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Hi All, we’re going to try to keep a daily log of the happenings here at the ISAF World Sailing Games in Austria. Keep checking back for updates, news and pictures.

Greg & Jacques

The ISAF World Sailing Games start tomorrow. The event site is: http://www.worldsailinggames2006.at/index_en.php



The event is in Austria. Multihull sailing is on Hobie Tigers and Hobie 16s provided by Hobie Cat France.

USA Men’s Multihull
Thomas Greg (Skipper)
Bernier Jacques (Crew)



USA Men’s Multihull
Jason Ollie (Skipper)
Jason Kelli (Crew)

USA Women’s Multihull
Nelson Annie (Skipper)
Korzeniewski Susan (Crew)

USA Women’s Multihull
Tartaglino Sandra (Skipper)
McKenna Teri (Crew)

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

And we’re off…Our trip started at 530am CA time and 23 hours later we are now in Austria. No sleep yet and now it’s too late to sleep as we’ll throw off our time so we’ll have to stay up till normal bedtime now, only another 6 or 8 hours. No problem… Still at the airport so we don’t know what our internet connection will be like once we get to the race site. We’ll try posting again once we get a chance.

Greg & Jacques

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

We finally made it…3 hours at the airport and then another 2 hours at the sailors accreditation center and we made it to the race site (Podersdorf) at around 7pm. We’re staying at a great little inn just a couple of blocks from where the boats are kept. Still no internet connection though, everyday the story is that it will be tomorrow…tomorrow…

Today was a practice day, a morning session and a afternoon session. Not a lot of wind all day so both practices were about in the same conditions. We chose the afternoon session so as we wouldn’t have to rig a boat, seems that most everybody else were thinking the same thing as there were only 3 boats used in the morning session so most had to rig a boat anyway. The boats are basically just like the boat we’re sailing at home except for a few differences; the spin halyard is on the mast, the jib downhaul is ran a little different than in the past, rather than have the pulley on the spin pole, the block is hanging from the bridle drum, then over to the bridle plate where it goes through another pulley and then back to a cleat on the front x-bar. Other than that haven’t noticed any other changes.

Greg & Jacques

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

Day 2 of practice and there was no wind for the morning session. The wireless connection finally became available and it was funny to see all of the laptops break out and everybody getting caught up on everything. The afternoon sesssion is getting ready to start now and it looks like there will be some wind. We're going to try and make it out there, so we'll check back later.



Greg & Jacques

Thanks to:

HOBIE CAT
HOBIE POLARIZED
KOKATAT

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

We got in another decent practice day today - this time we looked around the course more - taking both sides trying to figure out this tricky lake. We had a good result in the second race (as well as the first) and our speed is fine...so this is good.

Nice place here - been meeting lots of new faces, and catching up with old friends. So far so good. We're still tied for first!

Racing starts tomorrow - then we'll have our opening ceremonies...should be nice to see all the teams together.

There hasn't been much to take pictures of yet - but I did send a few to Matt..maybe he can post something for us.

(Here ya go Jacques...)

Jacques "Working"



Later,

JB

Thanks to:

HOBIE CAT
HOBIE POLARIZED
KOKATAT

JB - you've got to know that winning the practice race is bad juju.

I hope you guys hook up with the Puerto Ricans and have them kill a chicken for you.

Good luck this week!

How NOT to start a World Championship...

Have the spinnaker on backwards...clew attached to tack line. Luckily we were out to the start a bit early and were able to get it fixed, but definately was not very pleasant on the boat for a few minutes.

Anyway, the racing started today, wind was up in the morning and has been dying all day long. The first group raced 2 races and now we're in for the rest of the day. The women are out sailing right now and when they're done the 2nd group of the Men's group will go out.

The first race we were in the top 5 pretty much the entire race. I think we rounded the first mark in 5th and were up as high as 2nd before we overstood a gate mark and had to take the spin down early, losing a couple of boats.

The 2nd race it was team North America leading the way at the top mark, Armando Jr. in 1st and us close behind in 2nd. Didn't last long though as we headed off on starboard and the rest of the fleet jibed behind us. By the bottom mark Armando and us were in around 12th. Then it was up and down, I think we dropped even further back at some point and then got back up to 6th and think we finished up in 8th.

It's all just practice for now as this is only the qualifying series, just make it through to the finals and our points are all equal again.

The winds are very shifty and puffy. You can be just a few boatlengths from another boat and in completely different winds and angles. LAKES...

When we see some results we'll try and post them. We're also going to try and get some pictures.

Greg & Jacques

Thanks to:

HOBIE CAT
HOBIE POLARIZED
KOKATAT

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

Susan & Annie 5 & 2
Greg & Jaques 4 & 9

Sandra, Ollie, Keki racing now

Conditions are Breezy & Shifty

Hobie Cat France provided all the Hobie 16s and Hobie Tigers

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Matt Miller
Director of Parts and Accessory Sales
Hobie Cat USA

Yeah, make sure you distance yourself from those sail color combos.

How very late '80's

Sounds like the Cali bunch should have flown here and trained at Sacandaga.....
" You can't get there from here"......

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Pat Bisesi
Fleet 204 Syracuse, NY

Wow either somone was color blind or wanted to get rid of old sail material.

I'll take white please.

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DVL 1989 H-18 Worlds Boat, Magnum Wings & Spinnaker

dale.vanlopik"at"att"dot"net

GO GIRL GO!!!!!!!!!!

Game face on!!!!!

ISAF Worlds - Day 2

The day started better, we rigged our spinnaker correct!!

The wind was a bit lighter than yesterday, probably in the 10 knot range but still as shifty and puffy.

Same format as yesterday, 2 races in the morning for the first mens group, then 2 races for the women and then late in the afternoon 2 races for the 2nd mens group.

Again, we were in the first group and had a better day, our finishes were 2 & 5, very happy with the results after yestday. Our downwind boat speed is great as we're always passing boats, and upwind we're pretty equal with the fleet, no real speed advantages.

The highlight of the day for us was that each race we beat Roman Hagara who is a local on this lake and is the twice Gold medal Tornado sailor.

The women are just getting in and Annie / Sue finished DFL in the first race and around 6 or 7 in the 2nd race. Not sure yet how the other US team of Sandra / Teri finished.

Some bad news is that Olli and Kelli Jason were forced to leave the regatta as per the Notice of Race listing the event as a Mens Multihull event. Nobody is happy about it but the Jury has rulled and there have been a few protest hearings and unfortunately they're out. On the bright side for them though is that they're geting out of here and are now planning on coming to Madcatter.

That's all for now, we'll try to post again later if we have any more results or stories.

GT

Just heard that the other women US team may not have had a good day as they finished just ahead of Annie in the first race and they're almost last to the beach after the 2nd race.
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Greg Thomas

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team

ISAF Worlds - Day 3

No racing yet. It's 2pm and still no wind. We're under postponement. Everybody just sitting around catching up with friends. A trickle of wind just came through and they have the women's teams on standby.

Overall, Annin and Sue are sitting in 6th (I think) overall, and we're sitting in 10th overall. Still a lot of racing to go and the points are still very close between all teams. After yesterday we're very anxious to get back on the boats and go racing, hopefully there will be wind later today.

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Greg Thomas
Hobie Factory Team