….or maybe for fishing…..but as yet not for sailing. I knew from the outset this was likely to be a light weather contest, and if we get a contest at all that’s certainly what it will be!
Merran and I arrived in El Balis early yesterday after a night in Barcelona doing the tourist thing. Balis is a nice part of Spain, lovely beaches, good food, cheap beer and wine, just no bloody wind.
My Charter boat arrived just after we did and seems fine I think, a 2013 classic with all the bells and whistles. Spent yesterday afternoon sorting out the boat as there was zero wind, then had dinner with one of the Aussie guys and his family which was nice.
Today bugger all wind again, it peaked late morning at maybe 6 or 7 knots and just softened from that point onwards. Registration and measurement kicked off today, which for most of the fleet meant getting sails measured and nothing more. However I was one of the “random” 10 boats selected out of 350 for full measurement which I wasn’t thrilled about. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise though as it only took 30 minutes and it meant that I went straight to the front of the 3 hour queue for sail measurement.
Then I got out for my first sail late this afternoon, it really was average sailing sitting on the traveller the whole time never even close to making the side deck and the breeze varying between 0 and 5 knots with 90 degree shifts.
Tomorrow is another training day in theory, then the practice race is Sunday and the regatta kicks off Monday. Weather models for the week are not too encouraging at this point, There are a couple of days with perhaps some wind but most of the week looks like a drifter, the photo below from my hotel window says it all. Have lost all faith in PredictWind for this venue, at various time all of their models have shown decent breeze here and it has never materialised, back to looking at wind guru now. Think the problem is we’re just not getting the anticipated heat in the daytime.
