Volvo

After a really good Miami regatta I flew straight to Buzios in Brazil where I’m now training for the next three weeks.

It’s hot, it’s windy, the surf’s great and it’s a great place to really get in some decent time on the water in perfect conditions.

About six months ago I started training with three of the other top 10 windsurfers in the World, Spain’s Ivan Pastor, Joao Rodrigues from Portugal and Brazil’s Ricardo Santos, who lives where we are at the moment.

I just felt last year that I wasn’t on the pace, was quite slow and that other people had moved it on while I hadn’t.

Nick Dempsey RSX Photo credit Skandia GBR Media

But training with these guys has been fantastic. We met up and trained together before the Perth International Regatta in November and again before Miami and I’ve felt I’ve moved forward pretty quickly. I felt the fastest I’ve ever been in Miami and once you know you’re fast, the confidence to sail freely, hold tight light lanes and not get given the run around comes flooding back.

Buzios is a really beautiful place. Since we’ve got here we’ve been surfing before breakfast then gone out and trained, come in for lunch, and gone back out and trained and then maybe surfed again later on. We live on a peninsula and train at one end of the bay where the water is flatter and surf at the other end where the waves are. It’s not a great place for cycling, which I normally do loads of for fitness, so surfing is a nice way of staying active and not sitting on your backside.

Although my coach Barrie (Edgington) arrives out here next week so there will probably be a bit less surfing then!

It was pretty tough having to see Sarah and Thomas off back to England after Miami. Because he is only 18 months old Thomas can be quite hard work sometimes, and as much as I love having him with us when we’re at training camps, when he isn’t around you can concentrate totally on training for a few weeks.

I didn’t enjoy sending Sarah home though knowing she’s got to train, look after Thomas and deal with all the arrangements to look after him on her own. I know it will be hard work for her and sometimes that can be difficult, but you’ve got to train and we both understand and appreciate the unusual situation we’re both in.
 

Nick

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