Obviously September has been a very important month for all of us in the Olympic sailing world, with the ISAF World Championships in Santander being the pinnacle of everyone’s season.

I finished 16^th in Santander in what was predominantly a light wind week, my least favoured conditions. I was really happy with the result. A top 20 at the Worlds or a top 15 at the Europeans is the criteria to be eligible for Podium level funding. It was the third time I had achieved that, despite still being on Podium Potential funding, but the first time in light winds, so despite a few missed opportunities during the regatta I was really pleased.

And now for another bit of good news! Immediately after the event, I had an e-mail from the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) President inviting me to the ISAF Sailing World Cup Grand Final that will take place in Abu Dhabi in the last week of November. It’s actually the first event of its kind and a move by ISAF to try and transform sailing into more of a Formula One style format. At the moment the system we have is all a bit confusing. We have our annual individual Olympic class World Championships. We also have 5 ISAF World Cup regattas, and a World Rankings that is worked out in a complicated fashion based on points accumulated at regattas in the past year. The new idea is to have a Class World Championships every year which qualifies the top boats for a World Cup tour card for the year. The top boats from the World Cup series will then go to a World Cup Grand Final in Abu Dhabi at the end of the year. The new concept creates one unambiguous World Champion in each Olympic class each year. This November the first trial Grand Final will happen, and ISAF are choosing the best 20 boats in the world from each Olympic class to attend. It’s an absolute honour to be one of the first few girls to be asked, and I can’t wait! Roll on November!!