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Skippering iShares X40 Kiel

Wow what an event Kiel has been. It was fantastic to be performing to a crowd, fly by's were great fun and it was great to have the crowd cheering us on as we raced round the turning mark just off the beach.

For the ishares team its been a tough event, as in so many races we felt like we had started well and were good as we came towards the first mark. But for a few reasons we struggled to convert this into actual results.

We had some good training before the event against team Origin. We thought we could gain more out of the rig setup, so changed this and unfortunately it back fired. Once we reset the boat we were much faster and easier to accelerate out of boat handling situations.

Day 3 of the regatta, the Sunday was the best day for us, with some good solid race results to start with in the first few races. This set the standard for us and we fought tooth and nail, in the 16th and 17th races where we had some bad luck, to keep climbing the leaderboard.

This got us to the final 18th double point race and all to play for. We won the start at the starboard end of the line and extended on the fleet. Coming into mark one we were in the lead, with JPMorgan second. An issue with the spinnaker furler cost us the lead and by the bottom mark we were on the heels of JPMorgan, with another 2 laps to go. We waited patiently for another lap and then pounced as they had a really bad leeward mark rounding, getting inside their line and then extending up the next 2 legs to cross the finish line as the clear winners of the last race of the regatta, double points and great to finish off the regatta on a real high note! One of the boys on the team commented "your only as good as your last race, so watch out in Amsterdam!!" as we crossed the line.

Thanks to iShares, and all the partner sponsors, without whom we would not have been here and would not have this fantatic event to race in.

All the best.

Hugh