It was a privilege to be sailing in Noumea, New Caledonia and representing Australia in the Under 12 Optimist Development Squad.

My coach was Alison Dale, and other sailors in the squad from Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria are now my friends.

We competed against other sailors from New Caledonia, New Zealand and Fiji in the New Caledonia Optimist Championships at the Socie’te’ des Re’gates Cale’doniennes (SRC) club.

We had 3 days of training with sailing conditions around 20-22 knots. 

The first day of racing was around 0-2 knots wind.  We did not get one race in that day, and instead did a bit of more training on tacking and went for a swim. The next day it was 2-4 knots and OK for getting in 6 races in.  In the first race I got a 4th. On the third day of racing we got up to 5-8 knots and had five races.  I had 4 mid fleet positioning and on the last race of the day I had my second best placing with 4th again. I was really happy. On the last day of racing I did not have the best day and only came top 18 and the wind was 12 knots.

Reported by Adam Hindmarsh AUS503