I sail for my school, training twice a week, and have represented the second team in national competitions. No two days on the water are the same, so much of it comes down to adapting quickly and communicating well. I’ve also learnt that how well we work together matters more to our performance than anything we could do on our own.
Because fleet events run over several days, every result carries forward. The RS Feva Nationals were four of those days, in conditions and against a standard well beyond what I was ready for at the time. I had to learn to let a bad race go and start the next one properly. Staying steady over that many races took as much mental strength as physical, and it is where I built most of my resilience — in sailing and outside it.
In team racing, I learned how much depends on communication, and on helping each other out. We got better at talking on the water, at covering for a boat that was struggling, and at staying with a race that had started badly. Our results improved as a byproduct. Alongside this I started training with a strength coach, mainly to hold form through longer race days.
I captained the team at the southern regional and the national finals. What I felt the team needed most was steadiness across long days of racing. I focused on keeping morale up when it dropped, on being honest with each other about what had gone wrong, and on making sure everyone went back out for the next race ready to sail it well.