Aug 29 - Measurement

We had two good training sessions on the water Friday. We sailed for 2 hours in the morning, came in for lunch and then hit the water again for another 3 hours. We are focusing on boathandling - tacking and gybing and communication in the boat and getting used to the sailing area. The prevailing wind here is a northerly which is thermal - driven by the Black Sea. The wind comes over the city of Istanbul and then down onto the water so it is very gusty and shifty. There are some interesting trends on the water - two areas where the gusts tend to fill in from; one on the left of the race area and one on the right. In the middle there is sort of a hole. It will be interesting conditions to race in.
 
Yesterday we spent the morning changing the sail numbers on our new mailsail. It is new but was originally ordered for an Australian team, so we first had to strip off the AUS letters and numbers and remove the glue and then put on our CAN 610 numbers. We lay the sail out in what appears to be a dis-used bar in the upper clubhouse. Removing the glue proved to be incredibly time consuming but we managed it nonetheless. Then we had to make a rhombus - fancy word for diamond. This is to distinguish the women's 470 class from the men. We had forgotten to buy material for a rhombus, but managed to use some of the AUS sail numbers we had peeled off. Why do I tell you all this? I find the 470 fleet highly amusing. Impossible tasks become possible, and hours dissapear while working on the most mundane things. While we were working on our mainsail the rest of the fleet did similiar things. A Greek women's team was just in the hallway putting their sail numbers on their spinnaker with a permanent marker and the Bulgarian women were downstairs using whiteout to change their sail numbers. Finally we finished and there was no wind. We registered for the regatta and then walked down to West Marine. Yes, West Marine. There is a small store in the nearby marina. The man working here is extremely nice. He didn't have a chart of the sailing area so he is going to lend me the one off his boat! We forgot our West Marine member card so he let us leave without paying. He also invited us to go racing with him on his keelboat. Then we did some boatwork and managed to sneak into the pool for a swim and then went for dinner with Tina and Sanni. We played scrabble at the dinner table: crews vs. helms using English and German words. This was difficult, as the Turkish scrabble board has many strange letters!
Today we put on our new sails and went for a short sail in 4-6 knots. It is the first new mainsail I've ever used and it is lovely. We managed not to tear the new kite (if its going to rip, its always on the first hoist) and did some roll tacks and gybes. We came in to prepare the boat for measurement. We were a bit nervous as we are using a new boom, mast, rudder head, a different rudder and different sails from Worlds. And of course we got picked for full measurement, again! Alas, even with all of our preparation it did not go very smoothly! We had dried out the boat completely but the measurer managed to find some water inside, and the mast was underweight by 130 grams! (the mast must be a minimum of 10kg). After checking the class rules and making some adjustments we finally managed to get it up to weight (10.004kg). Thankfully our mast and boom stoppers were correctly placed!
 
It was a long afternoon in the 35 degree heat and we are tired now. Tomorrow is a day off before the event starts on Tuesday. We are heading into Sultanahmed with the German and Isreali sailors but also have to do a bit of boatwork in the morning (of course).