Draper-Greenhalgh: Palma Pre-event
Written by Chris Draper | 26 March 2010
Well, today was a good reminder how lucky we are to do what we do. It would be safe to say it was an epic day on the water. 18-22 knots and huge waves.
We looked at the conditions from the beach while having lunch and thought there may be a bit on out there.
It wasn't the windspeed, just the sea state. Plenty of other boats seemed to be going out so we went for it. After two minutes sailing upwind and a little look up to windward we realised that pretty much all of the 49ers out on the water had taken their mainsails down and were limping home. Going upwind wasn't so bad, but getting downwind was going to be all on.
We managed to have a great sail. We found a few boats to sail around with but to be honest, we had plenty on on our own. A pretty big cartwheel gave us a good reminder of how much to respect that manoeuvre in the 49er!
We got some really good bits out of the day about sailing in the puff and waves and ...... we came in with some huge grins.
Practice race tomorrow, everything seems in great shape, looking forward to the start.
All the best,
Chris and Peter