Woke early to catch up on domestics. You know the sort of things, clothes washing, breakfast, tidying up the place, shopping, packing the boat ready for the office and checking out the wind forecast for the day to see if I can test out my C rig.
Thankfully there is very little clothes washing to do because we only need shorts and T-shirts as the weather is so warm but it does get really sweaty so they have to be turned over quite quickly.
The shopping was done at Woolworths, which apparently all over the country here. It’s a supermarket brand rather than the general store we used to see in the UK. The nice thing about the checkout is the girls actually pack your bags for you, a service sadly lacking in the UK. I guess the turnover at the supermarkets is much higher with us and they can’t afford the time to do the packing.
On the way to the shops I saw a nice sign at Saint Xavier‘s Anglican church. It said thank God for our Police who servant protect us. A really nice touch for a service that is often subject to abuse.
Been looking ahead at the forecast for the coming week and it’s a real mixture of A and B Rig and possibly C rig on one or two of the days late afternoon. The general trend here seems to be the wind starts lighter early in the morning and builds as the day progresses but there are only a few times I’ve used an A rig. Having said that sailing today was all about A rigs. What do I know.
The organisers have done an amazing job setting up the site. They got the job done in less than four days. The scoring system is really slick provided the computer programs survive the week. As soon as the heat is finished the results are posted on the computer, the heat board automatically updates, observers identified, and racing can continue very quickly and viewers can see exactly how the scoring is developing in a real time basis. Of course subject to no protests.
There is no need for me to post anything about the general racing as that will all be covered by the organisers and the professional live streaming service that goes on through the week.
On a personal note, I’m finding it very hard to keep my daily step count up. Every time I try and walk to the venue, someone offers to give me a lift. Yesterday I was only halfway back when a really nice local who had nothing to do with sailing stopped and offered me a lift. The locals here are really friendly.
There were lots of racing opportunities at the venue. Everyone was trying to be careful not to hit each other.
There is one special home build here put together by Gordon McGuire. As well as having Irish colours on the hull, see picture, it has an aero deck and has a remarkable turn of speed. Combine that with his exceptional sailing skills and I believe he will do very well.
Of course the new VISS was out in force. If I am not mistaken there is roughly a 3 way split in numbers between, sailboat RC, Vickers and Venti’s. Who will prevail………
We kick off with the opening ceremony which starts in just under theee hours.
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