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8 September 2011
Training in September

21 August 2011
5 Bridges 10km run

Over the last 5 weeks I have been training for the 5 bridges run which starts in Petone and follows the Hutt river north. I was leading just after the start, due to some of the people in front taking a wrong turn. hehe. I finished in 10th place in a time of 42min and 43 seconds.

Not bad ah?


struggling with just 1km to go.

12 August 2011
The build up begins

29 June 2011
World Number 2

I am now ranked world number 2. Second only to 3 times world champion, Tom slingsby. What a buzz, Yeeeeeewwwwww, peow peow.

27 June 2011
Kiel Regatta


On the podium with my bronze medal!

Helicopters, spectator ships, GPS tracking, TV, media were all present at the start of the 2011 medal race. The call came in from Andrew Maloney that the right hand side at the top was key.

The start gun has gone and I find myself struggling. But half way up I remembered what Andy had said, so went for it. Boom, first to the top mark.  From here I finished fourth, and comfortably wrapped up third overall.


nice pink bib :)

This was the first World Cup event that I had been on the podium, collected my first medal and stole my first bib … albeit pink!

Not only was the sailing good, but Andy and I enjoyed our time. From Legoland to Hamburg, Danish babes, Lubeck to dodgy brothels. We even managed 6 countries in 24 hours!

15 June 2011
Sail for Gold Regatta


Working hard

Wet, cold and windy. Not much else to report. Oh, the 99p shop is great. You can get a huge bar of Toblerone, a belt, a bag of lollies for less than 3 pounds. Amazing!

This was to be my peak event, but turned out not so. I finished this regatta in a disappointing 23rd. Although not a bad result, it’s definitely not what I was after. It felt like I had all the elements in place to do well in the regatta, but got too caught up in it all, overthinking, which led to some amateur decisions which I don’t normally make. 

Over 5 days, we did 10 races all about an hour long.  10 hours total. We spent almost as much time towing as the tows were soooo long ( approx. 10.5km), the way in was the most painful as we were smashing into the waves the whole way. Your eyes ended blood shot, sails got well stretched and the boats took a pounding. Apart from this the venue is looking very good and is well geared up to host the Olympics in just over a year’s time.

Off to have fun in Kiel. Chow


Andy's Birthday cake, made by Sam and I.

20 December 2011
2011 Laser National Championships and Sail Auckland Regatta


Winning the medal race of sail Auckland was definitely a highlight

Coming off the boat end of the line with 5 of the top 25 sailors in the world, and realising that every one from the other end of the line is crossing miles ahead of you is probably not the best way to start the 2011 laser national championships, but it was something we all had to get used to over the next 
couple of weeks, as it became the norm, not the exception.

Nationals was an extremely close affair, with New Zealand's famous 5 (Andrew Murdoch, Josh Junior, Michael Bullot, Andy Maloney, and Sam Meech) extremely close. I was tied for first going into the last race, and it was just 3 points back to second, because I had a really low drop I couldn't finish worse than 3rd. Unfortunately I had my worst race of the regatta, and finished 3rd just 1 point of 1st placed, Olympian Andrew Murdoch.

Sail Auckland was a little bit more of a struggle with 2 yellow flags, hitting marks, missing multiple shifts, and after capsizing onto a mark, I quote "things just really aren't going my way this week", but I battled on to win the medal race, and finish a credible 5th place.

I now have a few days to re-evaluate where I'm at before full time training continues and the build up to Europe commences.

Cheers JJ