We’ve had two trying days here in Qingdao. Light air and heavy flood current made racing yesterday marginal at best. We went out, returned to shore for an hour and half postponement and then went back out before racing Friday. Yesterday we went afloat in a breezy offshore northerly. After setting a course and starting a sequence, the breeze started its rotation towards the onshore seabreeze. While every course except the medal race courses got their full schedule of races in for the day, the Lasers and Radials committee could only get one race off before the flood tide started to rip across the racecourse. The current was essentially strong enough to lay any mark directly to windward because the current created so much apparent. We waited for about two hours as the committee started and abandoned subsequent radial starts and sat through long postponements. Finally, just as the late seabreeze seemed to be outmatching the fading flood tide, the committee signaled AP over A and the abandonment of the day’s racing. We’d spent another wonderful six hours on the water for one race.
Some of us need a chance to redeem ourselves after putting up a couple of tough scores in the painfully puffy and shifty light air. At the start of yesterday’s race, realizing that I was going to be over the line, I pressed to down the line to make sure that didn’t happen. In the process I mistakenly fouled a boat to leeward and was forced to take a penaly turn. Luckily the two boats to windward of me were DSQ for the race, but because of the early penalty I had a hard time coming back and only managed to get to the mid thirties.
Today is supposed to be a windy day, and again, for the sixth day in a row we’re going to go out an hour earlier for a scheduled three races. The medal races are stacking up as well due to the funky breeze they’ve had near the seawall on A course. Today should be the day for Finns, Ynglings and 49ers, 470s will race on A tomorrow.
