The fifth leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series kicks off in the Netherlands, on Tuesday (24 May) with Skandia Team GBR sending a skeleton squad to the Delta Lloyd Regatta.  Just seven Skandia Team GBR boats across four classes have made the trip to Medemblik, with the majority choosing to focus their attention on the 2012 waters of Weymouth and Portland ahead of the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta, which begins on 6 June.

 

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson and their training partners John Gimson and Stephen Milne will feature in the Star event, with the Olympic and World Champions Percy and Simpson looking for another strong showing in the men’s keelboat event to follow up their win at the Palma World Cup regatta last month.

 

World Champion Ed Wright is the sole Skandia Team GBR representative in the Finn class, while Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes are looking for a confidence-boosting performance in the 49er class at the Dutch event following some disappointing results at the previous two European World Cup events in Palma (ESP) and Hyeres (FRA) in April.

 

“We decided to do the Holland Regatta to give us a good chance to get some proper racing in, hopefully with kit now that we think is pretty quick and we’re looking for a little bit of a confidence booster after two disappointing results at the last two World Cup events,” the 32-year-old Morrison explained.

 

“To hope to jump from where we’ve been coming to a medal is probably a big hope, but it’s a really good stepping stone on the way.  At recent events we’ve been tending to have to spend a lot of our head space when we’re racing on keeping the boat going fast and not on actually racing.  If we can just go and do a regatta where all we have to think about is racing and the boat is looking after itself and going quite quickly then that’s going to really sharpen us up and Holland will hopefully take the role that Palma and Hyeres were supposed to have taken in our programme.  

 

Morrison continued: “We’ve always done well in Holland, we like sailing in Holland and we feel the conditions are not massively dissimilar from Weymouth.  It’s a proper regatta – there’s a difference between training racing and a real regatta and we haven’t had the event results we’d have like to have had at this stage.  We’ve not done as well as we can or we should have done.  We’ve got to look to step up a level and Holland is hopefully that chance.

 

The Exmouth duo will be joined in the 49er fleet by fellow Skandia Team GBR crew Dave Evans and Ed Powys, while Megan Pascoe and Helena Lucas will look to revisit the podium in the 2.4mR Paralympic class, with both having secured medals at the last World Cup event in Hyeres where Pascoe won silver and Lucas bronze.

 

The Delta Lloyd Regatta runs from Tuesday 24 May until Sunday 29 May.