Friday, August 08, 2008

Olympic News

With the official opening ceremony today, I'll be glued to the TV until we fly out to overlap with the end of the event. It will be cool to be out in China for the end of the Games and to catch up with everybody out there. The RYA run the Paralympic program as three extra Olympic classes, and so it is funny to now have the Olympics upon us, and we were still out on the water training in Weymouth.

Something I'll watch with interest is if Mitch Booth, and the USA team of Lovell and Ogletree use their code zero style spinnakers.... Most of the fleet have tested their own version, most dismissed the idea, but these guys stuck with it. It has the potential to be very quick upwind. When we first went to asymetrics on the Tornado we all played with it in the light stuff, and it was quick but low. A smaller specific sail could be an interesting weapon upwind, but the penalty downwind?.... It will be interesting to see.

Word from China seems to have pretty quiet that the practice races for the Finn and Yngling fleets were abandoned yesterday due to no wind! A light start to the regatta is forecast.

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