Last Autumn I attended the Personal Finance Society annual dinner and bought some charity tickets and was lucky enough to win the main prize - a day out with our two Olympic Gold Medallists, Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson.
I took along my daughter Emma to the Weymouth Sailing Academy where we were met by Andrew and Iain who kitted us up with sailing gear and provided us with bacon sarnies and tea and the rudiments of sailing instruction. We were informed that we would be sailing on the actual Star Class boat, sponsored by Skandia, in which the pair won the Beijing Olympic gold medal and later the Star Class World title in Rio de Janeiro.
Andrew, Helen, Emma & Iain
We helped Iain lower the boat with a crane into the water and also a rubber motor boat. The plan was that Emma and I would each sail the boat with each of the boys, the whole supervised by their agent, David Tyler of Tyler Sports Management who took lots of photographs. It was a fresh, gusty sort of day and it is important to know that neither Emma nor I are sailors - horses and skis being our sports of choice. May be it was because Emma told the boys that she is also a rugby player that lead them to believe we could be trusted with the tiller of this quite small but very expensive and finely tuned boat. The boom was so low that we had to roll under it to tack. Apparently we are the only non sailors who have been entrusted to sail in this boat. Although they are working on another boat with even finer tuning for the 2012 Olympics, they told us that they would never let it out of their hands because if it fell into the hands of other nations, they could steal the medal with it and if they can't gain a metre advantage with the new boat they will revert to this one. It was fascinating to hear how they use computers to measure the curve of the sail and many other little secrets of beating the competition.
Helen at the Helm
We spent the whole day with them and we were later joined by Jo Rimmer, the PR lady from Skandia, until the boys rushed off to catch a plane to Italy for more sailing practice.
Since then we have had a meeting with David Tyler, who is hoping for a cap as an England hockey player and who has many athletes on his books.
This is another example of mixing business with pleasure and now that I have an inkling about sailing, I shall be looking out for Andrew and Iain in 2012.
Iain is, I hear, an excellent motivational speaker and David can provide many others.
You can find out more about Iain and Andrew at this link and on many other sites and you can see David Tyler's site at www.tylersports.co.uk
I hope you find this little "blog" about life in financial services of some interest.
