I have just come back from sunny Peru to cold Poland. I’m still in thermal shock. The difference between temperatures in Peru and Poland is about 50 Celcius degrees. I was there for three weeks. The first two were for acclimatization and training and the last one we had Juniors, Youth & Masters Worlds. I lived in Ancon, 50 km north from Lima. Had a nice villa, about 5 meters from the beach and 300 meters from the Yacht Club, where I stored my equipment. In Peru every family has a housemaid, so in our house we had one too, in the second week even two. Peruvian food is good, only one traditional meal may not be the tastiest, but fortunately I ate it only once.

In Ancon there is thermal wind, caused by the cold naval current. The wind starts to blow about 12-13 and finishes about 18. I trained every day with my TR-4 10.0, which was perfect, because the wind was about 15-20knt. I trimmed everything right and was ready for the competition.

On the registration day I found out that I was the only Junior U17 in FW Class. I quickly decided to compete in Youths, with competitors 3-4 years older then me ( I’m only 15 ). Unfortunately. the first day of Worlds was also the first day without any wind. The judge kept us all the time ready, so we were able to use every, even the smallest blow. But nothing happened. The same was on the second day. On the third day they decided to try to do a race. But when we went out, it appeared that it was not more than 5knt wind, so we quickly came back to the beach.

On the last but one day organizers came up with an idea to go to the beach (it should have been called a desert ) 90 km from Ancon. The last three days the wind there was 5knt stronger than in Ancon, so there was a chance to do some racing and make championships happen. In the morning we packed all stuff into the truck, ate quick breakfast and went to the desert in three coaches. The wind was as expected, about 17 knots. We all started to rig 10.0m2 sails, and the judge quickly put the fleet flag up. We had 30 minutes to the first race.

I sailed about 8th-10th place. I got good speed with my sail and did some good starts. In the second race I was leading the first round, but unfortunately, during the second downwind I made a mistake and lost about 6 places. After four races for FW and three for FE, we started to pack it all up on the truck again and went back to Ancon. I didn’t have problems with getting asleep.

Surprisingly, the last day we had already about 5 knots in the morning. Skippers meeting was at 10:30 and at 11:30 fleet flags were up, which meant that we had 30 minutes to the first race. The judge decided to do two races back to back, lunch break and two more races for FW fleet. I sailed a little bit better than the day before. About 7th-8th place. I also did some good starts, which are now my strong points I think.

Well, taking under consideration, that 2008 was my first racing season and it was my first Worlds, I am happy about my result. I ended up on 10th in Youth ( I am 15 years old ). The only pity is that I was the only Junior, because I could have fought for the platform. But, all in all, I’m happy about my speed and angle I had with TR-4 10.0. I’m also happy about my starts, so I don’t have any point to complain about 🙂

Aloha,

Gutek Kurczewski POL-75