Disaster today, it must be yesterday's sailing or the heat ( it has slightly cooled down) but all the photos I took except that of the birthday boy managed to disappear when it came to downloading them last night..
Andy and I spent a long time in registration dealing with all the paperwork and booking the measurement slots . We were nearly thwarted by Kat and Issy whose entry form was not with everyone elses but Robert's pdf on Andy's laptop saved the day . Issy slightly panicking later on because she could not find her boat papers .. we had already retrieved them from the container, calmly produced the form neatly folded from her pocket !! We decided to put Mike and Hermione in as the measurement guinea pigs in the 19.00 slot last night and the rest today . However Katie was not well yesterday ( although the paracetamol helped ) and she and Sarah spent the day slowly sorting their boat rather than going on the water . Katie and I decided to stroll down to measurement to see what was going on and discovered that due to a lot of no shows there were some slots so the Brits went on standby and jumped the queue. Well we would when we turn up ready and the ESP girls arrive with their mast still up and the centre board still in and despite the massive charm offensive of their coach they had to sort it out before the chief measurer would even think about it . So Katie Sarah, Mike and Hermione , James and Tim and Jo and Ben are through and Annabel and Megan much to their frustration were last boat turned away . But it was a good try on their part .
Biggest irritation is that Hermione's beloved bouyancy aid does not meet the class rules because it is so old circa 2003 Its her favourite and she is bereft .Hers is one of the ones made before the regulations changed and had a label which has long disappeared rather than 50 N printed on the aid itself. Fortunately Jo has spare and so does Jonny but Jonny's probably too big.. otherwise it will be trip to the chandlery for a new one. One of the Kavas boys GRE will have the same problem as his label has also worn off . This was a new inspection for us as we have not seen this one enforced before .
On the water the team raced against the ITA and FRA and SUI and the ITA coach Ricardo came home saying he has a lot of work to do tonight as his sailors could not do current.. . there is no tide in the Med. Later on on the walk home he asked if Neil and Jonny would like to try coaching some of his sailors .. obviously he has decided the Italian yelling method of coaching is not as successful as the dulcet british " thats good" method .. we wondered if any of our sailors would respond to the ITA coachingstyle ?? .. the Italians have swimming pool in their hotel and their sailors could prove very popular with our guys but not sure they have worked that out yet. GER are in the Holiday Inn Express .
The small cafe at the club is great for ice creams, chips, argentinian pasties, coffees or even salads and full meals and champagne. Champagne very popular here and always plenty in the convience store chillers . . They were still serving as we left the boat park at 20.15 . Rosie and Amy were spending a second evening replacing their slot gasket the first one fell off and filing down their centre board . On the walk back from the club down Florida street ( the main pedestrianised shopping street ) Neil nearly found himself doing the the Tango with the street dancers.. Jonny had run back to collect the famous hat as he had left it at the club
Tomorrow is a rest day for us .. fitness has been cancelled and orders are for a lie in or school work ( some sailors have got some revision in every day but it may not be yours !!) before meeting at 12 noon and going down to the boat park to finish measurement. There will the be a final inspection once all the boats are put back together. It is then the opening ceremony at the club and the dress code is no flipflops: good thing team have trainers as high heels or boy band shoes could look a bit silly with shorts and polo shirts.. we have ordered our new year eve tickets $40 a head but we think that is our best option as all our sailors will be in one place and we should know where they are..
Nino Shmueli arrived to day; he is the 420 class president and an honary member of Team Black Sail for Gold 2011 Race Team and also Pedro Rodrigues who is the General Secretary but no familiar Brits like our Catherine or Tony ( sorry about my dreadful spelling and grammar ) . We miss you guys .
Team GBR 29ers have arrived in Argentina and their Team leader Ben Cooper is going to give us a call tomorrow and hopefully some of their team will come and say hello after they have done some BA sight seeing. We have lent them our 420 coach Ian Martin for the event.
Earlier in the week there was some suggestion that you were only getting the pretty side of BA so just to prove its not all scenic this is the street camp that is outside the gates of the YC Argentino and some of the rubbish bags we pass every day . BA has its own recycling system where groups of people sort through all the black rubbish bags collecting their speciality: clothing , plastic bottles, glass or paper etc.. sounds great but in reality it means all the rubbish bags get split open and the contents scatttered all over the street for the bin mn to clear up.
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