After Warnemunde I drove straight to Nieuwpoort for the Europeans. I stayed at the Lighthouse which was fantastic. I was very well looked after with a great breakfast and internet access in my room, and I could not have been closer to the sailing club!

Before the regatta I did a couple of days training to test out my new sail and become familiar with the conditions. There was certainly a lot of tide which resulted in some big waves.

The day before the regatta I decided to rest. Although I have been working hard on my fitness I am not quite there, and with six days racing in front of me I thought a bit of rest would do me more good than an extra day’s sailing. I did however go to the Opening ceremony.

The boat park and the car park were some distance away, so the regatta ran a shuttle service between the two. After the Opening ceremony had finished I grabbed the first shuttle van but unfortunately there were some cyclists in the road. I jumped out to get them to move and as soon as they did the van went, knocking me down…

My first thought as I went flying through the air was protect your neck, protect your neck! So I tucked my head in and rolled out of the road but landed heavily on my knee, which hurt like hell. Full of adrenaline I got back in the van and got dropped off at my car. I then started to drive the short distance home before the full impact caught up with me and I nearly blacked out with the pain.

I managed to get out of my car but had great difficulty getting up the stairs (my leg would no longer bend). I pulled off my jeans to discover the complete mess my knee was in. I was very lucky to have worn my thickest denim. Even so the knee was a right state, and late on a Sunday there was no way I could get to a doctor, or even get some pain killers or ice as the B&B owners were out.

I had a very sleepless night as the wound on my leg, which was about a square inch was completely open and every time I did the slightest movement I was in agony. At this point I considered seeing if someone could drive me home but I thought I should stay and support the other GBR sailors. In the morning I was lucky that I was sharing my B&B with someone who had a knee injury and some very strong anti-inflammatories. I took a double dose, which resulted in stomach pains about an hour later, but meant I was good enough to drive, so I went down the sailing club.

At this point sheer bloody mindedness took over and I decided to try and sail. One of the hardest things was putting my rig in the boat and putting my clothing on with one leg which would not bend, but somehow I managed it. Upon arriving at the race course I took more pain killers and decided to get on with it.

The first race I rounded the top mark in the top ten. Hiking seemed OK but any sort of bending (or going from bent to straight) took a huge amount of will power. However on the final run I discovered I was close enough to catch the leaders and pulled through into second place, only to look down and discover my right leg was bent! The same happened in the second race, the pain increased with all the waiting around, but when the adrenaline really kicked in, I could block out the pain, and this time I snatched first place on the final reach.

Day two and anti inflammatories were starting to make my stomach ache and cause all sorts of other ahem, problems. I actually ended up leading both races but finished with a fourth and a second as I was really starting to find it hard to concentrate.

Luckily on day three the wind dropped and I decided to give my body a break from the anti-inflammatories. In the light winds I won both races very comfortably (the last race of the day I won by such a margin they missed me off the results to start with!) to move into the lead overall. However my leg having been wet in salty water was now starting to look rather upset and showing no sign of healing.

Day four and I decided to have a conservative approach. However with a very strong tide, a poor start was nearly impossible to recover from and I sailed my discard but came back with a fourth place in the next race meaning I slipped to second overall going into the finals.

Dave five was in fact the last day of the championship but I was not to know this at the time. I had a good start at the port end but we (the men’s gold fleet) caught the women’s silver fleet at the windward mark, despite the beat being 20 minutes (for us) and the girls having an 8 minute head start! As a result I got caught in the traffic and whilst the top half dozen boats got away I was stuck in all the dirty wind from the mid fleet girls and got pinned to the windward mark for quite sometime.

When I had finally extracted myself I pulled through the fleet, with the Polish sailor who was currently winning just in front of me, covering me.

The final race I again started at the port end and this time got round in second place (in front of the vast majority of the women’s fleet), which I held comfortably to the finish, with the Pol in third. However Frenchman Frei Matthieu had a stormer of day, winning both races taking him into the overall lead.

Day six and my leg was really starting to protest, looking extremely angry and punishing me for any movement. I was dreading pulling on my wetsuit (which pressed hard on the open wound, especially when kneeling) However I really wanted to race to have a chance to stand on top of that podium… however it was not to be, as the strong winds cancelled racing. In hindsight this was probably quite good for me, well my knee at any rate but I certainly did not see it like this at the time!

Upon returning home my first port of call was the physio. However whilst rushing to get there I heard a pop and a large bump appeared in my groin, making it now nearly impossible to walk. However I did get to the physio who suspected I had a hernia. I spoke to the GP and he agreed and asked me to come in for an examination.

After a night of wondering how many months I was going to be off sailing this time, I was pleased to know that it was just an extremely inflamed node as a result of the severe infection in my leg. It appears staphylococcus absolutely loves salt water, so I must have been giving it a real treat the previous week. Hopefully a couple of weeks of antibiotics will see me fit enough to race the Nationals… watch this space!