Sailors face Wild conditions for first day!

   

Photo from the Charlestonraceweek.com website! Photo by Meredith Block.

SAILORS FACE WILD CONDITIONS FOR DAY ONE

Wild breeze 20 to 25 knots (Almost 50km) and massive waves 6 to 8 feet, bring wild racing and breakage!

 CHARLESTON, SC , Competitors are nursing sunburns and sore muscles this evening after spectacular weather made the start of 2009 Charleston Race Week something to remember.

Race Committee members on the offshore courses faced some of the hardest conditions of the day as they pitched around setting marks and start/finish lines.  “The seas started off only three feet or so, but by the end of the day they were consistently at 6 feet to 8 feet, with four second periods,” said mark set officials.

There was plenty of wind, but it was pretty consistent and great sailing breeze,” said Jeff Worobel, sailing on the B-25 ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers. “In fact, there wasn’t any drama at all until we broke our rudder!”  Worobel expects to be ready to race again in the morning.

The Beneteau 36.7 Blueprint crashed into a competing boat and destroyed its bow pulpit, but they didn’t let it deter them.  “We made a call to the local Beneteau dealer, and have a look yourself – the new part is already on and we’re ready to go again!”

Black Diamond had no breakage, we came within 2-3 feet of another boat, a bit scary in these conditions, its not at all like Lake Ontario racing. Our crew never sailed together or on Black Diamond before, so today was just getting use to each other, the boat and these conditions. So we did not do that well, and a couple of the crew got sea sick, so we had to abandon during the second race and did not start the 3rd. race. Despite this, we still raced for over 4 hours straight. We hope to do far better tomorrow.