The Tour de Bretagne proved to be an intense and exciting week of racing with 30 very closely matched Figaros sailing inshore and offshore double-handed. We had a bit of everything during the week, starts delayed for too much wind, motoring to find more wind and a couple lively days sailing inshore in 20-25knots. I had Laurent Pellecuer join me for the week, having sailed Figaros for 15 years I was excited to learn as much from him as possible. For most of the week I was helming and he was crewing, this worked out perfectly for me as I was able to observe all the different ways he did all the maneuvers and trimmed all the sails. In this sense the event was very productive for me and there are things I have already changed in the way I sail and some I will experiment with.

Through the first half of the event we steadily improved and this peaked with a win in the offshore race to Lorient. The race was dominated by light winds and after rounding the The final two days were the worst of the week for us. We made a lot of bad tactical calls, some of which some were very extreme, this hurt our overall ranking a lot and we finished 19th. I thoroughly enjoyed sailing with Laurent and learning from him, and learning a bit of French a long the way. In hind sight, we would have done a couple things differently but that’s always the way.

The next exciting project for me is the Transat Jacques Vabre, I have been invited by Team Concise to do the race onboard their Marc Lombard designed Class 40 with Ned Collier-Wakefield. Its one of the big Offshore Races which is a must do and I am thrilled to be invited to do it with a good boat and a strong team. We will be the youngest competitors in the race but, plan to approach that as a challenge and definitely not an excuse. The boat is one of the latest designs and kept up to date with all the latest gear so will be as competitive as possible on the 30th October for the start. Until then we have a lot of training to do and a few more final preparations.

While the class 40 is having a small re-fit next week I am off to do the inshore Solo Quiberon, which is the finale of the 2011 Figaro Season. On the way to Quiberon I am going to Paris for the Press Conference of the Transat Jacques Vabre tomorrow.

All for now,

Sam