Update from Artemis Offshore Academy Performance Director, John Thorn, as the Development Squad are back into training at the Centre D’Entrainment (CEM) in La Grande Motte after the Christmas break [18th January 2011]:
It’s great to be back in La Grande Motte at the start of 2011 with an exciting year to look ahead to. Christmas already seems like a while ago.
The
focus for these first few weeks back at the CEM is to improve the sailor’s
knowledge of the Adrena software to develop road books for the season ahead.
Adrena software is a unique programme used for yacht racing navigation and its
road books are similar to creating a road map. Alongside this the team will
also be working hard on meteorology. This training was kicked off to a
thoroughly enjoyable start for the Development Squad with a behind the scenes
tour of the French Meteorology centre in Toulouse.
The Squad will also be focusing on their fitness training over the coming weeks. Specialist trainers and a physiotherapist have been working with the team on individual training programmes to ensure the Squad reach their high level fitness goals.
The arrival of Sam Goodchild, back from a transatlantic delivery, and Nigel King from his duties in the RC44 fleet and his recent win in the Sydney Hobart race, mean that the whole Squad are gathered together for the first time since inception!
Some exciting new developments have already got under way here in La Grande Motte. The hottest news right now is that it looks like one Associate Sailor and one Development Squad sailor will be campaigning a Figaro in this years Classe Figaro programme. A total of three British Figaro’s will be racing in the Solitaire when you include the scholarship boat, this is great news! More details on this to follow as soon as they are confirmed.
The refit team at the CEM has also been hard at work this past week working on the hulls of the four training boats, as the hulls have had heavy use in the last six months this is not a small job. Work has started on a full refit of Academy Figaro number 37 to convert it into the same livery as the other four Academy boats, which I still think is a great colour scheme and design. Rhys and his team hope to have this finished by the beginning of February. This will then give us five British Figaro’s, two British Mini’s and nine British Development Squad sailors training in La Grande Motte. Fantastic!
As Becky Scott is campaigning the Mini this year she is now focused on training in the Mini programme rather than full time with the Figaro fleet.
One thing we have become acutely aware of is the need to keep the Figaro Class well informed about what we are doing to the boats. They want to know everything to ensure no illegal boat preparation is taking place. I imagine the rules are this tight for good reason and past experience!
Next week we will continue with fitness, meteorology and Adrena training but we will also be sailing in the afternoons once the boats are back in the water.
