- Training Camp with 4x's World Champion, Soren Johnsen -

Sunday 8th December After the morning spinning class, cleaning the house & shopping I collected my coach for the next ten days, Soren Johnsen, from the Airport.

Soren has won four Europe Class World Championships so is more than qualified to tell me what to do to make my boat sail faster and smarter around the race course. Soren also spent a lot of time training with Shirley Robertson before she went onto win the Olympic Gold medal in Sydney 2000. Soren is currently one of Denmark's most successful sports personalities having won both European & World championships during last year.

My training partner, Merel Witterveen from The Nederlands arrived a couple of hours later and we spent the evening discussing our training program for the time ahead over dinner.

The first task was to get one of the boats out of my back garden, not a simple task as there is no proper entrance. The only way out is over a 2 meter hedge, down a 1.5 meter wall, round the corner, back up a heap of steps, through a thin gate with the boat on it's side, passed over the wall of parked cars and finally up onto the roof of the transit van!

By the time the boats were rigged and ready to go the wind had arrived so we changed into our kit and set about our "on water training". We sailed upwind, speed training, for 2 hours, played the waves back downwind towards the harbor and met five of the local Spanish Europe sailors.

Soren set up a windward leeward racecourse and we spent 2 hours racing which was great training. The Spanish sail Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays from 3pm and weekends from 11am. They were really keen to join our training, as Soren is a bit of a legend, especially to the boys, which four of the Spanish Europe sailors are.

We had fantastic weather for the week, sunshine and wind everyday. We spent 4-5 hours on the water everyday concentrating on putting energy into and out of our boats, upwind and downwind technique and racing against the Spanish.

I tried the Spanish Finn for one race that was great fun. However, I caught my middle finger between the centerboard and case so have a souvenir black fingernail now!

I can see why the British Olympic Team base themselves at the same club in Palma for winter training from January each year. You experience such a wide range of wind and sea conditions.

From flat sea to big waves, and everything in between. There is also quite a difficult swell on occasions so all in all its ideal for training.

Merel is the sweetest girl, she's really lovely and makes the best pancakes! She's only 17 and has loads of potential. She was faster than me in most of the speed training runs. It's always better to sail with someone better than you to pull your standard up.

We are the same weight which is good so you know it's not a weight advantage making the other quicker but technique so you simply work harder.

El Arenal, the Yacht Club on the opposite side of Palma Bay, hosted a regatta at the weekend. There were 14 Europes racing. We sailed across on Saturday, which took us 2 hours in the light morning breeze. Soren drove the rib across and John took the trolleys and covers around in the van and then came out in the rib to watch the racing.

There was only one race on Saturday as the wind died as the sun went down. We started with the Lasers & Radials and had a great race. I won and Merel was 2nd. My downwind is really letting me down though so I need to work on that some more. Changing the position in which I sit in the boat has thrown my balance off but I know it will come back.

On Sunday we had two races. I was winning the first but there were two gybe marks?! That threw me off & I nearly capsized on the reach. My downwind was again pretty poor and Merel got past me, as she is excellent on the runs. I pulled my lead back again upwind, getting all the shifts right and putting into practice what I'd learned about positioning my boat to stay in control of the fleet. The pressure filled from behind down the last run sending Merel past me again to win the race.

I felt so totally frustrated at the end of the race due to the combination of my failings and events conspiring against me. Fortunately, John jumped into my boat and talked me through what had happened, how he'd seen me get more and more worked up.

He let me get my frustration out by talking about the mistakes and then made me feel great by talking about how impressed he was with my upwind sailing and how much I've improved. He asked me to relax and enjoy the next race. It worked! I won it by quite a distance, and as there were no more races, I had also won the overall event with Merel in second place.

Being the only two ultra serious sailors entered, I guess we should have finished first & second, it was only the order in dispute! However, its still satisfying beating all the male sailors, some of which were quite good and those sailing Lasers had a faster boat. We are trained by the coaches to want to win no mater what the event!

We sailed back to Calanova, 2 hours upwind speed training. We had to be towed in the last part, the wind dying as the sun began setting. It was beautiful sailing against the bright pink sky, arriving into the harbor in the dark.

That night we found Festival Park, a new shopping complex on the outskirts of town with a 20-screen cinema. James Bond entertained us whilst we munched through a tub of popcorn and candy as Sunday is my dietary cheat day!

Merel and Soren left happy and my parents arrived for the Christmas Holiday on Wednesday. They took me shopping and have filled the cupboards with lots of yummy food. John's sister arrives on Christmas day to complete the party.