OHOPE BEACH SAND SAILORS
Saturday 23rd September 2006
Day three
After yesterday report I found myself locked out of the room with no way to get in other than wake my two bunk buddies up. I crashed out on the floor outside the door until 6am when the neighboring room started running a bath.
All the French federation and us other countries all had breakfast together. After breakfast we headed down to the yacht club. The shake down sail yesterday had found a few faults with our chartered yachts which we sent the morning fixing. Measuring and then were four briefing in four different languages. The tide was in and the open ceremonies were held with thousand of the locals spending the afternoon on the beach with us. At 3pm we hit the beach for an official training session however the 2 knot cross shore breeze was not enough to overcome the soft sand on the beach and the small usable areas.
After sailing (I mean pushing) I washed down the yacht and headed back to the Hippotel for a shower. I cycled back to the club and participated in the cocktail evening. It is now 11.30pm and I have spent the night with the Italian team. Raditill 2008.
The Patagonia team have arranged full sponsorship of the container from New Zealand go Raditillly. I learnt a lot of Spanenglish tonight and communication with hand signals and common words between a kiwi and Spanish is easy.
Took plenty of photos of top secrete ideas today. But to let you know, us kiwis are leading the world on sail shapes and our torsion chassis are as good in our fives and threes. Only the top three French class 5 pilots are likely to be way ahead of us and I will learn more info as the week progress.
Really tired, I had better get 5 hours sleep before breakfast at 6am and racing starting at 8am local time.
