Nearly 20 of us internationals are here already 1 week early for the Worlds and getting plenty of time on the water. The wind is kicking in at 9am in the morning each day around 15-20 knots with heaps of brutal chop and swell which is making it interesting for training. Arnon, Steve, Casper, Dennis, Antoine, Gabriel etc and all the guns are out on the water testing 11.0’s and various boards. From what we’ve seen Arnon is punishing everyone on his new Gaastra sails so it should be fun to see how that pans out during the racing. As you can see from the pictures there is a line of reefs about 1.5km out from the beach which means we are running quite short tacks on the inside of this reef – I assume we will be running the course inside the reefs (I would prefer outside for some nice wave action!) which means it’s going to be quite a short course and very tactical; starts will be more critical than ever.
The temperature is around 700 degrees each day and super humid so it’s nice to be walking around in shorts all day and getting plenty of sun(burn). The water temperature is super warm also, so we’re all sailing in t-shirts. The racing starts Tuesday and there’s still a lot more guys due to arrive so it’s going to be a great event. Already we’ve had a bunch of photographers and journalists at the beach each day (and a helicopter) pumping the press for this event so I’m fairly confident the coverage will be good. I’m going to try to write some daily reports when I can over at www.seanobrien.com.au so check that out next week.”
Regards,
Sean O’Brien
