After a bit of time off post-worlds I got myself back into Weymouth and got back on the bike again. On reflection, I spent a large part of this year at a lighter weight than I believe optimum for the boat, so naturally strength and fitness quickly turned into the priority from September onwards. The entire Weymo squad consisting of Micky, Elliot, JPC and myself all got ourselves mountain bikes (well actually I bought another one from ebay for £345 after my previous MTB was stolen at the Worlds - see previous blog post 😢😡) and started putting in some serious hours along various routes around the Jurassic coastline.

Mountain biking is a fun deviation from our traditionally road bike orientated program. With some brilliant routes around Weymouth & Portland it seemed like a great way to get out and put some hours in without things becoming a bit too mundane. Micky did, however, find out the hard way that even mountain bikes don’t work on Chesil Beach…

In between my training I spent a day at the Southampton Boat Show, doing a talk about professional sailing on the Foredeck Stage. It was a great day out, as always, especially going with friends.

Next up was my first Moth Nationals. I travelled down to Plymouth after only a few days in the boat and managed to smash out a 6th place finish overall. Great day and great racing.

Followed by more mountain biking back home…

Next up was the Endeavour Trophy in Essex. This champions of Champions regatta is where every national champion competes in one design boats against each other. After winning the WASZP nationals in June I had earnt my ticket to the prestigious event, however needed to find a crew and a boat. Up stepped in Larissa Connabeer, a 200 sailor who also had a pristine boat. Ideal.

We were a touch underweight for the windier races but managed to find our grove towards the end of the day and were up there fighting at the front.

.... And we ended up finishing 5th overall! Not bad for less than an hour in a 200 since the last Endeavour I did in 2019.

Flying out straight from the Endeavour I headed out to Cadiz, Spain, to help out with the WASZP program at the SailGP event.

It was a pretty cool week seeing the boats up close and even meeting F1 driver Seb Vettel.

After a busy week in Cadiz, I was looking forward to getting back to Weymouth and settling into a big block back in the boat, mixed in with a few qualifiers.

The first Autumn qualifier was in Paignton and after some light and funky conditions I finished up 2nd to Micky. Full results here: https://www.sailwave.com/results/ukla/Qualifiers/2023_Q4_Paignton.htm

The last autumn qualifier was at WPNSA and I had a proper battle with Micky all weekend. These fantastic photos were taken by Optical Marine (https://www.opticalmarine.com/).
Full results here: https://www.sailwave.com/results/ukla/qualifiers/231021_WPNSA_Q6_ILCA_7.htm

Cheers Ovington for the rocket boat and Optical Marine for the photos.

The big news regarding Olympic selection happened at the start of October, where teammate Micky Beckett officially got selected for the Paris 2024 Olympics next year. He has been sailing phenomenally for the past two years and rightfully so is a clear favourite to medal. Obviously, I would have loved to have been selected myself, but the sheer consistency Micky has shown has meant he is the best bet at hopefully bringing back a medal for GB next year.

My job now switches into a training partner role, helping and challenging Micky daily to ideally make winning a medal inevitable. Hopefully, I can learn from him and progress my sailing forwards at the same time, just like what he did with Elliot Hanson in the previous Tokyo Olympics cycle.

You can follow Micky and his build up to the Olympics in August next year on his page here: instagram.com/mickybeckett/

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Back to my sailing. I jumped back in the WASZP, for the first time since the nationals in June, for the End of Season Championships at Rutland. It was a light and shifty affair with plenty going on, even without the added complication of fancy dress we were all wearing on the Saturday of racing. Can you tell it was Halloween?

With some very close competition from Ross Banham and Hattie Rogers I managed to win the event and seal off a great WASZP year. Hopefully I’ll be at the WASZP worlds next year…

Back to work in the ILCA and another Weymouth - Swanage downwinder complete.

Followed by some more MTB around Portland…

Early December and Vilamoura (Portugal) calls. Just last week we completed one very productive training camp, albeit in slightly lighter winds than what might be ideal for our World Championships – which are in Adelaide, Australia, just over a month away.

In other news I have also listed my carbon aerovanes for sale on the INGEN Sailing website. Check them out here if you’d like to buy one: INGEN Sailing Carbon Aerovane

What next? I’m lucky to be spending Christmas at home before flying out to Adelaide, Australia, for New Years. The plan is to spend a month there racing and training and preparing for my biggest event of 2024, the ILCA 7 World Championships at the end of January. Looking forward to it already.

Cheers for all the support!

Sam