Team Jolly take out the NZ 470 National Title

by Jo Aleh on 22 Feb 2012
NZL Sailing Team members, Jo Aleh and Olivia (Polly) Powrie update on their campaign heading towards the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth, England:

Hi Everyone

Just a little summer update on what we have been up to recently!

The 2012 NZ 470 Nationals was held this weekend in Tauranga, and after a truly terrible first day (not results wise, but torrential rain, no wind and freezing temperatures) the last two days of the regatta were held on two perfect summer days (a rather rare occurrence this summer...)

With no racing on day 1 due to the weather, we crammed in five races on day 2, in a building sea breeze. We had a rather up and down day, with rather shifty conditions, and the tide messing with our heads, we came away with a 3,4,1,4. Which was not ideal, but it was enough to put us in second place overall behind locals Luke Stevenson and Sam Bullock.

Day two brought a south westerly wind, that was even shiftier than day 2, and with three races to go to decide the title, we came out swinging and won the first race by a comfortable margin. Races three and four of the day were very close, with a strong tide running, and something different happening with the wind every leg, the fleet never got a chance to spread out, and we had some great close racing.

Luckily for us, we came out on the right side of everything, and won the last two races as well, to take out the National title by quite a margin, from Luke and Sam in second, Aussies, Elise and Belinda in third, and our normal rivals Paul and Jason who came in fourth. This is the first time a women's team has won the overall title, and as there is an overall trophy and a women's trophy, we took all the silverware home! Poor boys... better luck next time...

Now we have four more weeks of training here in NZ, including some cross training fun in the new girls skiff the FX from Mackay Boats (us having a go in the photo!), before we head off to wintery Spain, to Palma, to get ready for our first World Cup event of the season, the Princess Sofia regatta, which starts on the first of April.

From there we will head to France to compete in the French Spring Cup, the only mixed event of the season, where hopefully we can keep up our boy beating form, and take down some of the international boys teams too!

Thank you for all the support, only five months to go now!!

Jo and Polly
Team Jolly
www.teamjollyracing.com

A special thank you to our coach, Nathan Handley, and our suporters and suppliers: Yachting New Zealand, High Performance Sport NZ, Harken, Donaghys, Kaenon Sunglasses, Lynn River and Mackay Boats.