Photo: ILCA website 2009
July 31, 2009
Karatsu, Japan
Today we enjoyed the first day of gold fleet racing here in Karatsu, Japan at the 2009 Laser Radial World Championships. We had good wind with a slightly smaller swell than the past few days, but it still made for some physical racing. I had a pretty good day finishing with a 2, 10 to lie second overall, one point behind Sari Mutala from Finland.
The racing today was slightly different than the last two days. We had a little more left angle on the upwind legs which meant that it wasn’t just a race to the right corner. I had much better starts today and had a clean lane to sail my boat fast. I rounded both top marks in the top seven each race, however, in the last race I found every hole downwind that I could possibly find and went very slowly, hence finishing 10th. But during the sail in, the sun finally came out and most people were happy that we had a good day. The race committee is doing a fantastic job of getting us racing on time and not sitting around too long. Every day we have finished and been sailing in by 14:30, which leaves plenty of time for the rest of the day to do touristy things and explore.
Tonight on my way to dinner, I am going to stop by a tea store to check out some Japanese teas with some of my fellow Americans. I’m looking forward to it and have heard about a special green tea which I’m keen to try. It’s a powered tea that is supposed to allow you to be alert and relax your mind for meditation, but I’m not sure if that’s from the caffeine, guess I’ll check it out and see.
July 31, 2009
Karatsu, Japan
Today we enjoyed the first day of gold fleet racing here in Karatsu, Japan at the 2009 Laser Radial World Championships. We had good wind with a slightly smaller swell than the past few days, but it still made for some physical racing. I had a pretty good day finishing with a 2, 10 to lie second overall, one point behind Sari Mutala from Finland.
The racing today was slightly different than the last two days. We had a little more left angle on the upwind legs which meant that it wasn’t just a race to the right corner. I had much better starts today and had a clean lane to sail my boat fast. I rounded both top marks in the top seven each race, however, in the last race I found every hole downwind that I could possibly find and went very slowly, hence finishing 10th. But during the sail in, the sun finally came out and most people were happy that we had a good day. The race committee is doing a fantastic job of getting us racing on time and not sitting around too long. Every day we have finished and been sailing in by 14:30, which leaves plenty of time for the rest of the day to do touristy things and explore.
Tonight on my way to dinner, I am going to stop by a tea store to check out some Japanese teas with some of my fellow Americans. I’m looking forward to it and have heard about a special green tea which I’m keen to try. It’s a powered tea that is supposed to allow you to be alert and relax your mind for meditation, but I’m not sure if that’s from the caffeine, guess I’ll check it out and see.
Tomorrow we will have two more races before we have the final day of racing on Sunday. The racing is still tight and if we get ten races in, two races will be dropped from our scores, so things will shuffle around a little. You can check the results here at the regatta website.
I would like to thank my sponsor Carmeuse for their continued support of my campaign towards the 2012 Olympics in London. I would also like to thank US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics for their support.
Sail Hard,
Anna
