Already we’re leaving for Singapore tomorrow. It’s been good sailing and even better being with Liz and Tara.
Having a four-year-old around is certainly a form of exercise in itself! Case in point:
Jogging …
Cycling …
Playing ball …
Weights …
… and bench press.
Cutest barbell I’ve ever seen, I must say! 
Babysitting aside, it’s been a good warm-up for Kiel, which happens in two weeks. Back home for a week, and then we’re off to Germany!
We’ve just arrived in Sydney for a week-long training stint. Forecast looks like we should get some good wind – keep your fingers crossed for us! 10-20 degree weather is gonna be COLD, though.
It’s good timing; Singapore’s waters have just closed thanks to an oil spill off East Coast.
Brett’s wife, Liz, picked us up from the airport and we had her fisherman’s pie for dinner. Yummy! Even more so after a day of plane food.
Tomorrow we’ll be out on my favourite place in the world to sail (so far, anyway) – Sydney Harbour!
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.
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.
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.
The last two days have been Strong Wind Days. (Yes, with the capitals.) We capsized four times – two for each days. Yesterday was our longest day yet. And probably the coldest day so far with a high of 20 degrees. Brrrr!
The team has quite a number of repairs to carry out today. Yesterday Jov and Sara’s rudder broke into two pieces! I’ve never seen that before. I can only imagine how it must have been – sailing along in 20 knots, and suddenly the rudder starts to fall off. Freaky!
So now our house has become a bakery + repair shop at night – with the nightly bake going on in the kitchen and the gel-coat work happening just outside in the yard.
At least the food’s good! So far we’ve baked a quiche, chocolate chip cookies, pound cake, scones, and banana bread. We’re certainly becoming very domestic, even (or should I say especially) the boys. Yesterday Sara, Siobhan, and I went to deliver cake to Roy and we left the boys in charge of cooking. Dinner turned out well and no one has suffered diarrhea yet. 
I’m really enjoying the sailing here in Sydney Harbor, and offshore. For some reason, I’m really looking forward to those big waves. They scared the hell out of me the first time I tried sailing in them in a laser radial 2 years back. (I remember Brett asking me how many times I think I’ll capsize sailing downwind back to the club. I capsized 5 times.)
It’s nice now that there are 8 people here in the house. More hands to prepare and cook dinner. It’s fun too. We’ve been experimenting different dishes. Stir fried beef/chicken/pork with anything in the fridge, like carrots, capsicums… of course we marinated the meat first. The sweet corn here is sweet. Love. We made pork (with (spring) shallots, mushrooms) wantons tonight. YUMMY! We’ve got some that we haven’t cooked yet cos we had too much food. We also had pork ball with winter melon, carrots, 4 potatoes and onions soup tonight.
We’ve been baking too! Sara baked us a mushroom and leeks quiche the night she arrived. YUM. Last night and tonight we baked chocolate chip & pecan cookies. It’s confirmed. Better than Famous Amos. Will try to bake a Sara Lee Tan pound cake soon.
Tmr is gonna be cold and wet. Been sailing in tights and lycra the past few days, just like in Singapore. Weather’s been pretty good. Tmr’s probably a wetsuit and spray top day.
We’ve uploaded photos in the gallery. Check it out.
The forecast today was strongest in the morning so we had a morning session. Usually when we sail out of Woollahra Sailing Club, we turn right and head for the ‘Heads’ into open ocean. Today we turned left out of Rose Bay, passed Double Bay, and headed near where Sydney Opera House.
Very gusty stuff there. Lots of shifts as well. We also had to keep playing ‘Siam the Ferry’. (If a big green and yellow ferry comes charging through the water, get as far as you can away from it because those things are worse than sharks!)
*
Our team is complete now, as Sara and Jovina arrived this morning. We’re going to be pampered now because Sara loves to bake and she’s making a quiche for us tonight! I can smell the leeks cooking now already. Mmm!
Speaking of meals, Sean has hit on a tasty lunch solution (for him, anyway.)
Ham (and sometimes egg) sandwich … with jam.
Well, he looks quite happy eating it, doesn’t he?
We have to cook dinner for 8 tonight, so better get started early!
1 exam down, and 1 to go, for me. Dawn has 3 more to go. It’s pretty cool the school has allowed us to take it here in Sydney. (They forgot about me and didn’t send the paper here on time. But anyway, I still managed to get it done.)
We finally got our boats from the container depot after we passed the quarantine checks. They’re pretty strict about all this here in Australia. Anyway, we rigged up our own boat today and went for a short sail just to check everything’s working. Yup, everything’s working.
Oh, Sean and Joel are here. Joel brought along his imaginary friend from the plane. His imaginary friend was eating my sandwich this afternoon.
I don’t like the kind of weather where it’s warm when I wear a jacket and cold if I don’t. (aka today’s weather) Once we went out to sea it was nice. Just a wetsuit and lycra. Craig saw whales again!!! AND WE DIDN’T!
Well, I did see a flying fish that hovered above the water surface for a good 15 seconds. It had wings. Seriously.
We just had our rest day during the second-hottest November day on record in Sydney.
All I can say is thank goodness we’re doing container unpacking today and not yesterday! Our teammates Sean and Joel should be thankful they are arriving today and not yesterday as well – Joel especially, given his propensity towards sweating!
We’re moving out of Brett’s place and into a rental house in Bondi Junction today. And Siobhan has an exam. So we’ll only be back on the water tomorrow.
The forecast looks good. Probably none of this:
We like light wind, but we’re here for the strong stuff!
That’s the N12 main up – we’ve been testing it to see how we like it. Much flatter than the N10; we’ve yet to see if it’ll perform in the up range breeze though. But thus far, I quite like it.
