GBR update post rest day

Yesterday was a well earned rest day for the fleet after the previous day's races in what can only be described as epic conditions. Not sure what the wind speed was at times (it always seems more out there then the Aussie weather stations report), however it must have been 25+ knots in the gusts. This led to lots of action in the two fleets with many wipeouts, close calls and some not so close calls. Mikis came off the water a little battered and bruised after someone capsized onto his boat pulling him out of the back at a fair speed, there was also a guy that came off the water with broken ribs although he seems to be okay from what we've heard.

Peter Barton has perhaps had the most bad luck of the fleet after breaking two king posts during the first races of two championship days, losing 5 races in total. However I had to chuckle when he told me about his experiences on day 2 of the championship. Finding his Mach 2 a little high and sketchy downwind during the gusts he sailed into a nearby beach to change his default ride height setting remembering the often said words of a former Ninja sailor “longer for lower, longer for lower, longer for lower”. After enacting said setup change however and unsurprisingly finding it had not sufficiently lowered the ride height he decided to return to the beach to lower further, by again lengthening the rod! Fortunately he saw the error of his ways after becoming fully airborne a couple of times sailing upwind back to the starting area before heading downwind again!

In the gold fleet Andy Budgen continues to impress in his bright yellow mach 2 despite only having had the boat for a matter of months, would be great to see him on the UK circuit next year if he's back in the UK for the summer.  Jason Russell has also shown some impressive bouts of speed pulling in some good results in the breeze. Ben Paton's Ninja has had something of a radical temporary nose job, and despite rumours of some of the GBR sailors taking bets as to whether it would hold up he proved us wrong sending it round for some solid results. Mike and Simon continue to battle it out at the sharp end with the rest of us in silver enjoying some close racing.

For the rest day myself, Peter and Ben decided after doing some boat work and a few other chores to head to a local beach for a bit of a dip in the surf. Finding the beach fairly deserted we thought it must be due to the 'poor' weather i.e. windy and a bit grey and overcast. This is pretty much as good as it gets back home so after a quick change we did a bit of body surfing in the waves which was good fun. Walking back up the beach however we suddenly realised why the beach was deserted after reading a sign warning against swimming due to strong currents, bluebottle jellyfish and sharks! Oops, stupid Poms....!

So today is the penultimate day of the championship with the remainder of the series set to be pretty windy by all accounts. Here's to some great action packed racing for the final 6 or so races.

Ben doing his morning warm up routine with modified nosejob ninja.

 Ben swimming unaware of the dangers lurking beneath.

 Should probably have read this BEFORE going swimming.

 Should definitely have read this BEFORE going swimming!

 Belmont has an array of modern boutiques.  Including this nautical themed adult shop.....great place to source the booby prizes I reckon.

 Ben applying camoflage for a typical day's ninja sailing....