Woman Skiff Evaluation Day 7

This morning was similar to the past two days with very light winds. We postponed sailing for the morning. Yesterday Marie bought a volleyball and we decided to play a game of keep up. Initially it was just us, the Danes, and the girls from Singapore. However, the crowd quickly grew and some multihull evaluation sailors (from the Netherlands) and some of the Viper team joined us. Later, the girls from New Zealand (Molly and Alex) and a Frenchman also joined the game. We strung a piece of string across the parking lot to act as a net, and all the cars and vans could fit under it nicely! We played all morning until our briefing at 11. It was a lot of fun, and only slightly competitive!

At 11 we were told we had an hour for lunch and to get out on the water. We were sailing the 29er XX and then the Arup Skiff that afternoon on a similar format as yesterday. We were excited to head out onto the open ocean again for some more races. We started in the 29er XX and the manufacturers were sailing the other boat. We got out to the course and were greeted by close to 2 meter rolling waves, and a strong breeze. We started the first race and found it a challenge to keep up with the bigger hulled boats in the waves. We had to work the boat really hard. We had an ok first race, which was nice. In the second race we barely made it through the start line, but had a good first upwind. The breeze had picked up a bit. On our hoist we hit a wave that sucked the spin under the boat. This lead to a capsize. We got it up initially but could not get sorted in time for another capsize. The boat was really difficult to get up in the waves, and it kept rolling over. Once we got it up we had to head in because we were very tired and cold, having been in the water for over half an hour. Our spin halyard also got wrapped around the top of our mast, which was preventing us from hoisting.

All the boats are in fairly early today to rest up and repair for tomorrow. We haven’t heard official reports from anyone yet, but it looked like the smaller boats all had trouble today. There seems to be a lot of boat repair going on at the moment. We have a meeting in a couple of minutes, and it will be interesting to see how everyone managed today, and to hear everyone’s capsize stories.

Tonight, we don’t have any plans yet, but we will probably take it easy, we’re all very tired. Our Danish roommates leave in the morning, so we will probably have dinner with them.

Tomorrow, we expect medium wind conditions and warm weather. You can find out more about today and fun photos of our volleyball game at www.2016equipmentevaluation.wordpress.com .