This weekend I flew to a rather wet Dublin for a weekend of short-handed offshore training with Barry Hurley on his JOD 35, Dinah.

In just under 3 weeks Barry and I will set sail from Wicklow, Ireland on the 700 mile race round Ireland. Barry and I have known each other for many years but became good friends during last years OSTAR race in which Barry won his class. We have talked about doing some double handed racing together and being Irish we thought that this IRC race, on home waters would be the perfect.

Dinah, the JOD 35 has sailed many miles offshore and Barry has now owner here since early 2008. He has done extensive work to her over the years and I am pleased to say that she is in immaculate condition. For more info on the boat you can visit Barry’s website www.dinah.sail.ie

The purpose of the weekend was to sail for the first time on Dinah and get to know her and spend some time with Barry figuring out who would be doing what in the race. The weekend went extremely well, and I flew back feeling very confident that not only will we have a good chance in the up and coming race but also that we will have a lot of fun.

Despite the weather we did a lot of sailing and practiced our double-handed manoeuvres. With both of us so used to sailing on our own it was quite strange having someone else to help with the tacks or gybes! And what a difference it made! We also stole a small amount of time of Saturday evening to watch both of our respective nationalities do exceeding badly in this years Eurovision Song contest…. It did wonders for UK –Irish relations!

The weekend was great and I cant wait to get out to Ireland in a few weeks time to start the race. I would also like to say what a wonderful yacht club the royal irish is, and I hope to spend some more time there in the future.

Bring on the 20^th June!!!

Hannah