Saturday 16 April 2011

ESS 2011, China, Qingdao day 3

The third day in Qingdao was spectacular, difficult, amazing and unique. Wind shifts of 180 degrees, temperature drops from 20 to 6 degrees, gusts up to 25 knots and patches with no wind.

We did only four races, but in those no less then five boats were either severely damaged or capsized. Only one incident was the result of a collision and we are hearing the request for redress later today. The same boat capsized in the last race after they managed to repair their tillerbar and rudder, so it took them a long time to come in.

I promised a couple of pictures of the venue, but that is not happening, because it takes to long to upload - and I'm using someone else's laptop, and the connection is too unstable. I'll do them when I'm back home.

The rules in these circumstances are not suspended but it gets harder to be in the right place every time. If the wind shifts you suddenly need to be behind the boats. Also because we are the ones who are closest to the boats, usually we are the ones next to a capsize. So we stop and count heads and wait for the safety boats to arrive, before continuing. And then it's full throttle to catch up.

Today I'm doing some judging/umpiring for radio controlled racing in a pool ashore in the morning and in the afternoon back to the extremes.


0 comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...