KIel Day 1

Day 1 of Kiel is in the bag! In classic Kiel fashion, the regatta kicked off with a shifty and puffy 12-20knots with higher gusts with temperatures in the 50s. With the fleet split into two divisions with 27 boats in each, the Race Committee decided to break the day in two with each fleet racing two, then coming ashore while the other group raced, then racing two more. This made the day that much longer as we had to manage to stay warm in the down time between our set of races.

After a long day in difficult and blustery conditions we are sitting in 45th place out of 58 with a few boats unable to finish or sustained a breakdown(23-20-22-19). We are happy with our performance on the day considering our lack of practice recently(4 month break plus the 4 days before the event were 3-7knots), specifically our ability to keep our mast dry for all but one time in the first race! Our downwinds were pretty hairy but we managed to control the chaos and pulled off some good gybes while also keeping the boat upright when we fumbled from wing to wing. Our speed upwind was quite good relative to other boats in the fleet but there is still room to improve in the consistency and changing modes with varying conditions.

Our little hiatus due to Jesse finishing school was most visibly seen in the starting- with conditions as they were, and a super pin favored line, good boat handling=good start. Though we did see improvement through the day and managed to have a lane in the final race, our starting was something to be desired. This, however, did not faze us as we are not well rehearsed in our windy,shifty starting routine and our larger sailing around the course gave us much optimism on the day.

Off to bed, and with a lighter forecast in store for us tomorrow, we hope we can put together some moments and hopefully get a couple good scores!

Video clip of the racing: http://www.world-of-sailing.info/index.php?id=184


Jesse