After the IT nationals I realised it was about time I learnt to sail. So I was happy to get invited by Walter to to a race at his club. This was a good opportunity to practice not crashing to things like camera boats, capsized boats and basically anything that does not move. However the fleet of Yachts decided to to a long distance race. So Walter and I looked good off the line starting down by the pin to avoid the bumper tubs at the start boat. We cleared out to the first Island and Walter was a bit to fast for my liking. Luckily he hit submarines made of weed twice and then had to raise his foils to get round the shallow bit of the Island. I flew round without hitting anything (probably because it was under the muddy water so I did not know where it was) which left me with a hero's lead heading for the tree island on my own. I say heading, but I was heading for a small bed of reeds with a tree on it on a background reeds and trees. This Island was about 3 kilometres away as the Moth flies so naturally I made a mess of it and became a zero as fast as you can say "were da fukawii"*. Anyway that was it for training the next sail will be at the Euros, which I am really looking forward to.
Looks like the Austrian fleet may grow by 50% after the Euros which is fantastic news. I hope we will be in position to apply for official IMCA status at the Worlds so that next year we have another official National Association. There is certainly growing enthusiasm and I think we are close to critical mass. I am aware that the format of racing is all wrong here and we need to come up with some kind of better structure if we are to do more than look for trees and things to crash into. The Commodore of my Club Helmet is a top bloke and will be race officer at the Euros but to run an official race in Austria you need someone of his qualification. Therefore a light weight format need to evolve for training and fun racing. I and Niki are working on it but I need bigger plastic bottles for buoys than the 1.5 litre ice tee ones that you can not see until you crash into them. Niki thinks we should team up with the Cats which may work better.
Tomahawk has found a new home and it is great to see someone having fun in her again:
I have also become a measurer so that the Austrian team we can turn up to the Euros all fully raced prepared...
When I think back to the IT Nationals I am no longer surprised that we Austrians did not get on the podium as there were 6 of the top 10 world competitors there. This just goes to show how competitive the SEX (Southern Europe granpriX) fleet is. (ITA 9, 6, 11, SUI 3, SUI 9). Maybe Sail numbers and the new rules and flag/name stickers are rubbish.
I am reading a book called The Art of Unix Programming
which is truly inspiring stuff, and makes me want to program something that is worth while. I had a brief flirt with an Android Contact Provider for the IMCA site but decided to not be responsible to corrupting mobile phones an personal data. However 5% of the hits on the IMCA site are now mobile devices, so I think it is time for a mobile version of the site. So please fire your thoughts/ideas/requests/complaints at me, so that I can think about building something useful.
See you up the hill.
