The gods of sailing were definitely not on our side and what was meant to be a smooth two flights ride to the Island of Mallorca became somewhat a nightmare. The heavy snow that paralysed Ireland left our flight and crew out of position inducing a 4 hours delay after our 4am start. When we eventually took off Dublin, our connecting flight in Barcelona was pretty much taking off as well... We arrived in Barcelona, changed terminal and Ana started to work some magics to place the 20 members team onto an other flight. We unfortunately had to split into two planes, one leaving at 17.00 and another one half an hour later. we though that was the end of our trouble and started to look forward to a nice night sleep... Humm! Mariane left with Ronan, Peter and Adam whilst the rest settled for a short wait to their flight when the news broke; the air controllers went home and Palma airport was closed... The Spannish played with time not cancelling our flight hoping for an improbable resolution of the strike. We looked at our options rapidely but found ourselves hostage of the situation as our luggages were aboard the plane... Spannish loved queiing and argueing which meant it was pretty impossible to try to get our questions through at the Spannair desk when Tim and I got the idea of the century in bypassing Spannair and get in touch with the company taking care of luggages... Time was tight as our new target was the ferry leaving barcelona port at 23.00. We eventually collected all our bags back, ran into the taxi lane, loaded bags on sails in taxis, raced to the port to take our spot into the massive queue that had formed in the ferry terminal... When Ana and Tim eventually started to talk to the ticket desk we though we were finally sorted... but no, the ferry was fully booked ( just in front of us...haaaaaaaa). A spanish sailor spotted us and kindly directed us to another ferry terminal we did not know about. He sussed out for us if we would have a chance of getting on as the time had been running and there was a big queue as well! 160 tickets left! And the kids got counting how many people were queuing. 100-ish! Yesssssssssss! and the ferry company assured us they would sell all tickets before leaving. so we queued again, got our tickets and eventually boarded the ferry. A very helpful stewart opened two rooms and some of the kids managed to sleep on mattresses... It was a short night but we eventually arrived in Palma in the morning. Tim and I walked to the hotel with the tubes (sails) whilst Ana took the sailors in taxis... That breakfast was so nice....

That ordeal probably affected us more than we think as our day training did not show a lot of promises. the sailors were not sailing well and slow to react to instructions, but at least we got going and the day allowed the team to shift focus towards sailing again.

The event forecast was good with good breeze on the first day steadiy dropping on day two and three. We were hoping for a good event. Out of the 420 entry list, "only" 359 made it to Palma (IRL, FRA, POL, GER, POR, ESP, DEN, SWE, NOR, THA, SUI, FIN). The sailors started very slow on day one and two with costly mistakes, a couple of BFDs squeezing a couple of decent results there and there : Sean W scored a solid 11th in race 1 ahead of Sophie (19th). Peter had a 16th on race 2. Conor and Jil looked consistent enough in mid twenties! nothing extraordinary but within some of the personal objectives. THey finally woke up in the final day. Race 4 had still one start to go (went dark on the previous day before they could race) and Richard (10th) and Adam (15th) showed the way before the day could really start with race 5 and 6. Harry (13th and 9th), Sean D (2nd and 22nd), Peter (5th and 15th) and Sophie (10th and 12th) made a few mistakes there and there but finally delivered to their ability. Cliodhna sailed well with two top 25 unfortunately her lack of experience on the start line costed her two extra BFDs. Daire who never really managed to enter his event sailed better but fell BFD as well on his best finish (12th). Bill ( from Team X) sailed a solid day with two 25th and Daniel ( Team X as well, hidding under the sail number DEN8) scored a solid 15th as his best race. Ireland was definitely showing a bit of pride to end the event on a good note to the satisfaction of the coaches.

Overall, our best finisher was Sophie Browne (RCYC) in 51st ahead of Peter McCann (RCYC), 67th and Sean Donnelly (NYC, 73rd) who had a stormy finish after his two initial shockers. Jil Mc Ginley (RCYC) was consistent enough to stay in the top 100 (92nd). Full results on the trofeo ciutat de Palma. Dont forget to spot Daniel Raymond Hidding under the sail number DEN8. haha! With 11 top half, of which 8 collected a junior card to keep the optimist program alive, out of 19 entries, the Irish surely did not perform as well as hoped for, but lessons were learnt and after a good month break, will return to training with hunger.

The program 2010-2011 is now full swing after a serious opening in Schull... In the breeze, a lot of breeze! the 16 sailors gathered over the Halloween break for a 4 days clinic and were welcomed by big winds. Both coaches ( Ross Killian and myself) were very keen to push the sailors outside their comfort zone. We indeed had a relatively light season in 2010 and most sailors were out of shape or rusty. But the squad took the challenge and generally worked hard, hiking, trying, capsizing, bailing and going again at it... 17 hours were spent afloat for an average day over 4 hours! not bad for 4 days in winter-ish conditions. The main topics were directed towards technical aspect of sailing in the breeze, especially trying to develop the "laser style" downwind skills.

I also take the chance to thank our team assistants Marianne, Lorna and Dilly who made the residencial approach a reality boosting the learning of the sailors and developping a team dynamic.