Sailing Magazine
News from Graeme Willcox after the first race of the 49er South America Champs (pre-Worlds) was not as encouraging as one may have hoped, but the guys are there, on the water and determined to be the third South African boat in Rio 2016.
Graeme Said: “Today was a light day with the sea breeze not quite filling in and with it being so unsettled, there were some big pressure differences and switches. This meant that there were lots of opportunities to both gain and loose positions on each leg. Our starts are a bit rusty, but will get them polished up by the worlds. After the second race the RO moved the course closer to the city as the wind backed towards the east. It looked like the wind would turn and build so we went up a rig setting. However the wind just got more patchy. So we lacked a bit of pace in the third race upwind and coupled with the worst start of the day, it gave us our discard.
“Tomorrow we expect a light offshore wind, so this might generate a better sea breeze. We are the later start tomorrow and will find out which fleet we are in later when the fleet splits are posted.”
Go guys – you have huge support here at home – so just do it.
