Karpathos may be a small island, but when it comes down to the wind stats it puts out high expectations. We’ve been here a week and there hasn’t been a day where we couldn’t sail, but so far we haven’t seen the supper strong wind that have lured so many to the island. As the green flag of competition was raised, the wind dipped below the racing minimum.

It’s been good to have a few days practice, but the best thing was having Zara Davis on hand to get my ankle back on track. The six weeks I’ve been having treatment at home have done little to improve things, but just a few days with Zara and everything has changed.

The last visit to the hospital at home they booked MRI scan for the day we get back, but after Zara’s treatment I’m don’t think it’s needed. Zara was at the last two Olympic games just to ensure to help keep our runners on the track. There’s no question of her ability, but I’ve got some sympathy with those Olympians that needed her help, the accelerated healing comes with some painful treatment.

Karpathos doesn’t have the room for a full 500m course so this week we’ll only be racing across 250m. The fleet is normally seeded into two groups, but with the shorter course we need to add a bronze fleet alongside silver and gold. At the end of each round, five sailors go up to the next group, while five go down.

The Bronze opened the racing but with the wind falling well below the minimum the round was soon abandoned and re-run the following day. We wind tends to drop around mid day, and with a poor looking for cast it was the silver fleet that were pushed into counting a questionable round as the wind struggled to give any consistency.

The gold fleet scored the best wind, while at its minimum for competition, it was solid as it gets here and makes for fair competition. This has to be the strongest line-up I’ve seen in years, and it was hard to call who would go down. The results were changing minute by minute, and up until his last two runs, it looked like Bjorn was heading down to the silver fleet.

I’d finished the day in 9th, these not being my conditions I was happy to walk away with it, but come Sunday morning the video recount had dropped my to 12th. Its funny how quickly your perspective on a result can change, the next round for the gold fleet didn’t go my way and I dropped down to 18th and headed south to join the silver fleet. All of a sudden that 12th didn’t look so bad.

You’d think sailing with the top boys would pile on the pressure, but once in the silver fleet you really start to feel the urgency to do well. As rounded the course a few times, each with a top five placing ready to take me back up, but seeing 6th place on the scoreboard was probably the wake up call I needed.

Through out each round I was flying up wind and seemed to pass everyone with ease, but struggling down wind, I was even getting lifted in the gusts, which for me isn’t normal. I started to think loosing all the weight wasn’t such a good thing, but then it shouldn’t affect me in minimal conditions.
I suddenly realised I’d changed my stance to protect my ankle over the last weeks, but after the Zara affect, why was I still in that mode. There seems to be no definitive stance for going fast, Finian Maynard leans the furthers back, while I’m the one leaning the furthest forward just a we degrees further than Bjorn.

I’d been leaning backwards away from the power, which is completely the opposite to my normal stance. Sailing back up wind I had a serious word with myself, get it sorted. The next run down I got the gust, didn’t get lifted and popped in a run that would have left me nicely in the gold fleet had I done it earlier. The next runs continued to be the same, the it may have given me a first in the silver fleet, which is equivalent to a 21st in the gold.

Obviously I wasn’t happy to watch the next gold fleet sail out with out me, but I took the opportunity to catch my fellow competitors through the cameras lens. Tomorrow is another day, I hope for more wind and better results.