The second round of the Welsh leg from the 2010 National Zapcat Championship takes us to Barry Island, a new venue last year, and proved very popular with the racers with a lovely beach, great spectator vantage points, and a mix of racing conditions with hopefully beach starts also making a return for the teams.

Arriving early on the Friday afternoon a flat and calm North Wales looked far from the expected chop expected. The stronger winds and swell hadn’t materialised, and the wind farm was still in the distance.

With the speed seen from Bladerun in Edinburgh, particularly Blue Sheets 1 were looking forward to their more favourable choppy conditions where team work and driving are more important than outright speed.

After Team Bladerun put in a very professional weekends racing in Edinburgh, Blue Sheets 1 have been working hard along with the other Blue Sheets teams to get their fleet back up to the heights that they had been achieving.

Nial, and Dan have both been joined by a new co-pilot for Prestatyn, with Nial being accompanied in the boat by Aaron Joyce who, although has only one weekends racing under his belt, is very experienced, taking his place as a previous National Champions practice co-pilot for the previous two years, while Dan will be joined by returning National Champion Baz Minns looking to create a winning team.

In an attempt to acclimatise to the North Wales climate, Rob attempted to summit the highest mountain in Wales to prepare for the latest round of the 2010 National Zapcat Championship.

The next round of racing is to take place on the North Wales coast resort of Prestatyn, and after the previous two grand prix’s being raced on flat water he thought he would toughen himself up to the Welsh weather by tackling Snowdon.

After the flat water of Belfast, it was onto another flat water race in Edinburgh with another technical course produced by the OOD with severe weather due over the weekend requiring high levels of concentration trust and co-ordination to keep the boat on its limit without loosing control!

The windy course consisted of two technical legs, a pit lap, and a long drag into a crosswind with considerable gusts really testing the crews.

It nearly happened.  Thursday night and only 2 team members out of 6 had their Gill racing gear.  Someone (no names mentioned) was meant to ask their father to drop by and pick up the remaining drysuits, wetsuits, boots, gloves and rash vest.......but forgot.

A quick call round confirmed that anyone with a vehicle was on their way up to Edinburgh and our options were running out. 

Our teams can't race in any other brands so it was either find a way to get the gear to Edinburgh in a hurry or a case of bikini racing at short notice.

"It's less than a week until Fistral, first race of the season, last minute checks have been made, and boat is packed up and ready to go. The weather looks settled, and the surf getting bigger as the weekend progresses. It promises to be a spectacular event.

The event will have TV coverage to be aired internationally later in the year, as well as live streaming available on the Zapcat website on both Saturday and Sunday.

"After a hugely successful 2009 season being crowned National, King of Surf, and Team Champions, winning all bar one of the rounds, and starting off the season 14 races unbeaten!

The 2010 season already has a lot to live up to. One of the championships that was not competed for in 2009 was the home nations championship which Blue Sheets 1 will be keeping an eye on for 2010.

We finally took delivery of the new Blue Sheets surf bus. 

It's a 2005 Mazda Bongo Friendee and it's just had it's first adventure; getting us to Dartmouth and back.

She's had the full AVA leisure conversion and we're looking forward to taking her out and staying in her next year to follow our race teams.

 Needless to say, you'll be seeing her on the race circuit next year. 

No we’re not talking about Craig’s new hair cut!

Edinburgh was a new event this year, and the first time the Zapcat’s had been back to Scotland since 2007. Incorporating the weekend’s racing around the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the biggest Art’s festival in the world, I arrived in Edinburgh early Friday to take in some of the entertainment, and see what the City had to offer.