Racing Starts on Sunday
After a week of team processing, traveling, measurement and practice things are starting to get going in Rio.
We had a practice race today in a nice fifteen knot seabreeze. The locals started on port along with PUR, GUA and VEN. Liza and I started on starbord with the rest but soon tacked. The Brazilians ripped out to the right (the shore side) and got a nice lead at the top mark followed by VEN and GUA. We were right behind with PUR and MEX behind us. The shore side paid again on the run but we wend down the middle. Brazil, Venesuela and Guatemala all went to the shore and were well ahead.
The Mexicans stayed to the shore side of us and got us on the run. PUR went the other way and remained behind. Not much changed on the next leg when teams started bailing out of the race.
The practice race is more of a speed check than anything and the Brazilians were fast today. We have an interesting mix of comptips and all aluminum masts.
The Brazilians have been sailing with an all aluminum mast all week and switched to a comptip just before measurement. VEN and GUA and MEX are all aluminum. USA and PUR have comp tips.
The real racing starts tomorrow.
http://www.rio2007.org.br
Bill´s Blog on the Lightning class
http://lightninginrio.blogspot.com/2007 ... ocess.html
Andrews Laser blog
http://www.campbellsailing.com/