gym and plenty of critical video taken from the rib. We were both pretty disappointed with the 5th place in Skandia Sail for Gold regatta and determined to put it right in a month's time at the Pre-Olympics. Last weekend we both took a (long) day off to compete in the Round the Island race. There were nearly 2000 boats and 18000 competitors so a lot of people will know what I talk about when I say it was a bloody hard race. We all woke up with a 3.45 alarm to driving rain and 30 knot winds blowing and although the rain stopped the breeze definitely didn't and we all had a hell of a ride around the back side of the island. We were sailing the TP52 Origin owned by Sir Keith Mills and came in 3rd, not bad but one wipe out half way to the forts from St Catherine's probably cost us the overall win.
Heard a rumor from Clarks they want me to take on the catwalk at their annual sales conference on Monday...so I will be having words! After that it is back down to Weymouth to push hard again.
17 June 2011
It has been a tough month in the Star campaign.
Firstly we went to Holland regatta and came away with a 5th place. It does not really tell the story of the event. We were going really well in the smoother conditions but struggled in the really aggressive sharp chop that is often unique to the venue.
The breeze kept building as the event went on. And then in the penultimate race, our boom snapped in extreme conditions , bringing down our mast and we managed to cross the line holding up our sails. We finished 7th with no mast!!! Sadly, the 1.5 hour tow home in the freezing cold took its toll on the boat and we had to sit out the medal race which meant we got maximum points(not good) in the medal race and finished in 5th overall and still only a couple of points from 2nd which was good considering.
So we came back home to prepare for sail4 Gold regatta which was the selection for the Pre Olympics. Preparations were damaged slightly by the broken mast and we put a new one together. The Event in Weymouth is very important as it is not often we get a chance to race on the Olympic venue.
The event itself was huge, with over 700 boats in total and was well publicised. The weather was incredibly cold and we sailed the Star boats closer to Poole than Weymouth!
Sadly, our performance was not as we had hoped and leaves us plenty of scope to do better. We finished 5th again, and a long way in points behind the first 2 teams. Parts of our performance were really good such as our starting, but overall it was a poor performance which has fired us up to put things right in the Pre Olympics at the end of next month. A lot of work ahead.
Bart and Iain.
4 May 2011
END OF AN ERA!
I've just arrived in London after a72-hour drive back from Palma with the boats. After living in Spain for the last 8 years, I'm relocating back to UK. With the Olympics not far away it's important that I base myself here. It's the end of an era but happy to be back home. On the way back from Palma I stopped off in Valencia to move out of my flat, boat trailers make excellent removal vans!
Packing up everything I own was quite a big job but luckily I managed to rope in an old mate to help me out. I've been doing these 3 day trips for years now so I'm used to it... Matt on the other hand said he'd never felt so tired!
The Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma was our first since the Skandia Sail for Gold back in August last year. The star fleet was very strong and boasted seven Olympic gold medalists and 9 world champions so we had our work cut out.
We have spent a lot of time over the last 6 months planning our strategy and working on the technical side so the result in Palma was a pleasant surprise. We won the event with a day to spare, our biggest winning margin ever. We're not taking things for granted though. The breaks went our way that week but our race technique was rusty. It was clear that everyone has been training hard over the winter, and we have a lot of work to do.
Don't get me wrong, we did a lot of things well, it was a tricky week with conditions constantly changing. However our race speed wasn't quite where we wanted it.
Our key events this year are the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta in June and the pre Olympics in August, both in Weymouth. Palma, and the Holland Regatta in May, will provide us with great race practice ahead of those events.
Now that I'm back in the UK it feels like the real start of our 2012 campaign. It's now a priority to find a home and a place in Weymouth to base myself during the build up.
All the best,
Iain and Andrew
