Red Bull 49erFX Team- Jetlag, misfortunes, still smiling

by Molly Meech on 26 Mar 2014 Womens World Champion crew of Alex Maloney and Molly Meech report on their arrival at Palma, Spain, for the next round of the ISAF World Cup, due to start in a week:

What a week! After a quick goodbye at Auckland airport, we embarked on our first adventure of 2014.

After a full day of travelling, a luxurious stop off in Dubai Business class lounge (for an hour), and another seven-hour flight, we arrived in Barcelona. It was more than enough flying for the time being, and we were definitely looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

The days spent in Barcelona were a blur.

There was no shortage of enthusiasm when we picked up our new Peugeot Eurolease cars and un-packed the container to see our boat, Beau, which left New Zealand in January. Then came a few hiccups with tow-bar light installations, missing sails, and blonde-moments at the petrol pumps.

Despite all of this, we managed to navigate our way to the ferry and had a smooth crossing to Palma.

Getting set up on day one went relatively smoothly. We excitedly met our coach, Steve Erickson, for the first time that afternoon at the Palma airport. It was nice to meet him and to start building our team relationship for the upcoming regatta.

Hitting the water the following day was great. The sensation of being back in the boat after travelling is always nice, and rounded out a good first training session in Europe.

All good things come to an end, and events took a turn for the worse once we had de-rigged. When we reached our car, we found a broken front window and two of our bags missing – which contained most of our valuables and sailing gear. So we said goodbye to our new and favourite Red Bull beanies, and a three-week-old iPhone. It was good while it lasted.

A trip to the local Spanish police station later, and Alex and Steve successfully reported the incident - as well as started to work out how to progress from there. Alex spent the evening sitting in her skiff suit at the station, while navigating the language barrier with the police constable. She learnt some Spanish, and he quite enjoyed the free English lessons!

Lessons learned? DO NOT LEAVE VALUABLES IN THE CAR! Even if there are three security guards on patrol…

Despite our dramas, we have managed to get some good sessions in both on and off the water, and are now counting down the last seven days to the ISAF World Cup event. The boat park is packed, increasing our anticipation for racing - beginning on 31st of March.

There are record numbers for the regatta here in Palma this year, bringing most of the worlds top sailors together at the start of the European season. We are really looking forward to getting out there and seeing what we can accomplish.

Until next week!

Molly and Alex

For the first in this series: click here