26 September 2016

KNUD E. HANSEN has sponsored 13 years old Manolo Geslin for the French championship.

Manolo writes:

I finished 6th and for the world I finished 30th/128 (10th French) both races were done in France at Quiberon.

For the French championship all participants were using boat provided by the organisation. Everyday in the morning before heading out on the water there was a briefing for the weather and organisation. This event was organize by a system of pool starting with the 30 French best sailors selected around France beginning of this year (for memory, I finish first of my region). A typical race were done with a departures time of 3 minutes contrary to regular race done in 5 minutes, that changed a lot for positioning on the starting line and make the game more difficult. I manage to be qualified for the finale race, we were 8 and all of us could win the title. The weather didn’t help and the waiting time to get good conditions makes the pressure to become huge for me. I did a good start and past the top mark 3rd but did a mistake shortly after and got a penalty which didn’t help for the rest of the race. At the end, I finish 6th of this French championship which is ok result but the podium was my target and I failed a bit disappointed.

For the world championship it was a great experience to sail with so many boats of different nationalities. The atmosphere was great. Every morning we had a briefing with all riders to get info regarding weather and program of the day. They were so many sailors that the first two days were done to define level groups (gold and silver). After theses two days were I managed to finish 1 race in 3rd position I was selected to the gold group. The pressure here again was quite high as the wind wasn’t so in hurry to come. At the end, I managed to finish 30th (10th French), the result itself is good but I have to admit that my wish is to do the next world make much better. I have now a good experience of big event of this type and have learned how to manage pressure. My next big target is the European championship in Italia (Riva Lake of Garda) at the end of October.