Here is a little collection of photos from sailing and around Qingdao. Enjoy!
Practice racing
Chinese crane
The algae
Budweiser in Qingdao
Bargain shopping
New boat

As most know already, the winds in Qingdao make training tricky here, losing several days to not enough wind, and also as we have found in June, fog. There have been numerous incidents of on the water collisions, that they couldnt even see coming! There have also been a few stories of sailors not having a GPS, and ending up on a beach trying to flag down a cab with no money to find their way back home. Fun stuff.  

But  we have come across a new challenge. The Qingdao Algae. It is hard to describe, mostly because you wont believe it. The algae here is worse than seaweed in So Cal and moves across the race course in football field sized bands. No joke. You cant sail through it, which makes racing and tuning almost impossible. We take what we can get but its pretty frustrating.

To give you an idea, here is a recent article with some great photos. And yes that is the real color of it. Not exaggerated. Click Here

As nice as getting a brand new boat is, there is still plenty of work to be done to get it sailable. The uncovering is bitter sweet, as you quickly forget that feeling as you look into the boat and realize all the work that lies ahead to make it not only race ready but Olympic ready.

We’ve now spent the last 2 days rigging the boat non stop! No major projects, just lots of little ones that all take an hour or so each. As much as the boat comes completely rigged, we still have our own systems and preferences. We’ve replaced virtually every line in the boat with our favorite weaves (amsteel, lightning, trophy, and warpspeed) from SAMSON ROPES which took most of the time to get the lengths right. We chose a grey, black, and white cordage scheme to go with the light grey deck and white hull. Looks very intimidating. On top of that we’ve had to add in our own systems with HARKEN hardware, as well as spend a little more time on the little things for the Olympics. Certain examples would be whipping the bungee onto blocks instead of tying them to eliminate the chances of it catching, and also downsizing the line in certain areas such as the jib lead and jib cunningham. We’ve gone as small as 2mm now of super strong spectra from SAMSON. We’ve checked the loads and it makes it easy. We’ll just have to check the wear on them to see if it can handle the Olympics. Hopefully we can keep it on to help minimize water weight in the boat.

Once getting the boat re-rigged and our mast tuned, we headed to Carrefour, about the only western shopping center we’re all familiar with from France. The big attraction is the bike selection. The most expensive being a 2,200 ($315 USD) Yuan electric moped. Nigel and I seriously considered buying electric bikes for a grand total of $220 but settled for normal bikes at $70 in the end. The big plus being the fold up option. I got lucky and scored a fold up bike with nice rear suspension. Already feels like a nicer ride.

So tomorrow will be our first day on the water which should be very interesting. Apart from the usual new boat issues of improper line lengths and numerous other things, we’ll be facing current, fog, algae, and of course the prospect of no wind… Wish us luck on our new splash down!

A 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing didnt sound like so much fun until i was upgraded to Business class for the first time ever! It made the flight so much more enjoyable and i was able to sleep which was a huge plus. Stu had it a little rougher flying economy, then missing a few connecting flights to arrive 6 1/2 hours later than me.

Upon arriving in Qingdao, i had all the memories from 2 years ago, and wow i think this place has cleaned up a lot just for the games. However, the driving hasnt changed. In about 30 minutes we managed to cut off 10 or so drivers, run several red lights at full speed, and narrowly dodge a few pedestrians who decided playing a real life game of frogger is better than waiting for a break in traffic.

Even the hotel has cleaned up! My memories of our hotel room vanished when i was let into our new 4 star room. Pictures to come soon, but it is outstanding. Glass table tops, big bathroom, internet, and a flat screen TV.

Concerns of where our new boat is have quieted down, as we found out it was delivered to Yin Hai Yacht Club yesterday. Cant wait to go unwrap it and get started setting it up! Coach Nige arrives this evening, and we’ll spend 2-3 days just taking it easy and setting up the new Olympic boat. Still havent thought of a name. We better get on it.

Getting to be home if only for 2 days as put me in the happiest mood. Seeing the family, and all my friends coming back from school for summer sailing has given me so much enthusiasm towards China.

Although our race results from the Euros may not look good, we are extremely pleased with what we accomplished. We have a new improved sail for China that has given us crazy height and even better performance in the breeze. Even multiple world champs from Australia were asking their coach to take photos of us after we pinched them off several times. He was all tied up in knots asking coach Kev and not getting an answer! Truth is we’ve done nothing! Just some good technique.

Upon arriving in China (where we are headed tomorrow morning after being stateside for 48 hours) we’ll be greeted by most of our Olympic Sailing team and a brand new boat. We’ll spend 2 or so days adjusting to traveling and rigging our new boat, outfitting it with all the hot new SAMSON line, and replace some fittings with better HARKEN ones. The boat comes almost complete, but there are always a few small custom jobs that need to be done. So the last 2 days at home have been spent shopping for tools, warm weather clothes, and sailing. We had a practice kite made with the big USA flag, and i walked into North Sails and found it laying out drying. This was one of the moments where it started to set in how close it all is and i was overcome with pride and anticipation seeing the huge flag laid out. Cant wait to see it flying!

Well its off to pack away everything, including being a sherpa for friends. I’ve got my peanut butter and other american snacks for the long flight. Next entry from China!

Lake Garda is proving to still be a lake after all, which is making racing very difficult. None of the coaches know what to do, which makes it even more challenging for the sailors. We’ve found huge shifts to move in for no reason, and leave just as fast, with huge pressure differences.

