No rest for the wicked
The winter is the time I do most of my coaching, as this is the period when there is the least racing in the Northern hemisphere… so this is the best time to work on improving your technique!
Although I am always looking for sponsorship (I may well have an announcement to make in 2009) I feel it is important to have guaranteed funds to sail (otherwise you have to stop sailing as soon as the sponsorship or other funding stops).
I have also found coaching a great way to improve my own sailing as it means I get to observe races from an external point of view, seeing what works for the top sailors as well as improving my analytical and communication skills.
In fact this time of year I have very much a 9-5 Monday to Friday job, although it is usually less than 9-5 because of the available daylight! I am, for example, going to get some photos taken for Yachts and Yachting next week, and I need to remember I do not have much time as it will probably be dark by 3:30!
I will do a couple of weekends work, but in 2009, my aim is really to minimise this to allow myself to have time with friends and family. In fact at the time of writing I haven’t sailed since the Inlands, having just been concentrating on my fitness.
My latest job was in Dubai. I flew out (really early) Monday morning, arriving around midnight their time. It did not really help that I had an extremely late night Saturday having been out celebrating Paul Goodison’s birthday in Weymouth, but it was self induced tiredness so I don’t expect any sympathy.
I was somewhat nervous about getting picked up from the airport as I could not turn my phone on (I tried to turn it on with a pen, managing to break both the phone and the pen, meaning I could not shake anyone’s hand as I was covered in ink… first impressions and all that!) 
There was no rest for the wicked (me) and it was straight to work Tuesday morning, Running just a four day camp, timing was pretty tight, and despite the light winds we managed to get some good boat handling and boat speed sessions done although the racing at the end of the week was not in the best of conditions. I must make a special mention of Craig, Petra, Marcel, Denise and Jess who looked after me extremely well, although I may well have put on a couple of pounds.
I got a plane around midnight on the Friday to fly back to the UK where I arrived at 6:30 ready to coach at Datchet at the weekend. I have actually run Laser Southern regional training at Datchet for the last three years and although I am keen to keep my weekends free it is somewhat of a tradition… and I like tradition.
Speaking of tradition, on the Saturday night I went to the Weir Wood Sailing Club Christmas dinner. This was great fun although I did have to try quite hard not to fall asleep in my soup!
Funnily enough when I finally managed to check my voice messages on Monday I had a call from ISAF asking me if I wanted to go out to Bahrain for the week… I decided I was glad I missed the call!
I think I now deserve a quiet week getting ready for Christmas and although it was nice to have a week off Pilates, Physiotherapy, Acupuncture and not least my daily hour on the mobiliser, it is time to get back to normality even if it does seem to be a bit cold in the UK.
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