Thursday

Apologies for the late blog.

The day started as yesterday finished, with no wind. The team met, rigged the boats and then waited. Eventually the blog team got bored and left to visit Pompeii, while the sailors played cards. First news from the race track (Robbie) came whilst in the Amphitheatre, at the windward mark in race 1, first flight, Martin was 5th, Pippa 10th and Max C ~35th. Not bad. Provisional results for race 1 came in the Wool Market. Martin got up to 3rd, Pippa stayed around 10th and Max C got up to ~25th. In the second flight Alex got an impressive 6th and Max M was ~40th. The wind was very shifty, and the favoured end often changed. In the second race Martin and Max C got away clean, and were 2nd and 3rd in their flight at the windward mark. By the run they had moved up to 1st and 2nd, and although they swapped positions, were still 1 and 2 at the finish. That prompted a very happy text from Robbie (and some pics to follow tomorrow after he recovers from the flu!). The third race saw a big shift to the right just before the start. The race officer went ahead with massive boat end bias. Some of our sailors got caught out the wrong end and we ended up with middle of the fleet results.

By now the support team were back from the ruins, ready to help recover the boats which is quite a challenge in Naples ( we only have 2 trolleys for 5 boats!). Hot chocolate in the clubhouse was most welcome. After a quick debrief it was off for a tour of the underground chambers in Naples and an excellent pizza (without Robbie, still suffering from the flu).

We returned to find Martin has an OCS in the first race, a real shame as he had such a good result in that race. Nevertheless, a good day for our sailors in a big fleet and tricky conditions.

Positions after three races:

Max C 14th (27, 2, 14)

Alex 44th (6, 44, 51)

Pippa 67th (11, 34, 81)

Max M 99th (41,48,63)

Martin 120th (OCS, 1st, 60)

More news and pics tomorrow.

Graham.