ISAF Sailing World Cup - Belcher and Page prepare for Sail Melbourne

by Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page on 6 Nov 2011 ISAF Sailing World Cup - Australians Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page provide an update on their preparations for Sail Melbourne:

It's been a little while since our last update. After a long and successful European season, we really enjoyed having a month completely away from Olympic Sailing. It's funny how different life is while campaigning, especially as we built up towards London 2012. The time off gave us the opportunity to return to our 'normal' lives, get organised and catch up with friends sharing our experiences. Just as we were settling in to our homes, however, it was time to get back on the campaign trail.

We have just finished an intensive four week Sydney training camp and are now in Melbourne preparing for the first ISAF Sailing World Cup, Sail Melbourne. There will only be a relatively small fleet - albeit high quality - this year, as many of our competitors chose to miss this event and go straight to Perth to gain more experience at the Worlds venue. However, for us Sail Melbourne is an event we would not miss. Aside from the diverse interesting conditions, the regatta is a crucial part of our preparation for Perth. Given that we had very little to almost no racing since the Pre-Olympic regatta in Weymouth, Malcolm and I have opted to race here to hone our skills and get back into racing mode before heading across the Nullarbor to the Australian Nationals and World Championships in Fremantle, Perth.

On the non-sailing front, we have launched our new site thanks to Revium, a web based company in Melbourne. We have simplified the way we update our fans and family and hope this makes it easier to follow our progress and keep you up to date. Be sure to check it out and keep checking in regularly for all the latest updates as we race around the world towards the games.

Cheers,
Mat and Malcolm

Mat and Malcolm Blog