Hannah Bristow.

Back in May, Hannah was out in South Africa coaching a 29er pairing for 5 weeks. Revelling in the experience, she dropped us a note:

“It was quite a last minute trip; booked on the Friday and I then flew 18 hours on the following Thursday to the other side of the world to live with a family I’d never met, who were luckily absolutely lovely and made me feel very at home.

Whilst there, I had the opportunity to coach the boys [29er pairing] in a number of incredible places including Laangeban, Mossel Bay and various locations in Cape Town, as well as visiting St Francis and driving along the Garden Route. I was fortunate that the coaching situation required me to spend a lot of time in the 29er coaching from inside the boat which meant I got to enjoy being out on the water in such amazing places too.

This also posed some problems though…such as when I jumped in to help sail the boat in after mist rolled down the hill and brought with it 40 knots. This would have normally been just about manageable but it happened to be whilst we were in Mossel Bay, the home of shark cage diving, which brings with it a lot of Great Whites. By the time we had managed to get the boat in we’d seen 20 sharks in the half an hour which was a slightly worrying as we were swimming around the boat with shark fins two metres away from us at some points!

At the end of the whole experience I met some lovely people, had some incredible experiences and I am now totally hooked on the country. I’m hoping for some sailing championships there in the future so I have an excuse to go back! In the meantime we are preparing for our transition into the FX which is very exciting and we are looking forward to a great deal.

Thank you again for the continuation in your support of us, we really appreciate all that you are doing for us; it really does make our lives so much easier and we love being part of the Gill Race Team. Hopefully this year will be as successful and exciting as the last one!"