Regatta day 1

Today was the start of the regatta proper. After an earlier breakfast, we went by bus to the regatta site and set up for the first 2 races. It turned out to be a long day with a total of approx 6 hrs on the water as there was not much wind.

The sailors were divided into flights, installed their GPS trackers and were away. However, after 40 mins on the water, we found that a simple mistake had been made in the fleet allocation, with one Israli girl being allocated to a boys fleet. This impacted all fleet allocations for countries below 'I' alphabetically, so coaches needed to come ashore to collect new ribbons. Meanwhile, the wind dropped off and sailors came ashore.

After 30mins wait, wind filled in and everybody relaunched for racing. The day never got beyond a light breeze, but there was enough to get all 4 fleets away for 2 races.

Both of our sailors suffered from poor starts as did the Kiwis, but appeared to have good boat-speed. Carolina got a 37th and 16th in girls fleet & Tom 39th & 48th in boys fleet. Nothing to be proud of today, but let's hope we can get some better starts tomorrow! Clearly, this is the area to improve on as everybody in the fleet was sharp on the line and well coached in starting.

Check event website for full results lists at http://europti.home.pl/allresults.html

See some event photos at http://www.europti2010.pl/gallery/6-first-day-of-the-race.html

Adults spent the afternoon trying to track the racing via the big screen GPS coverage in the press office or watching the live video feed of the racing on giant screens at the venue. One giant screen was set up alongside the stage in the town square where full orchestra was rehearsing for an outdoors classical concert tonight.

Nobody I spoke to had ever listened to a live orchestra whilst watching live racing on on-shore screens and tracking postions on laptops. Quite a display of technology by the Polish organisers!