Finian @ Garda Lake

Leaving France was not easy as we had such a good testing session in Leucate sailing every day on different equipment since we arrived. I was sad to leave an area that has always had a special place in my heart having won several speed events there in the past, but it was time to have a location change.

Before we left we did manage to get a session on the 9.4's and big boards which was a real change from the 5.5/6.1 and 45-knots of wind! The big equipment is so different to sail with much more emphasis on trim off the fin and feathering the board with the hands and feet.

Onto the 1000 km drive to Lake Garda stopping at 3am and starting again at 8am buzzing with the thought of sailing on my 129 and 9.4 at my 'local middle EU spot' considering that I spend several weeks a year at Garda during the season doing final preps for the light-medium wind settings. Yesterday we arrived to strong winds for Garda (South @ 18-25), but by the time we rigged the wind was down to 10-17 so out on the 8.5 and big boards we went. Brrrr, the water felt like an icy stream on the feet, this was a shock, but as always the human body gets acclimated and the testing continued.

Today was a perfectly sunny painting straight from an artist's dream. All of the pics posted in this news are from this wonderful spring time Alpine dreamland today. Life couldn't be better especially after having my family joining me here last night. Best case scenario!

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Thanks for tuning into our training trip news items.

Good sailing,

Finian

Photo courtesy avantisails.com