Arriving in Garda

After a marathon 24 hour journey from South West London to Garda via France, Belgium, Germany and Austria we finally arrived on Sunday in Campione.  Despite traffic jams, dodgy airconditioning and not a great deal of sleep much fun was had en route as we attempted to visit a fast food venue in as many countries as possible and spotted some interesting 'accessories' for Leighs boat (below).  Answers on a postcard please as to what the hell youre supposed to use a travel pussy for.  They must be quite popular with our German friends given we saw them in several service station toilets.

The weather, food and general chilled out atmosphere so far has been great.  Richard Westbury and Mike Cooke are having a race to see who can take the longest to rig - its been 3 days for Richard, 2 for Mike and counting.....Mike Lennon made his usual successful start to a Worlds campaign by sailing as far away from the club as he could and then breaking a shroud and dropping his rig in the lake (he did the same at Macquarie).  Luckily class supremo Ricky Tagg managed to somehow tie a knot in his broken forestay, restep the mast and re-rig in the water sufficiently to get Mike foiling back home several miles down the lake to Campione.

Its been very chilled so far, our accommodation in Tremosine is great - nice pool and great views of the lake from our balcony.  The only downside is the quite terrifying drive down the windy clifftop pass to the sailing club which Doug 'McCrae' Pybus insists on taking as fast as he can in his Alpha.  Graham Simmonds has also been providing onshore entertainment in the form of some quite disturbing sex face impressions....somewhat similar to our mascot muddy when waiting for his ball to be thrown.



We had our first day of proper sailing today.  Doug, myself, Andrew and Jason launched into a pleasant breeze.  Sadly Andrew was the first casualty - having sailed upwind he discovered that his boat had too much lift and after numerous cartwheels sailing downwind eventually got back to the club to change his angle of attack.  Rumour has it that Andrew is really aiming high for the Mothapalooza trophy this year - having painted his own boat, applied vinyl to the sail, bought a yellow sailing suit he is genuinely considering painting his face yellow for racing....Overall I think we were all quite happy with our pace, although it was a fairly chilled out session sailing up and down the middle of the lake, dodging kitesurfers.



This evening we are relaxing back at the apartment enjoying some Black Moth truffle vodka looking forward to another great day on the water tomorrow - potential sponsor for 2013 Worlds anyone?