Fizz cup round 1 afterparty

After saturdays two groups of racing, there was a long distance time trial race on sunday. I have no pictures from it, because there is nothing to show. There is no fight for the pin, no upwind tactical fight, no shadowing on the reach. Just single boats on the course. That is not to say I dislike the time trial. I might find it a bit strange compared to traditional RL cups, but it does have a certain element of competition.

Fizz Cup 2011 at Tradewinds YC.

There are two other things worth mentioning. First there is... the course. Now, traditionally SL yacht races have been "blessed" with really dull conditions. No current, rock steady wind direction, no gusts, no local wind variations. Everything known weeks before the race. No surprizes what so ever. Kinda like driving an F1 on the Commodore 64. Totally predictable and boooring. The Fizz Cup 2011 races at Tradewinds were different. Thanx to Liv, they sported all of the above mentioned features. 

The wind indicator had a busy day.

Not to an extent that is similar to RL, but it was a huge step in the right direction. The current could have been stronger, the local variations could have been bigger, the puffs could have been stronger, the waves could have changed over the course, and the line could have been skewed too... And these parameters could have changed from race to race or even mid race. That would have been interesting. That would have made a difference, because then no sailor would have known anything about the conditions beforehand. We have only scratched the surface of what the wwc and the Flying Fizz is capable of doing. In the future, I hope we will scratch some more; Create much harder and virtually realistic conditions.

Is that guy staring?

Another thing is the party. Every good race event has a party. Fizz Cup 2011 had a great party at Tropicana. Beautiful place with bar, dancefloor, tub, pool, lounge and what ever else you need for a wonderful evening with loads of fruity cocktails, headache and sore feet the day after. Contact Sylvie Etoile for more info. Usually, I don't like party pictures, but these are from before people got wasted. I guess it's ok then.

Let's do some real dancing.

For once I was not wearing my sailing outfit. Nor was I being a total beach bum. I even dropped the Docksides. Looked around at all the party people and found El, - looking soo classy. Turns out he is a wonderful dancer, - and he can talk sailing while dancing. Huh! El also likes the advanced sailing. We talked a lot about racing the Fizz in expert mode on a much more difficult course. And stuff.

Arrrr, my feet hurt. Gimme my sailing moccasins.

More on that in another post. Here's just me back home at Tradewinds, early morning, a bit dizzy after two days of hard racing and a long night of boat talk and dancing. What a great race weekend. Good night zzzzz....

Oh, - in the back it's Rene from ReneMarine moonlighting on a new and very exciting boat project.