Pre-worlds update :)
Hi everyone, We thought we would update you on our trip so far… The first four or five days we were here in Marseille the Mistrale was blowing, so it was too windy to go out sailing. Between setting up the boat and getting settled in we managed to fit in some sightseeing, since there was no chance of getting on the water with the Mistrale cranking! It was really cool to see some of the older parts of Marseille, especially the old port and the Basilica Notre Dame de la Garde. Apart from that crazy breeze the weather has been awesome since we arrived with constant sun, which is a really nice contrast to the winter training we’ve had in NZ!
Having that extra bit of rest really worked in our favor as it gave Ellie’s ankle time to heal too. with plenty of RICEing (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) it has improved so much, and has been just fine in our training sails so far! It seems like the regatta will start of pretty light too, which might help further, although we really hope that the breeze fills enough for the racing to get away nicely (the current forecast is looking very light for the next few days).
We feel that we’ve been really lucky with the boat we are chartering, as it’s a really good one! We have it all set up as close to our boat at home as possible, and have resolved a few minor issues with the centerboard and grip. Everything now seems to be working sweet and is ready for the regatta to start tomorrow!
The practice race today was in awesome conditions, about 10-12 knots sea breeze with plenty of sun too! We’re hoping that we’ll get more of this during the regatta, although the forecast suggests otherwise. It was really exciting for us to get on a start line with a decent FX fleet, since we have never really started with more than 8 boats! Hopefully all of the down speed boat handling we have done in recent training will pay off in these close boat-on-boat situations. After our practice race the organizers wanted us to have an all in “mass start”, with the 49ers and FXs on one huge startline! The line and the course were set terribly, but it was pretty funny and definitely a good spectacle for the sponsors! Hopefully there will be some good photos on the website soon.
All in all, we’re feeling really excited for this regatta to finally start – bring it on! Erica and Ellie 🙂
