BBC TV star

I went down to the academy on the morning of the filming a little nervous as I didn’t know what to expect.

Mum had met the producer Andrew earlier in the week but I had been at school so consequently I didn’t even know who I was looking for!

Luckily he was with John Tweed, the Chief Executive of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy and I had met John before so it was all good.

After the introductions, Andrew briefed me on what he wanted to do and my first job was to rig the Laser.

I rigged up with a 4.7 sail as it was quite windy and a radial rig would have been a bit tricky to handle confidently whilst being filmed.

Then I got changed into my wetsuit and thermals and sailed out into the harbour.

John, Andrew, David (the interviewer) and the camera man followed me out in the RIB. I sailed around for a bit until the RIB arrived and then the filming began.

I had to sail the dinghy whilst I was being filmed from all angles, some closer than others. After one shot, the RIB sped away and I capsized in the wake behind it!

I righted the boat and this time we tried filming whilst I was Sailing at speed and this proved just as exciting as we had to keep the Laser and the RIB close to each other to get the shots they wanted.

I had a brilliant time and it was really exhilarating sailing at such speed.

After a while we headed back to shore and I had to prepare myself for an interview here too. I sat by the slipway on the boat and was joined by my Mum who was also being interviewed.

It was David who interviewed me and he asked me loads of questions about my sailing and how it started, what I was doing now and my hopes for the future. I really enjoyed talking to David and after a while I forgot the camera was there.

Mum didn’t find it quite so easy. The closer the camera got to her, the further she moved back. At one point I thought she was going to fall off the bench as she was leaning so far back! She also got ‘told off’ for using her ‘telephone voice’ rather than her natural one but it is easy to criticise someone else when I don’t know what I looked like when I was being filmed.

It wasn’t just me and Mum that they interviewed but other local people too. They even took a very brave tour of the road works! It will be interesting to see what they made of it all in the end!

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