Jon Emmett qualifies for the Radial World Championships

I made hard work of it, getting Black flagged on the first race of the finals at the last qualifier but I managed to hold my nerve to take two wins and the event.

I have spent most of this month in Holland. Straight after the Pwllheli qualifier which I won, I travelled over to Holland for the Dutch Masters championships.

We had a breezy event and I am pleased to say I won with the minimum score, seven first places.

Sadly it was during this event I heard of the tragic death of Double Olympic medallist and all round  nice guy Andrew 'Bart' Simpson. The Dutch were so kind and asked me if I wished to place the Union flag at half mast, which I gladly did.

I think about attending many Laser events with Bart in our youth and his smile is one that I will always remember.

I just wanted to go and sail, to hike hard and try and forget the sadness of his beautiful wife and children growing up without a father but instead the wind was blowing 25 knots. Too much for us old folks, so racing was cancelled for the day, instead I ended up wandering around a model village - not what I had intended.

I am now back in the UK for another Cortizone injection in my shoulder. Even with only two or three days racing my shoulder has been extremely painful and I really hope that this will solve the problem now.

I will be spending the next three weeks resting and icing the shoulder, which will hopefully give me the recovery time which I need. Whatever happens I want to do my best to help Lijia Xu win the Worlds, which are in her home country China this year,  which would be a very special achievement for her.

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