Luke Elliott

 

Another solid day of training today. An hour on the bike with Mitch doing the Mosman Alps before a tough three hour sail in a tricky 5-8 knots of breeze. It’s been a great first week back into training here in Sydney. Warm weather and light winds made for a really productive week and even though I was getting pretty frustrated with myself a lot of the time I think I managed to get the most out of our training.

Today also happens to be Friday which means it’s Ben-Brie Friday here in Sydney. Since the last round of training we did here every Friday at the end of a hard week we would all go to our favorite spot in Manly, Ben-Brie Burgers, and have our selves a treat.

 

I think I’ll have an easy day tomorrow as the old training log is telling me I’ve only had one rest day this month and that was when I was flying here. Next week should be just as good so stay tuned 😀

Last weekend was my last time sailing in WA for a while and I finished it off by competing in the Royal Perth Yacht Club Mini Series, a small two day event that attracts a large number of dinghy’s including most of WA’s best laser sailors. We had a particularly hot weekend which meant the wind stayed mostly light and pretty random. On the first day I struggled to keep consistent in the unpredictable airs which resulted in a 1st and two 2nd places behind Mark Spearmen. I managed to lift my game on day two and sailed a much better day with three 1st places and a 2nd to clinch the regatta by a point. Big thanks to Spero for keeping it tight and the race committee for making it a great event.

That night and the next day was hectic as I finalized my packing before getting to bed at 10 pm only to wake with my alarm ringing at 3 am to get the taxi to the airport to be on the plane to Sydney by 5.30 am, phew! I made it all ok and settled back into the team house we have here in Mosman and met up with team mates Mitch and Wearny.

Now just two days later I’ve already completed two on water sessions, a gym session, a morning cycle and a quick swim session. It’s been pretty busy but the routine is set now so everything’s going well. Sorry I don’t have any photos from the Mini Series but here’s one from the deck at Middle Harbor Yacht Club today.

Stay posted 🙂

So the story goes, last year I was competing on Lake Garda in Italy and one of my team mates had some windsurfing equipment and decided to take me and a couple of friends out just for some fun. He was quite good at it but compared to us he looked like a rock star. I could barley stand on the board let alone get the sail up. Despite not even being able to move I had a great time and did a few more sessions with hired gear before I left Lake Garda. I was still pretty bad at it and I made the resolution that the next time I was in Garda I would be a much better windsurfer.

When I returned to Perth after the worlds in September I made the investment to buy some kit and start getting out there. Now only a couple of months later I go out as much as I can. I’m so addicted to it. Being a Laser sailor we aren’t really known as the speed demons of the yachting world and for good reason. On a really windy day at max speed I can sail my Laser about 18 knots (33 km/h). On my windsurfer on a moderate day I can easily reach speeds over 30 knots (55 km/h). Sadly today will have to be my last session before my eventual return to Lake Garda as I don’t have any equipment in Sydney and just cant lug all this stuff around the world with me. No big deal though it was still an awesome session and I did some of my best carve gybes yet. I’m really looking forward to my return to Italy so I can for fill my goal.

Talk soon yeeew 🙂

With my return to Sydney only a few days away I had to say good bye to my trainers as WAIS for a while. It will be some time before I get to see them again but as always I’ll make sure I stay in touch in other ways. Big thanks to Greg Morgan, Sam Halley, Martin Binnie, Adrian Schonfeld, Simone Fountain, Emily Eaton and Anne Wynne for all their help and support.

So as I’m sure a lot of you already know the World Cup events in Europe are closed entry this year, meaning only 40 boats will get to compete. 30 of the places will be chosen from the world rankings as of the 2nd of February with the other 10 being selected at the Princess Sofia Regatta in Spain later this year. So that being said I’m stoked to say I am currently world number 27 and have gained automatic entry into the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Hyeres, France. This is a huge relief because it means I don’t have to go to Spain and fight for a place and can simply focus on doing the regatta as planed.

The other piece of news is my progress. After the summer I had a lot of things to fix and one of the major ones was getting stronger in the boat. After a hard month in the gym I had a strength test today that showed some really good improvements. For three reps I bench pulled 90kg, a PB and 12.5kg heavier than last testing 2 months ago. I benched 75kg, equal PB and 10kg more than last time and got 16 chin ups as I always do. Just cant seem to get any more. Hopefully I can keep that progression going while staying lean like I have 😉

More updates to come yeeww!!

