Well we've had some interesting weather conditions over the past two days. Yesterday the forecast was for the wind to die in the early afternoon and it did. We had one race in med-light conditions. We were doing okay until the last two legs when a combination of small errors and the fact that our centreboard bolt was leaking and we were basically sinking pushed us to the back of the fleet. We then drifted around in almost no wind and watch the agonizingly slow progression of the men's fleet finishing their race. The Race Committee then postponed us on shore so we headed in. The wind came back up a little bit later in the afternoon so the Race Committee abandoned our races and sent the men back out so they could finish their qualifying series.
This morning we woke up at 3 am to a thunderstorm with lightning and pouring rain. It continued to rain until about 8 am and then was off and on. The storm was in the weather forecast, but wasn't supposed to come through until 2 pm; so it shifted the whole forecast ahead. We got down to the boatpark and it was grey and cloudy and rainy and there was no wind. The forecast was to clear and for the wind to build from the South. They postponed us on shore at 10.30 (right after we got changed!) but only for about 45 minutes. We went out and tuned up and the breeze was already picking up. We had three races in some mixed conditions. With the wind from a little more to the south, our race course was forced to be smaller due to the islands in the way. As a result the race committee chose to have us race the Outer 3 course - three windward/leeward legs instead of the standard two. The wind was up and down in pressure and the waves were quite choppy, which made it challenging to keep the boat at full speed all the time.
We were fast whenever the pressure was up but then struggled with our speed when the wind eased off. The wind was filling from the left but then small black clouds would drift overhead and bring in a right shift. As the day progressed the wind shifted more and more left, skewing our race course so now the island was pretty much in our course. Also because the course was so short, the Race Committee barely had time to reset the marks before the leaders were onto the next leg of the course. At one point in the third race there was some confusion as one of our leeward gate marks was actually still in a motor boat.
The first race we had several general recalls and then we nailed the start, it was awesome. The second race we were holding our spot and then at 15 seconds a wave hit the bow and we were stopped dead, so as a result we were late off the starting line. The third race our start would have been perfect except our Russian training partners stuck their bow in below us at about 30 seconds to go! Overall the starts were much better today which was great. Our racing was also better, we had some really good mark roundings (also a few really bad ones) and made good decisions. We consistently finished ahead of 4 or 5 boats.
Now it is sunny again and the forecast for tomorrow is for sun and 12-15 knots. We will probably have 3 races again tomorrow.
In other exciting news, we were awarded one of the 470 class association solidarity grants which pays our registration for this event (400 Euro). Thanks so much to the 470 Class for their support!
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