Nikki and I have been out here in holland since Friday evening, and we haven’t wasted a second. Following an incredibly slow trip from calais with all of holland’s bank holiday traffic we eventually arrived in the pretty town of Medemblik in the late evening. Because of the lateness we were forced to abandon our original plan of rigging that evening, and instead retired to our very quaint bungalow park and found our accommodation.
Dutch home.
Saturday we in the dinghy park early and quickly started to rebuild the boat, there were as ever a few changes and upgrades adding while we put her together and by the afternoon Peggy Sue was looking great and ready to roll. We had an epic sail that day, with much more wind than expected, and the famous Medemblk chop conditions we testing to say the least. Our pace felt good, especially downwind where we seemed to be really quick. We both returned to the beach buzzing from a fun session on the water. There was some final tinkering before the boat was put to bed and then it was home just in time for tea.
Sunday was a lot calmer, warm sunny conditions set up a battle between the gradient and sea (lake) breeze, and at time on the water everyone was sat in the doldrums. During the periods of slightly more consistent breeze we were going well, but on a day with big pressure difference and large shifts it was hard to get much meaningful speed work in. We decided to work on some of the areas of boat handling instead. When we made it back to the shore we finished the day but applying the amazing amount of stickers required for the event.
Today is Monday and the final day before racing starts. Following a slightly more leisurely start to the day we have had a good shake down sail, most of the other Nacras were on the water so that provided a good opportunity for training races.
As I said we start racing tomorrow, results and live tracing can be found at http://www.deltalloydregatta.org/
Cheers
TP