North Wales Revisited

Book your place early on this start line



Hi all, well, some tropical cyclone which has come down from the north has been downgraded to several pretty wet days, and today it poured all day- which was more like North Wales on a good day.
The final results of the pre worlds are now up- Jamie 30th, Jo 60, Milo 62, Sarah 79 and Matt with some good scores carrying 2 bfd was 84, a painful 6th on his bfd, so sailors making good progress.

We noticed that the bottom of our boats were rough as a a road kill possum and Curly Morris the head of measuring said we could get our bottoms smoothed out. Well what happened was that last week a big fishing boat was being resprayed and it seems that some of the white spray paint went over our s and a few other boats upturned hulls- so today very kindly the Far East boat people spent 5 hours in the rain polishing the boats so now they are 'sweet as'.


Iain the 'boat tweek', bought a flamethrower today, and nearly burn't a hole in Milo's sail-so we have banned the flame thrower. Its a good job that Carole is now fit after a tummy bug, hopefully she can rein in the big man.

Some went to the aquarium this afternoon, and some swam with sharks, or at least sharks which had had their teeth removed, so they could only be gummed to death.

Jamie also saw a tortle, a turtleything which was a metre long too eating a haggis- strange that.


The sailing correspondent for the Independent appeared out of the rain and we talked about optimists, the Menai Strait [he had sailied a wayfarer there], where Ben Ainslie came in the oppy worlds, Hannah Mills, and other GBR ex oppy worlds sailors, John Derbyshire [ in the nicest possible terms], oppy sailors who shave, children who spend their junior years oppy sailing and have personal tutors and - Oh yes- we talked about our team, what they wanted to achieve, where they might go next etc. We also taked about how nice Pwllheli and Abersoch are.




I nearly forgot, today we went out for a little light training at 0900 to 1200, we were the only team out in the rain. We worked on starting, hovering for 2 minutes, no tacking allowed, start and windward leeward in chop, its hard work but it works. After 4 races Sarah won the 10 dollar prize.



This afternoon we let the sailors go off for a few hours, while we did the coaches and team leader meeting- all good stuff, and tonight Sarah went rock climbing with all the girls at the worlds- which was great fun.

Jen and me went to art deco Napier and were driven by a man who had lived in Betws y Coed.

Tommorrow is the practice race, opening ceremony, and new years eve which happens 12 hours earlier than yours.

We are sharing a RIB with NZL which we have done for nearly 10 years which is good, we might have been sharing with Australia and the Jerwoods, but all is good in the dinghy park. Chris Steele who won the worlds in 2007 in Sardinia is the NZL coach and we know the sailors from our nationals last summer.

Check out the worlds website for stunning pictures of the pre worlds.

Ravi is going to poison the parents tommorrow night with his special 'fish curry'- book your toilet seats early folks.

More pix and sailor comments and stuff tommorrow.

Bye now, sweet as.