Adventures in Oz Part 2

The owner and crew of Mistral CAN118 are competing in the Prince Philip Cup (Australian National Championship) which is being held in Sydney. We will be posting regular updates.

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Attached are 3 photos giving a panorama looking out over the Harbour. Under the tent are the stragglers of the après racing get together. It looks like English Bay when the wind drops, but is like sailing on a lake with wicked wind shifts, plus tides and ferries with rights. If you get too close they just honk and don't change course. If they have to change course, you could get a DSQ.

Nicholas Hogg presented a crystal decoration for the biggest goof so far. It went to Robert Campbell for putting his boat in the water to test his bailer, i.e. without his bung in place. 'Sir' Robert (Nicholas wording) accepted it graciously. Actually Robert is in 1st place if he gets to throw out his 11th place finish in race 1.

We are starting to figure it out, and finished an acceptable 8th in race no. 4.

Tomorrow is a lay day. Apparently the sponsors are going out to watch the races on Sunday, so the Vice Commodore made the decision to not have races tomorrow so they would have something to watch.

Sandy Anderson is in second place, and apparently a couple of her crew went overboard in the practice races, so it does happen. Life jackets are mandatory, as are VHF radios, all for good reason. They also do random checks of measurements such as mast band locations and life jackets. We were checked after today's races. Lane was worried that they would re-weigh us, after a really big dinner last night at the Royal Sydney Flying Squadron. Our measured crew weight (Lane Rud, Olivier Grebert and myself) as of 3 days ago was 15 kg below the limit, so no worries there.

That's all for today, we need a rest day as we all seem to be getting colds. I hope you are well,

Cheers,

Norman