scott.projectsomewhere

The boats did arrive after all, and we’ve spent the last four or so days tuning and training against some of the best 49ers in the World…. though that’s not too difficult to find when you’re a tune-up boat for the World Champions.

This place continues to surprise me every day. A different set of weirdness to contend with each time we hit the water.

The first day for example, we launched into no wind and big chop, rebounding off the breakwall to provide that nice washing machine effect. After a tow out for a couple of kms, we found a 15+ knot on shore breeze, which within 50m or so, would go from a good 15, to zero as we sailed towards shore.

A couple of days later it was the opposite, with an offshore breeze blowing at 15 or so, then dying off to nothing about km offshore. Strange to blast downwind then suddenly have the spinnakers go limp with next to no visual queues.

Then yesterday we raced in so much sea-mist that we couldn’t see the marks on the course in only 5 knots of wind, even though the races were only 12 minutes long.

This is going to be one weird Olympic regatta come August.

But at least we’re not completely embarrassing ourselves - on the water - with a bunch of good finishes in the 10 or so boat fleet we raced in over the last few days. Even with the best of the Spanish, Danes, the Ukranians and the Germans, we’re holding our own. Helps to have very fast boats to use I guess.

Anyway, it’s been a beneficial week so far for Dave and I. We’ve learnt a fair amount and hopefully the guys have made some gains by having us here. And there’s still a bunch of days left.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am and is filed under 49er, Sailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.