Bully’s Blog #5
Today we start sailing in the World Championship at Club Nautico Albatros, Argentina.
We have been very busy the last two days, we have finished our measurement process, had our invitation race and attended the opening ceremony — plus heaps of briefings and fine tuning our approach.
The measurement day had its usual dramas, but nothing that could not be fixed. It was so great to see Team Australia leap into action. We had to remove the battens from our sails and relocate the mast steps on the boats. Our followers were great at this and we had quite the production line going. All our boats were fixed and re-measured before our time was up. No need to go back the following morning.
The Australian flag being raised at the opening ceremony for the International Cadet Worlds in Argentina.
The invitation race was a wake up call for quite a few of our sailors. It was very light and a few struggled with the conditions and the big fleets. Australians are very lucky in that most of our venues have nice breezes to sail in. We have been working on improving our sailing in 4 to 5 knots of wind, which in a lot of areas is the predominant wind speed.
All of our sailors have improved in this area of our training and will be better for the experience of the practice race. The weather looks like it will be similar today so we need to put our training sequences into practice in the big fleet environment. This will be the focus of today’s briefings.
The opening ceremony was a great event, always such a good experience to attend. It was held at the club and had a strong South American flavour with local dancing, brass bands and lots of dignitaries.
Adapting to light air sailing and going over the rules that arise at mark roundings has been the main focus of a lot of our briefings. At higher level championships the intensity steps up a lot and protests become more prevalent. So we need to be aware of the appropriate rules and obligations we have under them.
The schedule is for two races today in light conditions, I look forward to seeing how our sailors regroup and embrace the challenges.
Thanks to all the support and interest, I shall endeavour to keep the blogs coming daily now the regatta has started.
Bully
