Sailing: Olympic medals on the mind

Northland sailors Jenna Hansen and Stephanie Hazard are back from a stormy Sail for Gold regatta full of confidence about their chances at the 2012 Olympics.

The pair, along with Auckland crewmate Susannah Pyatt, finished seventh in the women's match racing class at the Olympic warm-up at Weymouth and hope that six weeks of fine-tuning will be enough to help them medal when the real thing gets under way.

"The standard in the fleet is very high and it's going to be competitive - all of those teams have taken races off each other - so a medal is definitely within the team's reach," said Whangarei native, Hansen.

As one of the newer crews on the match-racing circuit, confidence is what they need the most.

"It was a short trip to the UK but in the end it was pretty valuable, it was good to be at the Olympic venue, sailing against our competitors and we coped well with the stormy conditions," she said.

The trio started poorly in the round robin at the regatta but then breezed through to the quarter-finals by winning five out of six races in the repechage.

They were then beaten by the eventual silver medallists, Claire Leroy's crew from France.

"We were excited to draw them in the quarters because we've had some good battles against them over the summer," she said.

Hansen also felt they were unlucky not to win the first race but they were well beaten in the second after losing the start.

"Much as it would have been nice to win the quarter-final, we were very happy with what we put on the water in the last few days at the regatta, it was a great comeback ... and that's put us in a very positive frame of mind going into our final build-up," she said.

Performing well in the opening races of the Olympic regatta are high on the list of "things to work on".

"It was a really slow and soft start and that's something we need to work on over the next six weeks - learning how to push the start button on the first day."

The trio were named in the match-racing squad put together by Yachting New Zealand back in 2009. The Northland pair - along with Pyatt, from Murrays Bay, were picked to represent the country the following year and have been competing as a team internationally since then.

The girls went through tough times as a new team and surprised many by qualifying in the top 12 out of 32 national teams to make the Olympics.

"We put everything into it and trained really hard for four months before qualifying and then we were able to celebrate qualifying and selection at the same time but it was nothing special, it was about doing the basics right," Hansen said.

The team, skipped by Algies Bay's Hazard, have become a tight unit, with the bond between the Northlanders particularly strong.

"We [Stephanie and I] grew up sailing together at regional events and were always kind of in each other's pockets, even if we were in different boats," Hansen said. "Back when we were 14 or 15, we never would have guessed we'd be sailing together at the Olympics but it's really special for us to be going to the games together."

The team needed to be tight after a poor 2011 saw them struggling to remain positive about their Olympic chances.

"It's been a rough journey at times but it's also been very rewarding, so it's exciting for the three of us to have come through that together and now go to the Olympics and put that experience into play," Hansen said.