Much Later

Its now later and we have gone to bed after dinner and a very indepth debrief on the day.
Up at 0700 in the morning, READY FOR SOME NICE WINDS- NO?

Canned Racing

Dim Gwynt

We were up at 0715 this morning and had breakfast with the Poles and Nestor. It was still darkish outside when we went down to the club full of anticipation of good winds.
We launched at 0900 just as one of the worlds biggest sail traning ships arrived.

The wind was supposed to be south and windy but it was easterly and light as.

Race 2a saw big Matt Whitfield leading in 2 knots from Hun 5. Matt led at the leeward gate and up the final beat until the race officer intervened and canned the race, thats 2 races Matt was doing well in when he was canned.

Canned Matt- winner of canned racing.

Jamie was less lucky, and was some way back, back at mark 2 whern the race was canned!

Race 2b had got under way with Sarah and Mimi doing ok, until canned. Race 2c Saw Milo leading and Jo 3rd when it was canned.

Then the wind went North West and after an aborted restart of race 2a the wind died away and then came from the south, it was all over the place, with impact zones, bouncing wind, killer gusts, holes and stuff. Jamie made the most of it and led by 1 minute at the leeward gate.

Jamie at the leeward gate.
Jamie did an excellent job of herding the fleet up the beat and Matt got up to 6th. Unfortunately the wind died and started to fil in on the left leaving all of the leaders stranded- an impossible position which required manning upto. It was a great effort - just unlucky.

Mimi and Sarah had great starts but Sarah put in one too many tacks and slipped back, into the bunch and Mimi managed a nail bitingly close finish in the top ten.

Jo and Milo were close to the top ten at the gate, Milo went right into oblivion and an OCS and Jo went left and finished about 8th in another close race.

The wind at this time was about 2 knots!

Then the wind came from the south west and race 3a started with Matt and Jamie, doing well off the start, the race was canned, at the windward mark with both doing well.
Race 3b started but was canned too.
Then we noticed that the wind was starting to come from the north west , a yacht onthe north shore was heeled well over, and the cloud darkened and the rain started, then it got quite windy and the vis disappeared. The rain was really heavy.

The wind then dropped so the race officer started race 3a again, Jamie and Matt had good starts, and then half way up the windward leg the wind died again so we went home 6.5 hours after going afloat.
Milo's quite of the day....' I spend my life being wet'
mimi 'excuse me are you Romanian'
Jo's quote of the day ....... 'The weather is just like at home'

Sarah's ' was it a small...... or a big .........'

Jamie's quote 'Vigo hates me'

Matt ' the winner of canned racing'

Alan, 'today it was good no?'



More news later, Alan

Five Hours for 1 Race

Hola,

We were up ealry today and got to breakast before the Polish team. Then we rigged and launched and we were released from the harbour by 1100.

The wind was from the east but quite light and the race officer tried 3 times to get race 1a off. Eventually all 3 races wwere going in a very light breeze against quite a lot of current. Sarah was 5th and matt 10th, with Mimi and Jamie close behind. Jo was 5th round the windward mark in race 1c which Milo didn;t quite get to when the race was abandoned. The wind then went really light and before \Milo got to the windward mark the whole race was abandoned.

So all were happy at that point and the jedwood twins had their picture taken.
The wind then went round to the sea breeze direction- west but was quite weak as the sky clouded over a bit.

Race 1a got under way for the 4th time and was generaled then blackflagged. Sarah had a great start from mid right and crossed the whole fleet to be on the left.....she won't be doing that again, instead she will bank her gain earleir. Matt was ok in the middle, Mimi came out of the pin and unfortunately Jamie was badly rolled [squashed flat] off the start [ he won't be doing that again]. It was only a very short windward leg and all 4 were in the late teens down the run. A tricky dying breeze led all to be in about the same positions at the finish.

Race 1c saw Jo and Milo come off the pin and in a great act of sportmanship Milo let Jo tack , and Jo led from the left, ariving at the windward mark 5th. Milo was about 10th but got fouled up on a leeward mark rounding.

Milo's challenging leeward mark rounding

Jo finished 8th, nealry 6th in no wind and Milo was in the early 20's from the second best start.
Then the wind completely died off so we came in at about 1630 heving been afloat since 1100. Milo only manged one windward mark rounding in the whole of that time!

Tonight we went to visit a british sailing ship the Bessie Ellen from Plymouth

Don't touch it might fall down

Matt and Milo on the Jules Verne octopussy monument.

the 'Jules Verne' tent and had a drink, Sarah and Mimi talked to the Polish girls and the boys played parkour on the street furniture. We then went for dinner - well chicken and chips- which some say was good. We reviewed the clips of the day and look forward to a good strongish shifty southerly tommorrow.

