Just for a change I was called upon to go to the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy yesterday to take some ‘team’ pictures of my sailor daughter Mary and her new sailing partner Tom Phipps as they start on the last part of their ‘Road to Rio’.  It was a dull gloomy day, good in some respects for portraits but the on water shots were rather lacking in excitement without the blue sea and sky.  There is absolutely nowhere in Portland harbour to take photographs from the shore – all the close to shore areas are too shallow or littered with mooring buoys to risk these highly expensive speed machines. Launching in a south westerly wind is difficult for the highly unstable 49er boats that were also sailing that day, they have to reverse off the slipway into deep enough water to lower their boards and rudders – it was interesting to watch!!

It was round to the Nothe gardens for me – took ages by road – whist the sailors whipped round there in moments in their super fast Olympic catamaran.  The Nothe gardens were deserted, hard to think back to the glory days of the Olympic Games when they were stuffed to bursting with cheering crowds. My 200mm lens wasn’t up to the job even there, but it was awe inspiring to see how fast these Narca17 boats can go – rather her than me!!

Back to the sailing academy for some ‘Apres yacht’ publicity photos – we used the inside of the big empty hall and then faced the wind and went down closer to the water’s edge for some more dramatic pictures.