Sunday - Thunder and Lightning!

We Arrived at Lake Como late in the evening, the drive from Ancona taking considerably longer than advertised. After a few trial laps round the lake we eventually found the event site, got rid of the trailer, found somewhere to stick some tents up and at last made it into the village of Gravedona for a couple of remarkably expensive beers. Camping, having not done it for a few years, is more enjoyable than i remembered. Tremendous thunder storm with very heavy rain was perhaps more than we bargained for.
Sunday morning, more rain. Got boat built nicely, more sponsors stickers on the sail. Managed to convince the race office that we were in fact Italian and we could enter the Italian Nationals. After postponement dropped got to the start line with plenty of time with absolutely no wind at all until another squall came through. Great conditions with driving rain giving the eyeballs a good rinse.
Well done to race officer who decided that we should go in.
Suddenly around 100 catamarans all turned downwind, spinnakers up and a frantic race to get back to the slipway commenced. We won.
I did however get struck by lightning on the way. No harm done, Marko found it quite entertaining.
Gravedona has one slipway, around 5 boat lengths wide. This is being used for 250 boats. The bun fight that we witnessed after our boat was safely back in the compound was priceless.


Team Wildwind are sponsored by;
stephenreadsurveys.com, globosys.com, sail racing, minoan lines ferrys, trekking hellas(thanks for the leaky tents George) active shop vassiliki, laura slater photography, quantum, dirty swine flu, dirty dog sunglasses and Wildwind Sailing Holiday