Preparing for the Pool! Name: Lucy Robson Age: 24yrs Home town: Brighton Check out Lucy trying to leave the pool! Win[1.44Mb] Mac[1.51Mb]		That looks wheely good.
Since coming back from Rhosneigr, I have still failed to address the windsurf / work balance and have been fully obsessed with the former. This has led to cold, numbing weekends in Cornwall with a mad Frenchman in the pursuit of forwards, pumping iron at the local gym to get my strength up and collecting a general array of battle scars whilst trekking around the country in the pursuit of wind… I thought the winter was supposed to be windy with nice waves? Well if you live on the south coast like me this has not been forthcoming! Since I had plans to really improve my sailing over the winter months there was nothing else for it but to show my commitment by being a supreme weekend warrior and going to wherever in the country www.theyr.net was predicting would be sailable. The Frenchman After a couple of postings on the Boardseeker forum looking for another weekend enthusiast, I got a reply from Xavier Ferlet who was also up for training for the boat show and ticking those forwards, whatever the air temperature! The first weekend we planned didn’t really happen. Admittedly this was due to the fact that I went out on the Friday night and drank a couple of bottles of wine which didn’t really make for a great early morning drive to the West Country. So after a drunken text to Xav at 4am (“Sorry Xav I can’t make it, I’m stilled p8ssed…”), I crawled back into bed and then had to put myself through my paces with light wind freestyle on my local pond to alleviate my guilt! Cornish Madness The next weekend I made it and just before Christmas I was confronted by a grinning Xav on my doorstep at 5am on a Saturday morning. I am sure that Xav won’t
mind me saying this but there really is no doubting his national identity because he drives like an absolute nutter! Eating, drinking, telephoning, all whilst driving at about 120 mph making Brighton to Cornwall in 3 hours!

“Xav what speed are you doing because I reckon we are going pretty fast…”

“Dunno Lucy, the speedometer doesn’t work, but the rev counter is on max!!”

Arriving at Marazion, at 9am, I once again lived up to my hopeless reputation on trips by realising that I had left my harness on the kitchen table…. this was not good!

Wandering around the car park I came across a few old boys sipping tea and eating flapjacks in front of some rigged ‘n’ waiting slalom kit and tried my very best charm:

“Hey fellas! You are not going to believe this… I drove all the way from Brighton and forgot my harness!”

 “That’s alright – here, you can borrow my old seat harness”

The shame! Well I got over it and realised that if I had to lower my boom to chest level and endure the feeling of wearing an oversized pair of big knickers then that was better than not getting out on the water at all! As it happened the wind picked up a treat and after totally readapting my stance I made the most of some really nice ramps that were lining up on the ebbing tide.

By the end of it all I was pretty knackered so we headed straight to a Cornish pub to re-fuel!

The next day the wind was pretty northerly so we went to sail at Mylor to practise some boat show slalom which basically entailed sailing over-powered as fast as possible and tight gybing around buoys. It was absolutely freezing though, only about 3 degrees Celsius so imagine my joy when I spotted a sailing club boasting “hot showers” nearby! I wasted no time in sneaking into the Ladies to get my kit off and get warm. However after a paltry 2 minutes I was interrupted by some matronly old dear yanking back the shower curtain and demanding to know what I was doing!! “Doh, having a shower!” Well, we left pretty soon after that.

The Trials

This was my first time on the pool as last year I was just spectating and learning to carve gybe so it is fair to say I was a bit nervous! However, having got a tea and chat session in with my mate Jem Hall, I was in possession of some pretty sound advice and was ready for it!

“Right, Luc, start ramp – bum out, weight forward, anticipate, focus and sail as fast as you can!”

On my first couple of practise runs I was fully stacked and looking positively kamikaze on my 5.3m Neil Pryde Zone. My third run culminated in me crashing out of the end of the pool entirely!

On the time trials I decided to risk the no-wind zone on the other side of the pool and downsized to a 4.7m Zone. I was absolutely stoked because on my last run I got the fastest ladies qualifier time of 28 seconds just ahead of Boardseeker Editor, Louise Emery! Now I thought, I just have to do it all over again at the Finals!

But when it mattered...

To put it briefly, it wasn't my day at the Indoor. My first timed run ended in catastrophe as I hurtled out of the side of the pool without managing to carve the board or put the breaks on. On my second run I didn't manage to control the rig at the gybe mark and it flipped over in the wrong direction making costly seconds as I sought to recover it. I did not get a fast enough time to make the play offs and that was that. All that effort, preparation and suddenly it was over.

However, all in all it was an enjoyable and unique experience and one I would recommend to others seeking to try something VERY different from 'outdoor' sailing!

Lucy is an Ultrasport team rider and is sponsored by: