We were a bit disappointed to lose our quarter-final at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta – but it was actually a really valuable experience.

As a team, we learned a lot from the three races we had with the eventual winners Australia.

Despite missing out on a medal and finishing fifth, we are still really happy with how we are sailing.

We are also pleased that there are still little areas that we can really work on ahead of the Games.

In certain aspects of Sail for Gold, we tried to make it as much like the Olympics as possible to try to prepare ourselves as well as we could for what lies ahead.

That was definitely a useful exercise. It was the most realistic competition we have had so far, compared with what the Games will be like.

We weren’t really too bothered about our final position. It is always nice to win events but we are still in a training phase for the Olympics.

It is often not such a bad thing when you don’t medal at those sort of competitions because it shows you there are still plenty of areas you can work on and you don’t get fooled too much by the result.

We will be back in Weymouth from Monday to try to improve on those aspects during our final week of training before the World Championships in Sweden.

I hope to bring you positive news on our Olympic preparations in the coming weeks. Thanks for your support.