Lorient is an excellent place to go with a Mini, with the Grande Large training centre offering skippers not only a place to sail, but to store kit, debrief and access all the necessary kit to keep the boats in working order. Currently there are 11 skippers from outside France training there, including Nikki with 438.
The main coach for the Mini sailors is Tanguy Le Glatin, whom both Becky and Pip, who were the Mini sailors with the Academy over the past two years, learnt a lot from. The training is run in small groups, with a 'if your not ready, your not coming' attitude. A typical session would start at 8am getting the boats ready, followed by sailing all day- with a focus on speed testing, practice starts, sail changes...the list goes on. Usually an hour 1/2 briefing would round the day off, in French of course. Sailors learn more there in 5 days than they would otherwise do in 6 months or more training alone.Getting the boat to France required a lot of work, with the hull needing some gel coat repairs, fresh antifoul and blue paint put on. 438 is now looking stunning, and will soon be matching in performance once TEEM (a marine electronics company) have fitted out the new autopilot and instruments. Heading off with a lot of plastic boxes, the boat is ready with a lot of supplies, tools and repair kits.
We were lucky to have access to a shed at Venture Quays, which is usually set aside for working on the Extreme Sailing Series hulls. With thick snow covering the Island, Nikki and I were glad to get the boat undercover, particularly with access to a heater! It was here that the new bow numbers were applied, the mast, keel and rudders wrapped in bubble wrap and cling film, and any other little jobs completed. During the week we had to get the mast from West to East Cowes via chain ferry; it was quite amusing trying to get down the high street and round the bends.One of the biggest jobs on the list ended up being getting the wheels on the trailer off, so that we could find out the code for the bearings and buy a replacement. This turned out to be extremely difficult to do, as the bolts had been tightened to such a high torque we couldn't get them off by hand. Phil, coach and Sailing Project manager, had to help, and even he was struggling!
The Mini has now been gone for a few days, and it has been quite sad having packed up yet another boat to go to France, without me! My recent stint of 16 hour working days over, I'm still here in the office, working on the Academy's database and shuffling piles of paper. I cannot wait to get out to France and see what proper, solo offshore training is all about- as you can imagine, it is quite frustrating reading all the blogs from the other sailors and hearing about how quickly they are progressing.
Perhaps a bit of 'mind sailing' will help...
Lizzy
