In August 2009 Ciaran Jordan attended the UK Optimists Nationals as part of the Irish U-12 Squad. This is his report...
The UK Nationals '09 was an entirely different experience for me in comparison to an average Irish oppy event. For a start, every day stared with the coaches briefing, which was to inform you of tide, wind and anything else that might matter. I had never had an official coach at an event before so this was unusual for me.
After the brief we had to return to our boats and get ready for the launch. This involved final clothing checks (including pulling on my Irish U-12 lifejacket of which I'm very proud), adjusting sail and rig settings, and shuffling my boat into the best position to be as close to the start of the launch as possible. If the launch was called there would be a mad rush for the slipway through all the adults that were standing there trying to slow everyone down. Notice I say "if" - one day we didn't launch at all because there was absolutely no wind. Eventually after a four hour wait in the sweltering heat the Race Officer decided to abandon racing for the day. The limp flag went up, flickered and then started to fly in a lovely breeze that just filled in.
One of the advantages of being an international sailor was that we got our own boat park and there was a separate queue from our park and the British park so even if you were the last overseas person to launch you would only be about halfway back out of the 250 main fleet boats, giving you plenty of time to get to the start.
When we got out we had to keep warm. Anybody who has ever sailed on a cold day will know that if you get cold you stay cold and you won't be able to get warm again so we had to play little "games" to keep ourselves warm. One thing we did was to get all the Irish people to go round and round and round and round and round and round and round this tiny little RIB that was only about a meter long. This was easier said than done as there were 25 of us all going round and round and round and round and round and round and round that tiny little RIB that was only about a meter long. Me and my friend Robert Dickson played another game that was like catch or cat and mouse where we had to chase each other round and touch the others' boat to make them be "on".
Then we got to the racing. One incident that sticks out in my mind was finishing fifth in one race (my best result) and being measured. On-the-water measuring consisted of the official measurer checking that your sail ties weren't too far away from the mast, that your praddle was tied in, buoyancy bags inflated etc, etc, etc... They also checked to see if your bailers were attached. On this occasion the wind was quite strong and so I had to "bail and sail". As I was bailing somehow the bungee that attached my bailers to my boat had come untied. I didn't have time to tie them back on before I was measured so I had to think quickly. I stuck my foot on to the end of the cord and hoped for the best. Luckily they pulled the port bailer rather than the starboard one and when the bungee stayed attached they thought all was ok. Otherwise...
At the end of it all I finished 6th in the silver fleet. I had been listed as 4th but some people had incorrect race scores and were given redress so I slipped out of the prizes. After prize giving that evening ourselves (meaning my family) and some other Irish people went to Nardinis' ice cream parlor, the best ice-cream shop in Europe. We all agreed it was one of the best events we had ever been to.
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