One day more

A big THANK YOU to Phil, who woke up early in the morning to weld the crack in our aluminum rudder box. I hope he likes beer. Couldn’t think of anything else to get him.

So, our rudder was fixed this morning and we were ready to race again. Sometimes I feel so lucky to know/meet people who are so helpful. The rudder definitely feels in place and steady today, which is one less worry.

First thing Colin said when he saw this photo was: “Wah, she has huge muscular thighs..”

1) (I believe) If I wasn’t sailing, they won’t be that huge!!!!
2) I was wearing a spray top and wetsuit so I look huger than I really am. (Yeah right)
3) My thighs are the only place where I seem to be able to put weight on. And considering I need like 7-8kgs more, I’m glad they’re huge.

Tmr is the last day of Sail Sydney. Hope we can put together some good races and end our regatta well. For now, we’ll drink lots and rest. Long day tomorrow because we have to pack our boats onto the trailers as well.

hard day out there

Two posts ago I wondered how it must have felt like to be sailing along and have the rudder suddenly break. Sara says I should now wonder what it feels like to win. Because today, our rudder box started to come apart in the middle of the race!

I do actually know what it’s like to have the whole rudder gudgeon break off – it happened once before in Singapore – so when I felt the rudder shaking this time, I knew something was definitely up. We had to take the spin down and fix it all the way downwind race and then work to catch up as much as we could in the following laps.

So, our coach pretty much summed it up: tough day, but we have to put ourselves and the boat back together for tomorrow.

a very crowded race course

We started racing today. Let me tell you, racing in Sail Sydney (I still keep calling it SIRS first off) is an experience like no other.

Not for the reason you’d imagine, though.

You know how in Singapore, let’s say if the Optimist are having a race and we 470s poke our nose anywhere remotely near the course, a powerboat will come to chase us away?

Well, all bets are off here – we’re racing off Rushcutters Bay where many keelboats moor and they all come out sailing on Saturday – right through our race course. And we have to avoid them as we race. So it’s like an obstacle course going up and down.

This is probably the first time where I’ve had to call a tack based on positioning ourselves better with respect to a boat that isn’t racing.

Tomorrow will be a nor’easterly, which means we’re likely to have our course run straight through the shipping channel. Which means time to play Siam The Ferry again … while racing this time. Fun times, eh?

Results for the first day of racing can be found here. Singapore is fielding 4 470s, 4 420s, 3 Laser Radials, a Laser Full Rig, and an RSX.