scott.projectsomewhere

Something doesn’t seem right when it comes to the way things are
done at the WPSA.

For one, the Race Officer has decided that its a smart move to have
every start with a black flag. For those that don’t know - starting
under a black flag means that any boat over the line within the
last minute is disqualified - with no option to restart correctly.
Again in all my years this would have to be the most
unprofessionally trigger-happy PRO that I’ve ever
encountered.

Then there’s the cost. Apparently this concrete slab of a club is
charging 9000 GBP to run the event - that’s over $22000 AUD for a
week of sailing. If that isn’t ridiculous I don’t know what is.
Unbelievable.

I hope the government in this place wakes up to themselves - and
realizes how bad the current administration of this venue is. It
appears as though they are purely here to make more and more money
for themselves - regardless of the costs to sailing as a sport.
With the millions being poured into the new sailing centre they’re
building here - it’s only going to get worse.

Well that’s my rant for the day. Time to go sailing.

Racing in the UK Nationals finally got underway today, with 3 races
completed in 5-8 knots after a 3 hour on-shore postponement.

Luckily for us it was a good day in the office, taking a 2-1-1
scoreline to lead the series. Tristan & Alain are in 3rd, 10
points behind - but they’ll be sure to put together a good set of
races in the next few days.

The fleet of 40+ boats is very competitive in these conditions,
with a lot of lightweight crews going very fast and doing very
well. The forecast for Wednesday says 12 mph winds, but more cloud
and maybe rain - great!

So with yet another day of English weather - the first day or
racing in the UK Nationals was abandoned after an aborted attempt
at a race in a dying breeze.

Let’s hope things improve tomorrow…

It’s almost time to go home - but not for another month or so yet
I’ll be returning to Australia in the middle of September, just in
time for the start of the 18 footer season
which begins on 3rd October. It looks as though I’ve got the job as
sheethand with Sweeny & Pete on what was Rag & Famish.
Should be good if it all comes off.

Yes, the English have turned on their best weather for the UK Nationals… cold, light drizzle, cloudy and

almost no wind!

We’re now into our third day here in Weymouth - but thankfully only the first with rain.
The regatta starts on Monday, with the last few days being packed
full of registration, measurement and boat work. Unfortunately I
had to replace the packing in the centre-case of the boat since it
wasn’t deemed to be compressible enough… it was done so well too
- it took a long long time to get it all out!

Anyway, the new stuff is in and seems to be working well - at least
it didn’t fall out on the first use.

There is talk of some gale forecast for tomorrow… so it will be
interesting to see what happens. The
real forecast looks a lot different.

Since I haven’t mentioned it on the blog before… Harken is great.

I should be saying that since they are sponsoring the 29er I sail
on. The kit we have is pretty awesome - with loads of sexy carbo
blocks, ratchets, pulleys and things.

Special thanks must go to Julian from DeckHardware - the Australian distributor of Harken
who helped to put the deal together. It will be fantastic if we can
keep it going into the future…

Julian is currently racing in the 2004
Etchells Worlds - and didn’t do too badly in the Invitation
Race.