Aug 14 - Sail For Gold Complete

After 5 days of racing the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth is complete. We had two races each day and stayed mostly on schedule which is pretty amazing considering some of the other courses struggled with this. Thursday the breeze was very similar to Wednesday but from the NE, which meant it was coming over the cliff beside our race course. This made for some interesting puffy and shifty conditions! We continued to struggle with our starts and pointing but had good downwind speed and made some good tactical decisions. In the first race of the day we ended up on the left side of the course when a big right shift came down, but we managed to consolidate back towards the middle on some smaller shifts. We caught up and managed to pass the Polish boat and sailed a smart downwind to finished ahead.
 
Friday the breeze was even lighter and more fluky with huge shifts coming down the course. The first race we were set up all nicely on the starting line and at 15 seconds the Spanish women (who were leading the regatta) stole our hole and we were sewered off the line. The breeze was in a right phase at the start so the fleet headed off on starboard tack. We sailed and sailed and instead of shifting back left after 5 minutes like the wind had been doing for the hour before the start, it just stayed right. So we were caught out on the left side but we weren't alone; the world champions and half the fleet were out there too! The second race of the day and the last day of the regatta took a while to get off, as the breeze was all over the place. After several postponements and general recalls we actually managed to get a good start! We were with the fleet and had clean air.  We played the shifts upwind and rounded ahead of a dozen boats or so. A large black cloud had moved overhead and we were treated to a small squall that lasted for the next two legs of the course. The breeze then completely shut off after the squall, and the reach was a painfully slow run. We remained calm and sailed for pressure and finished ahead of three boats. The finish was a mess as the entire fleet had compressed on the reach/run and there was a lot of shouting ahead of us! We were very pleased with the day's sailing and it was a good end to the event. 
 
Today we packed up the boat for transport. It is being driven to Istanbul by one of the German teams, by way of Kiel. The fun regatta (President's Cup) we were going to do in Istanbul has had the dates changed, so we are no longer able to participate. Instead of heading straight to Istanbul we are going back to Kiel to train for a week before heading to Turkey for 470 Europeans.