July 18th

Another day of waiting……

The skippers’ meeting was held at 11:00 and the teams got divided into four smaller fleets of about 40 each. The race committee sent out two teams first. Dane and Newt were in the second wave. All was looking promising: a nice breeze, the ramp was repaired and it wasn’t raining.  Seemed to take the race committee a while to set courses. Apparently the lake is so deep it takes 20 minutes to sink a concrete block for the marks. By the time they were ready, the breeze died. Finally started one race only to abandon. Dane and Newt just waited for their fleet to head out. Then the familiar story…. The sky darkened, thunder clapped and we’re in the middle of  another lightning storm. I drove down to the sail base. The boys were safe in the grotto waiting to see if it would pass. Boats were still trying to get in. The temporary ramp system is very primitive and only a few boats at a time can come in. Several boats had capsized, but eventually everyone made it in safely. Noticed a few sailors had abandoned their boats. Which is the advise we’ve given the US Teams: “the boats are replaceable, but you are not.” We waited until about 6pm until the race committee finally called it a day.

I'm sure it was more of a "lost in translation" thing, but we thought it was amusing when the race committee explained the emergency plan if a thunder storm rolls through. He said:  “If you are strong, sail in.  If you are not, flip your boat, and wait for assistance”… Luckily our boys passed the test and were strong enough to scramble in. Some were not so lucky and abandoned their boats. 


Dane and I checked into our hotel. It’s lovely and right in front of the racecourse. We went to a quick dinner for pizza and salad again. Here's the view from our room.