Everything started at 10.00 for the Skippers meeting, a very early skippers meeting for the forecast that was saying that the wind only pick up around 15.00. The CR, told to all competitors that we will do 4 races today, two back to back, one rest of 45m and other two races back to back.

The day was very hot, with a amazing sunshine and temperature above 30º Celsius, very good for the beach, but not so good for the windsurfing equipment. The wind in the morning was NE with around 10 knots inside the harbor, but outside with lots of holes and around 5 to 7 knots.

At 12.00, the jury lower the AP wind and all competitors had 30m to go to the water, with the wind dropping dropping, when all competitors had all the equipment rigged and prepared to go to the water, the CR, cancelled and everyone had to start to derigged again because was impossible to stay with the equipment in the sun. After this cancel with had a break of 1hour, for the competitors and CR lunch.

After the break with wait a little because the wind was changing to SW, with a speed of around 7 knots and the CR, lower once again the AP flag and send everyone to the water, the Race 4 started with lots of competitors didn´t arrived to the race, because they had to go upwind with a constant wind of 7 knots with a little chop. After around 5 minutes of race the CR cancelled again.

Finally the wind start to pick up from SW around 09 to 12 knots, and finally the 4 race start with everyone ready for this race. We finish the race 4, with the wind dropping and changing direction, after changing the course we start again the 5 race, with the wind continuning dropping, very shifty with differences of direction of around 40 degrees between SW and NW, with holes of 5 knots and gusts of 12 knots, finally the first two guy doing half of the race planning, the CR cancel again a race. All competitors come again to the start line, and next the CR again do the start of the second attempt for the 5 Race, the wind and the conditions continuing the same, shifty 40º of direction and the wind between 04 knots and 9 knots, in almost all course, but this time the CR didn´t cancel with lots of complains in the competitors.

A break of 45 minutes to relax, and again go to the water and do two races back to back. All the courses were big, the first guys were doing around 27 minutes to complete the full race, very hard with this changing wind. (This kind of wind is not normal in Portimão, the problem is that in the Atlantic Ocean is North Wind and the Strait of Gibraltar you have Levante wind, and because we are almost in the middle, this two wind are fighting, and for that the wind is changing a lot).

Finally we finished the two last races of the day and went to shore. Miguel won the 4 races of the day, but in the Last one more than half of the race was Vasco Chaveca that was in from of Miguel and give to him a good fight.

Tomorrow the skippers meeting is again at 10.00 and, unfortunately, the forecast for tomorrow is not good, south winds very very light, lets see what happened.

See you tomorrow for the day 3 of the event.

Please check photos at the links below :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.519626854888865&type=1

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.519633464888204&type=1