Cat Drifter
It’s Day Three of racing, and we’ve had five races so far in the Women’s Multihull class. Yesterday the wind never came up so we sat on the beach and relaxed. Today, the Hobie Tiger fleet had two races in the morning with the first round robin group. Team USA, Greg Thomas and Jacques Bernier, dominated with a 1-2. In the Women’s division we had only one race in light winds as well. Our third-place finish put us back up to second overall. The points are tight and there are still 11 races to go. The leaders in our division are sisters from Italy-they’re 18 and 19. This is their first big regatta, and they are sailing extremely well and are thrilled to be in front. The second group in the round robin for the Tigers was sent off the beach at 4:45 p.m. and they will try to even up the races by having two races before nightfall. The good news is it doesn’t get dark here until 8:30. The forecast doesn’t show much promise for strong winds but hopefully it will come soon. Our U.S.A. teammates Kelly and Olli Jason from the Tiger Fleet have been good sports about not being allowed to sail. After more hearings they were told to go home. Because the USA doesn’t even have Men’s multihull events, we had an Open qualifier for the ISAF Worlds. Kelly trained for 16 months to be here and she deserved to sail. It all goes back to the fact that there wasn’t going to be a Women’s event and when they added it someone incorrectly thought that keeping the Tiger class Open would dilute the Women’s event. Except that none of us would have sailed in that event. The girls that did qualify as skippers for Tigers were turned away and are not racing the 16’s. However, Kelly was not, and even went through registration and sailed for one day before they realized their mistake. So there will be discussion after this. For now, we are so happy to be here and sailing in such a great regatta. For complete results: www.worldsailinggames2006.at -Annie and Susan
