It’s been a whole while

Jeeezzz, it’s crazy how fast this year is going (and how badly I’ve failed to keep my news page updated whilst being on the training and racing treadmill the last few months- will do better.)

It’s cool to have the opportunity to reflect on what so far has been a busy season, with heaps of highs and lows. Some highlights….

PRINCESS SOFIA 2025 - 1st Grand Slam

Bronze medal!!!

My first ever senior international medal was one I felt very proud of. I felt really focused the whole week and my eyes were always set on the top of the podium (a position I managed to sit at several times throughout the week). To have the chance to win the event in the medal race was an honour… which I managed to royally mess up. In the moment it’s really easy to lose perspective- we train to win and when we have that chance and make a mistake it hurts. Took me a hot 5 minutes to remind myself of how well I sailed throughout the whole week to come away with third. And ultimately it was a really important lesson that medal races don’t come around that often and getting the practice to do them was crucial.

Most special was how much our whole British team smashed it. To podium in so many on the classes set the tone for this Olympic cycle. We’re here to win.

HYERES 2025 - 2nd Gram Slam

6th place

A quick turnaround and we were into the second grand slam of the year. Our fleet were missing a few key players due to the events proximity to our World Championships in China, but given my learnings from Palma’s medal race I wanted the chance to get that right.

It ended up being a slightly different build up - I ended up in hospital getting stitches after a bow landed on my head off a practice start. What is it with me and head injuries?! Luckily I was cleared to compete, albeit with a swim cap on keep my stitches dry which doesn’t seem to have caught on as the next sailing fashion statement- weird??

In classic Hyeres fashion we ended up sailing in a lot of offshore conditions with the mistral on several days. The medal race ended up being champagne sailing in a 12-15knts southeasterly and the kind of sea state you could surf forever. A much better experience for me this time and I managed to move up a place from 7th to 6th overall. I felt happy and confident to roll into the big one - our World Championships in China.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, QINGDAO, CHINA

13th place

Where to start!! It’s a silly sport really sailing. Unfortunately we are completely dictated by something which we have zero control over, the wind. The irony of having glamour sailing conditions in our pre event training, only for the event itself to fail to deliver racing conditions for the first four days turned into ‘this is not very funny anymore’ pretty fast. It was a big mental test but after four groundhog days we finally had enough breeze to overcome the strong tide on day 5. I didn’t get out of the blocks how I wanted to and overnight sat in 30something or other with only one day to go. This would usually be the point that I mentally beat myself up, replaying every mistake on repeat in my head. However, I’d like to think I’ve learnt a few things over the past year of up and downs in this crazy sport. For this event, it wasn’t the result that I wanted but I was the most proud I’ve been of myself this year. I picked myself up, let things go and focused on what I could control rather than obsessing over what had already happened. I loved day 6 and how I sailed, with confidence.

KIEL WEEK 2025 - 3rd Grand Slam

13th place

Again some moments where sailing felt easy and you came ashore feeling like you were able to predict the future picking out the shifts you did, and then others where your head felt so scrambled that despite it being 20 knots the mental fatigue took the win.

The biggest lessons- being focused on the right things is a skill to be practiced, never bank a loss in Kiel- it’ll always come back and even if it doesn’t you’re still better off being patient on the losing side, the prospect of doing 4 races in 25 knots does terrify me.

EVERYTHING ELSE

And in between all of this has been so much hard work, training and epic planning that I can’t help but feel the best is yet to come and I am yet to realise the true impact of the effort we are putting in. I’m learning a lot from everything I do- be that on or off the water and working hard to capture the lessons so that next time I’m a tiny bit better. One of the biggest things is I’m loving is the pace we’re moving at.

I’ve also had the pleasure of delivering my Women in Sailing presentation to Parkstone Yacht Club and Interstate Creative Partners, a design agency in London.

UP NEXT

We’re going to LA!!! Oooohh I’m excited. Our first time out in the 2028 Olympic venue. We’ll have two weeks of training followed by the 4th grand slam of the year.

Then we’re rolling into the next big one- our European Championships in Marstand , Sweden. I’ve been told it’ll be my new favouring place to sail so will report back.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings

Daisy