We have just had dinner and retired to bed. Up at 0700 for breakfast as the first race tommorrow is at 1000- it might be light by then.

More news tommorrow. Alan

More news tommorrow.

Saturday in Vigo

Today we have been really busy, read on...........

Breakfast at 0830, it was still dark outside. We found a nice colour picture of most of the team in the national newspaper [ Matt and Jo were playing table tennis so didn't feature]. Then urban fitness at o930, which was interesting to say the least, check out the swimmer in the picture.

Press ups sit ups and star jumps watched out of a window by the local police.We went to the club at 1030 but some sailors forgot things and had to go back and get then- good lesson, they now have lists. Sailing from about 1030 until 1530,

Botcha was afloat just before us, and we sailied out in warm sunny conditions and sailed in an easterly wind of about 6-8 knots.
Jamie ate another horse for lunch which I had to take out specially in the RIB for him. It was a bit tricky as it was jumping about all over the place.

The rigs went forward and then as the wind died off moving them back again.

We were sailing on the north side of the bay, in what Jamie called it light Italian conditions so we did 67 speed /tuning runs, [well we did enough until even Jamie said enough was enough] then we towed in. Lots more sailors arrived during the day, so now there are about 450 boats here.

After sailing we washed the boats down, and then changed and caught the ferry to Congas, and went to the outdoor gym and then had a crepe before heading back to Vigo and dinner.

The Team on the ferry with Vigo in the backgroundMilo trying out the granite blocks!

Just before dinner we went for a walk, and Jmaie ended up dancing to a drummer in a big square with lots of people watching! We had dinner in the same place we took Ben ad Tim Saxton and Claire Lasko to years ago, then went back, read the sailing instructions and went to bed. Ready to start racing on Sunday at 1100.

Oh yes just before bed time Milo, Jo and Jamie gelled their hair and Jamie thought he looked like Jedwood!

Bye for now

Just been for dinner, stone baked pizza.
Some new phrases
Don't cry wolf.......
Don't take the bait...... Milo
Kill two fish with one stone.....Jamie
Don't lock yourself in another cubicle unless you have a screwdriver.....Milo
Don't breath in under water ......Jo
Man up..........Sarah
Whats up.........Mimi
The Devil wears prada...........plenty of those handbags.
They dont take credit cards here ......Jen
When do we start racing...Alan
Milo if you do that again you are going outside.......Guess who.
Don't be so rude Matt..........everyone.
We had to wait for dinner so we went to the large electronics shop and and played games.
We had our pictures taken for the newspaper, by a man who had raced against Chris Law in the Admirals cup he had been to Royal Lymington.

So in the morning we do full on fitness, breakfast then sail.

PS Jamie ate a horse and told us some interesting stories

Sunshines at Vigo

So we are staying in a small hotel very close to the sailing club. Last night Jamie wanted to eat a horse so we had dinner at the local bar. This morning after breakfast we went to the club and met Mimi and Brooke. The worlds team decided that it would be best if Mimi trained with us so we all went and sorted the charter boats and rigs which took most of the morning. They are now in good order.

The good thing last night was that all the bags arrived safely and this morning the sail tube was in the club waiting for us.

Jamies flame thrower rope end sealer was great and everyone learnt some new tidy knots.

We had a Spanish lunch, rolls, ham, cheese and fruit and then went past the massive cruise liner into the estuary. It was a flat calm to start off with, and then a westerly sea breeze built for 2 hours in the afternoon which was great.

Bocha was out with a small clinic, the Germans were out as were the Poles, Denmark,Italy, Singapore, Lithuania and some local sailors

It was really interesting, and after about 2 hours of tuning runs, sorting out luff tensions and mast rakes everyone was on the pace. We were on about 110.5, boom level with the water in the light conditions.

Check out the cruise liner in the background of the next pix

We have more training tommorrow before the racing starts on sunday morning, we are off to find some haggis for jamie.

More news soon. Alan

The team have left this morning and with the exception of our knife carrying team member being stopped  in Madrid, (this being missed at Heathrow) all has gone well

Getting Ready to go to Vigo

Hi everyone, we have just had a great National Squad at Weymouth. A land day run by RYA covering all sorts of useful information, fitness and ologies. Then two very big days on the water, in 18-40 knots of wind. Finally we had a very light wind day to finish off with.
Lots of technique work and sailing in a big breeze, the 3 gybes down the run when racing game was awsome. On the light wind day we worked on light wind technique and team raced in the afternoon.

So tommorrow we are off to Vigo, leaving Heathrow at 1300, and via Madrid arriving at 2100. We are staying in a small hotel close to the sailing club called Hotel Nautico.
There are 450 sailors registered from a lot of countries- it should be a good event.
We get our charter boats on Friday and then get out practicing before the 4 day event starts on Saturday morning.

More news soon, Marvo