Early Tuesday, the northerly wind was blowing, a whole flock of floundering windsurfers probably wondering why they bothered sailing on this lake when it seems to be always like a bad day in Vassiliki (for windsurfing - big kit sporadic planing)
Again, much debate was going on as to what this meant, again, no one had much of a clue.
We sailed out to the committee boat for the planned start at 1300 hoping that the race officer was on our side and wouldn't start until there was some decent breeze. He was on our side and decent breeze was afoot once we started and hour later.
Race one - disaster (minor) we ballsed the start, not putting the hammer down until too late which put us in the back 1/3 of the fleet going up the first beat. Using new leeward overtaking knowledge (from the Greeks) our boat speed was incredible compared to everyone else.
By the time we reached the first mark we had overtaken 10 boats then another half a dozen downwind then more upwind the second time.
Good breeze was coming through more, probably around 18 knots coming into the finish. Not a great result but some very fast sailing and a good opportunity to put new knowledge to the test.
Team Globalshots post racing
Race two, we weren't going to be caught out on the start again. We spotted good pressure towards the pin so we hammered it that way for the gun, got away clean, leaving all but the heroic port flyer behind us (he crossed the whole fleet) then general recall.
Restart saw many of the top runners including Dannis and Kostas starting as we had the first time so it was more competitive down out end as before, we however got away clean, tacked to port once the lane was clear and sent it upwind - got to the mark around 10th - ver busy.
By the time we got round again we'd gone hard left upwind whereas many had opted right. Approaching the windward mark the second time we were clocking in at 3rd position, taking 2nd shortly after.
We had a small incident on the downwind which meant we had to perform a 360 degree turn to exonerate ourselves.
3rd race we got away very clean, wind was dimishishing throughout, not our best conditions - placing around 10th at the windward mark. Kite up, Marko out on the wire and then our spinnaker cleat decides that it's had enough - this cost us a few positions as we tried to sort it out.
Quite some tactical genius up the last beat (we did the same as had been working every time while many tried it up the other side) saw us pass many boats.
Our results now;
10, 11, 14, 8, 9
leaving us in 10th overall.
Lake Garda Sunset
Probably the most physically demanding day's sailing for quite some time)
Hopefully just 2 tomorrow.
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