Belcher/Page 470 Season Update 4- Off to Europe

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

After an intense six week training block in Sydney, Mal and I will be heading off to Europe this coming weekend to prepare ourselves towards the next World Cup event in Palma de Mallorca. We will be picking up our Audi in Hamburg, a big thank you to the Audi team in Australia and Germany for making this possible. We will also pick up our boat that we have been storing in Hamburg over the past few months. After our experience with a chartered boat in Miami, we are looking forward to using our own gear again for the European regattas. From Hamburg we will start the long drive South, through Germany, France and half of Spain to take the ferry and finally arrive on the Spanish island of Mallorca – the venue for the 3^rd world cup event after Melbourne and Miami.

The first of our four European trips this year will see up compete in two world cup events: Palma de Mallorca from 28^th March – 2^nd April (http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/noticias.php) and then Hyeres Olympic week in Southern France from 25^th to 31^st April (http://sof.ffvoile.net). One of our goals for this year is to win the ISAF World Cup Series (http://www.sailing.org/worldcup/standings/470-men.php), so we are looking to continue our form and maintain our lead in the series. We are also pleased to announce that on 18^th March Malcolm married his lovely partner Fiona and in true sailor’s fashion the newly-weds will be spending part of their honey moon in Palma while Mal and I are competing. There are high stakes to make sure we perform at this one…

We will touch base before Palma on the latest news. We have attached some photos of our recent training camps in Sydney. Thanks again Victor for some great shots and keeping us on track.

Take care all,

Mathew Belcher & Malcolm Page
470 Men – AUS 11
Australian Sailing Team