Todays racing was even more challenging. The breeze was a little further left than whats its supposed to be, so there were big holes and puffs across the course.

Race 1 we got a great start and tacked over to head out right with a lot of the fleet because thats whats been working. But for some unknown reason the left filled in with 5 knots more pressure! We were near last at the top mark, but we still had our downwinds ahead of us. Because of the new velocity, we wired up downwind and reached around like a skiff jibing with puffs. We did maybe 8 wire to wire jibes (which is not easy in a 470) and caught up to the lead pack. Unfortunately upwind turned out to be our downfall again and we lost everything we gained. We finished back in the pack, in the 20s.

Race 2 was similar, another great start, but decided to play the left side this time. We hit the first few shifts right on, but then got forced out to far left to round back again. We had a n average downwind, but saved the last upwind for the big gain. We one tacked it out to the right side and came in overstanding with more pressure than anyone. We rounded just out of the top 10. Downwind we played the right side and gained a few boats to finish about 6th!

So finally we had a little luck with us and were able to use it to our advantage. Tomorrow is forecasted to be rainy with a chance of no wind. Luckily we’re one race up on the series so we only need to finish 2 more for a series.

Because we were down a race, and have had difficulty with wind, the RC decided to race us at 8:55am. We were awake at 6am and at the boat park by 7am just to move our boat onto the boat ramp so we could launch on time. We started our race at 9:15 and not to anyones surprise, the wind died during the race. So everyone hooked up on tow and headed back in until the southernly wind filled in. 

So, for the second half of the day we finally got some real Garda breeze. In the first race our set-up wasnt quite right so we had some difficulty holding our lanes. We fought hard and made big enough gains downwind to finish 13th.

For race 2 we pinned down and coach Kevin got us ripping! We decided the right was the place to be and thats where we went. We didnt have a great start but held our lane all the way to the right corner. We tacked past layline on purpose and found some great breeze. We came planing in at the mark in 2nd! We held off the fleet the rest of the race and thats where we finished.

Race 3 was okay. We got a good start but chose to head to the left instead because we felt the breeze was doing something different. But, the breeze had not swung far enough left yet to pay off. We rounded mid fleet at the first mark and worked forward from there. We caught up to the lead group but then hit a wall. We had a few passing opportunities but only managed a 9th.

After a tough day and a close call for qualifying, we managed a 3 way tie for 26th. There are 30 boats in the gold fleet so we made it in by only a few points. Good thing is there is nowhere to go but up!

Day 2 was similar to day 1 with light conditions and big shifts.

In race 1 we got a great start and believed we were headed in the correct direction. Unfortunately the shift went even farther than anticipated and the fleet came up inside us and we were pushed past layline. We made a good bid on the downwind to catch up and worked the fleet to pass a few boats to finish 20th.

In race 2 we got another stellar start and finally made some good calls about what to do. We rounded about 5th at the first mark and extended with the lead group on the run. We worked the fleet with good speed but made a poor last decision toward layline. We lost 2 boats on the layline. On our last downwind we worked our position hard and jibed at the perfect time. With the pumping flag now up we pumped and worked all the small waves as best we could and were able to shoot through the group for a 3rd!

Finals results still have not been posted but with 3 more races on this lake anything is possible. Tomorrows racing will start at 8:55am in the northerly offshore breeze. Should make some things interesting!

To say the least, maybe we should have stayed in bed today.

After a battle to get off the launch ramp today against 120 470s, we drifted out to the course. The breeze filled in nicely and we were ready to race.

In our pre race info gathering, we found the right to be much better. There was more pressure and better angle so we agreed that was the place to go. We won the boat end and tacked immediately. Unfortunately as soon as we tacked all the pressure we had seen seemed to disappear. We held out on the right hoping it would fill in again but it didnt. The left came in HARD and we found ourselves deep in the fleet. Once rounding the mark we looked who was with us and quickly determined the back of the fleet looked more difficult than the front. We had the Australians, French, Kiwis, and Croatians all within a few places of each other. Our place didnt change and we only finished beating 4 boats to finish 26th.

Race 2 we decided to be a little more conservative and play the fleet. We did just that getting a great start and always choosing when we wanted to tack and not being forced. We worked our way up the left and rounded about 8th. But, we noticed a no wind line moving down and sure enough, 10 min later we were drifting, and the race was abandoned. We drifted around until racing was called and we were sent back home for the day. Good thing we arent sailing now as its POURING rain.

On the positive side of things we had ridiculous height in the non trapeezing conditions. We had similar speed to everyone but somehow could point higher than anyone. Maybe its our special present from Kevin, his centerboard from the Athens Olympics…

Hope tomorrow brings better racing. We can only go up!

We’ve been training at Lake Garda, site of our Europeans Champs, and as much of a reputation of breeze this place has, we havent seen any of it. It has rained everyday, but still been warm. But, as soon as the sun comes out the breeze seems to kick in a bit.

Today was the windiest we’ve seen, a little above 15 knots. We re-cut our sail from Holland and it seems to look good. Kei from North Sails sent the sail to North Sails Italy just outside Venice to have a few mm taken out of the luff curve above the spreaders. The mast we’re using here is a particularly stiff goldspar so our previous sail was a little to full up top. The new cut looks great and once Kei can take another look at it we’ll decide which to go with.

In other news Team MB has been featured in an ad by US Sailing Team title sponsor, ALPHAGRAPHICS. The ad is running in SoCo Magazine in southern Massachusetts. Here it is!
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