Yesterday we got blue sky and light southerly winds were expected, but first we had to wait for one hour. Imagine: normally start at 2 pm and you can sail till 8 pm …cool and relaxt…
In 1-2 bft. quite shifty, we got a not such good start but played the shifts very well and so we led at the first mark ahead of Cicero Hartmann (vice-world champion 2007) and made some distance to the fleet. This worked to the third beat. There we got mostly all shifts in a wrong way and suddenly all advantage was gone and we ended up “only” as fifth at the last windward mark. The downwind to the finish turned to a real thriller, coz Warburg was leading and the five boats came closer and closer together.
With a few nice gybes we could position ourselves as most inside boat and establish an overlap shortly before the mark to Fernando Krahe and Gustavo Warburg; then a perfect gybe and to the finish and we won…what a crew-work...
Five boats in between ten seconds and we got it home…very satisfied we “destroyed” our food: lots of fantastic bananas.
During the second race, the wind increased up to 3 bft, but still very shifty. And changing.
We started at the favoured pin end and tried to get the shifts in the right way. Even it doesn`t work perfect, we rounded as fifth.
Ernesto Neugebauer was leading and showed the whole race, how strong the sailors from the “middle field” can race.
During the race Ernesto, Daniel Glomb and us could make some distance to the fleet and led around the last windward mark.
Again we could position us inside with a nice move ând overroll Ernesto, even he fighted hard. Daniel came from outside but we safed the inside position at the mark and won the race in front of Ernesto and Daniel….what a day…happiness on board and on the hour back to the harbor we celebrated…with lots of water…
In general I would say, that the quality of the fleet is really high. Nearly the whole fleet acts very clear with the manouvres and rules. The boat speed is in average very good, what shows again, that a lot of sailing brings a lot of experience.
In night time we had another party which, so I`ve been told, enden late after midnight.
Stay tuned…next report follows soon

Complete results at:
www.soling.com/results/ShowResults.asp?ID=587