 

Sailing in the Australian Summer

Since the ISAF Sailing World Championships in September much has happened. My contract with the Australian Sailing Squad was renewed and because of this I had to relocate to Sydney for some time. My time spent in the team house was awesome and I was effectively living my dream, sailing full time and getting better every day. Then, about two weeks from the start of the first event of the summer, Arthur gave me a call to tell me he would be training the current world champion, Dutchman Nicholas Heiner, in Perth and invited me to join in. I couldn’t say no to that offer and jumped on a plane to spend a week in Perths warm sun and windy weather. The training was great and I felt well prepared to have a competitive summer.

Sail Sydney: The shortest of the three events, Sail Sydney is only run over three days but is packed full with 3 races a day. We had a great mix of sailors competing with a lot of international competitors joining in. The weather was great and we only lost one race out of the 9 race program. I had my opportunities to take out the event but I just couldn’t keep my scores consistent enough when I needed to. I placed 2^nd overall, a result I wasn’t fully satisfied with but gave me confidence leading into Melbourne.

Sail Melbourne: This is the biggest sailing event that Australia hosts each year and means a lot to the athletes as this is worth maximum points going towards your world ranking. I was really lucky in where I got to stay as well, doing a house share overlooking the water with some very nice people. It’s not every day I get to stay in such an amazing place so I felt pretty good. Unfortunately my day one really didn’t go to plan with two big scores placing me back in 18^th in the 40 strong fleet. I had to dig deep after that and chipped away, somehow finding myself in 6^th place after the third day of racing. Having big scores on the card is always going play catch up with you though and I was lucky to finish in 10^th place meaning I would get to race in my second ever medal race. I could still place 7^th if things went my way in the double points race and after a great pin end start I thought it was going to happen. However it wasn’t to be and I had to settle finishing  10^th overall.

Australian Laser Nationals:  After the Christmas break it was time to compete in the final event of the summer and it turned out to be a perfect week. Sunny, windy and great waves, Mandurah really turned it on for those brave enough to get out there. The event was a bit of a learning curve for me as I lacked my normal speed in the breeze at the start of the week and I had to try and solve the puzzle of why that was. As the week went on I did steadily improve and it was great to play around at the front of the fleet for a while, even if I couldn’t keep Tom or Matt away. I had to settle for 4^th at the end of the week by the narrowest of margins to Ryan but in all it was a really fun week.

After the craziness of coaching the Opti nationals things have settled down and I’m back into routine training hard and working on the weaknesses that the summer events highlighted. Soon I’ll be back in Sydney preparing for a very long European season so I’m making the most of the warm sun while I have it. I would like to say thanks to my coaches Arthur Brett, Belinda Stowell and Michael Blackburn for getting me through another tough Australian summer of racing and I would like to say a massive thankyou to Fremantle Sailing Club, Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, WAIS and Australian Sailing for their ongoing support of me and the sport of sailing in general.

See you on the water,

Luke Elliott – aka Swifto

 

So it’s time to get back into this blog. Basically Europe was one massive learning experience and I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve gained from the first half of the year going on into the second. Once I got back from Europe I finally got to go home. It had been 9 months since I had last been to my home town of Esperance and even though my visit was only a week long it was the most relaxed I had been in a while. I even got a surf in.

The trip home was followed by a plane to Sydney for a week long training camp with the rest of the Australian Team. The week was super productive and it was awesome to get back in the boat after the break and catch up with my friends. Shout out to Ash Brunning for letting me crash at his house for the week.

 

When I got back to Perth I got straight into a good training block. It was great to get some solid routines going and almost find some normality and stability in my day. All too soon it was broken up though as another adventure was on the horizon. I had been announced as the Australian 4.7 Worlds Team coach and would be flying to Karatsu, Japan for the job.

Now that I’m in Japan I can honestly say it is the most unusual country I have ever been to out of all my travels. My host can’t speak a word of english but is super friendly and serves the most amazing japanese style breakfasts. Everyone is really polite and the architecture is unique to anything I have ever seen. The training with the team has been really productive and the only setback has been the typhoon that is currently battering the coast. Hopefully we can start on schedule tomorrow as planned.

I’ll keep you posted with my movements a bit more as I return to Europe all too soon.

Cheers,

Swifto

Yeah so not really sure what happened for a few months there but this blog sort of broke. Anyway it’s back up now so all good. Basically I’ve been in Italy for a while training on Lake Garda then went to Croatia for a couple of weeks to compete in the European Championships. I’ll post a proper report soon but for now I’ll leave you with this teaser.