2009 World 505 Champs Day One Round Up.

The Worlds day 1 is now drawing to an end and holly s*$% it has been a windy and challenging one!  There was about 10 kts when we got to the club so that was the first indicator that there was going to be a heap of wind around.  Little did we know what would unveil.  The first race kicked off in about 20 kts and built to close on 30, we had a reasonable race with the exception of hitting the top mark on the first windward which was the better option as we had 80 boats nose to tail behind us on the lay line proving that a 360 was far better then trying to get back around into the line up. As the breeze built it led to some wild rides downhill then nearing the top mark for the 3rd time the rudder fell off turned out the retaining pin had stretched open and fallen out, rudder back on and pin in we finished in 26th.

Race 2 saw a steady increase from 32 to 38kts on the first windward and that was the way it stayed for the remainder of the race got a great start and first work in that put us into 14th at the top mark. Had a wipe out under kite at the bottom mark and swamped the boat dropping us back a few then on the last downwind with about 6 boats in a pack in front of us who didn't put up a kite, we went for it, all good took off at a million knots of boat speed (well that’s what it felt like at the time!) then the kite halyard slipped and the kite rolled out to windward and in we went to windward, the boat felt really sluggish on the last beat turned out that we had about 50l of water in the front tank so moral of the story for the rest of the week keep it upright. But we ended up in 28th in the second race putting us in 22nd overall

The breeze is so full on and its so cold, air temp was only 12deg today so the wind felt like 45knots to us and it was carnage on the water.  Total when we left the club was 11 rigs today but that was just what we could tell from rigs in 2 pieces or more, there was also a lot of really bent ones so it will be interesting to find out the total.