Race Day 1

Going into the first day of racing, our plan was to ease the other competitors into a false sense of security. First, we have a painted boat and it's never been measured before (they all have white and measure them all the time). During the measurement process we had to alter the shape of our rudder, bend a metal ring so its distance from the mast was significantly less, and finally, our boat was approximately 40 kg overweight. I can't say for sure how the other boats did with their measurements, but we didn't see any drastic changes. One crew came up to us and asked how the spinnaker ring bent so much and the guy that had measured it laughed and said 'you're really going to trust this thing?' On top of all this, after getting through the measurement process and fixing everything, we took three tries and one halyard run to get the mast up properly... directly in front of our other competitors! Afterward, we confused all their opinions by being the only team to go out in a rainstorm to practice.

Today is the first day of racing and the plan is to do well! It has been really windy the past few days, but according to the locals the weather is very diverse. All through the OK Dinghy regatta there seemed to be pretty consistent and good wind. With a light crew, we were nervous how the other teams would do with speed in heavy air, but it doesn't really seem like that will be an issue now that we're here and have sized up the competition... it's anyone's game!

Other than the sailing, there are a few other things to get used to since I've never traveled overseas before. You wouldn't notice it, but all of the doors in the United States seem to be pretty universal on how they open and close. Here, all the doors to our bedrooms open out to the hallway and after a few minutes of trying to pull what seems to be a very heavy door you feel stupid when it pushes. Walking down the street and hearing different languages surround you is a pretty neat experience and watching all the different fashion trends is even more exciting! Finally, reading menus in different languages makes for an exciting meal.

Overall things are going well and we're excited to see how the first race day goes!