The latest update from the K25 team about their preparation before they begin the J24 Worlds in Canada: 'This last week was a healthy mix of training and being tourists during our rest days. On Monday we got up and headed to Niagara falls for the day. It is a breath-taking sight and the team defiantly ticked an item off their bucket list. We voted to stay there over night to see this fantastic sight lit up which we can’t decide what looked better day or night. The next day we finished with a journey behind the falls which bring you deep down to the observation platform looking up the falls and deep inside as you look out to the torrent of water crashing in front of you. We made our way back that evening to the yacht club exhausted after the trip.

Last Wednesday was a fairly uneventful day - we got up went for a sail and some training and lifted the boat out ahead of measurement. In the evening however we decided while in Canada we would take a trip to the city and go to watch the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team play as there are no real baseball teams back home. The novelty of it is everything you would imagine and see on TV from music to get the crowd going to guys walking around selling peanuts and beer from coolers. 'The luck of the Irish' wasn’t in for them unfortunately, haha, as they lost their first game in 3 weeks but the team enjoyed the experience.

Thursday and Friday were the measurement days for us. They were a long 2 days as the measurement process is pretty tough with about different 10 sheets to fill in on all the different areas such as pre-measurement, sails, keel, rudder, hull, mast, crew weight and inventory list to make the boat the required weight. The main thing that took so long was the fact the boat is light, so adding 16kg of lead to the boat slowed down the process but in the end everything measured and we all weighed in legally. It was then onto lots of polishing the boat, which will hopefully add some extra speed.

After a busy day before measuring we took our second rest day and hit Toronto to visit the CN tower, Chinatown and sample some local cuisine. The tower (top photo) was a great tour taking us over 1500 feet up to over look the entire city and our race area conveniently enough. Looking down through the glass floor below took some breviary from some team members as they don’t cope to well with heights but they didn’t let that stop them. We then hit Chinatown and had lunch in a Chinese restaurant. We didn’t know which was tougher the trip or using chopsticks which was fun to watch from the outside looking in, haha, in the end I don’t think anyone will want to use them again any time  in the near future.

Sunday was finishing polishing day and complete the final preparations for the practice race and the event. Many boats were in the water and (after the fog had lifted) a few journeyed out and we joined them to pace and test ourselves against the top of the top of the fleet. We were happy with our performance and are fairly confident in our ability to held pace with some of the fleet only time will tell as the practice race and opening ceremony start tomorrow with all competitors.'

Daragh, Lizzie, Harry, Ciaran and Graham