Gary,
No Viper yet.

Tuesday


I arrived at the beach after the committee boats had left the beach to set the course
to find John and Paul with their front beam off the boat. Paul had decided to tighten up the
platform following the rough conditions of the previous days and stripped one of the beam bolts.
Peit Saarberg had run off to get a hellicoil to get the boat back on the water. As soon as he arrive back
John , Paul, Greg and Piet all worked together to ready the boat to try and make the first start.
But it was not to be, in their haste to get through the surf they
flipped and just couldn't get there in time.

Race 3 started at 11:15 am.
So race 3 started without them in a southly breese of around 12 knots.
Unlike yesterday this breese lacked the westerly component that really picks up the seas.

Wouter port satrted and crossed the whole fleet.
Matt & Bart were smokin' upwind and made it to the top mark in time to do a 360 and still stay in the lead.
Approaching the top mark while in second Paul & Anne went for a big nose dive over the bows.
Their acrobatics handed second place to Gill and Kathlene followed by Martien & Frank then Hans, Marcus and Wouter.


Wouter was taken out of the picture flipping on the downwind while Geert & Karin made it past Martien and Frank,
On the 3rd loop Hans got caught of the anchor line to the clearance mark and almost capsizes and
took quite some time to get free allowing Marcus, Paul& Anne and Martien & Frank past.

The finishing order was Matt & Bart, Gill & Kathlene, Marcus, Paul & Anne, Martien & Frank then Hans.


Race 4
The boats get away to a clean start over the line and work their way towards the shore and straight
away Hans establishes a lead followed by Matt & Bart then Marcus and the remainder of the fleet
is grouped close behind. Marcus failed to finish the race after tearing his spinnaker when the
spinnaker sheet got caught under the boat. He retired to the beach with his racing finished for the day.

During the course of the race Martien and Frank dropped their mast when the shackle holding the side stay
came undone.
By now the off shore breese very rapidly turned them into a dot on the horizon. The coast guard took
off after them and I went with Frank Boon to the Coast Guard headquarters to find out if both crew and skipper
were onboard and OK.
So all I can give is the top few boats at the finish which were Matt & Hans, Gill and Kathlene,John and Paul
then Paul and Anne.


Race 5
By now the breese had risen a knot ot two and the seas were begining to rise a little. Still the race got underway
At the first rounding of the windward we had Hans, Gill and Kathlene, Matt and Bart,Paul and Anne all
converging on the mark.
Hans was the first one around followed by Matt & Bart, Gill & Kathlene then Paul and Anne.
THings seemed a little hectic on the boat of Paul and Anne, first with one of them being taken off the boat
but still attached via the trap and then trying to make up for lost time they stick it in big time flipping
over the bows so hard they stuck their mast into the sand and this made righting rather difficult.

Just after the clearance mark was rounded Matt & Bart flipped but they still managed to get the boat to
finish in 3rd place.

The finishing order of the 5th race was Gil & Kathlene, Hans, Matt & Bart, John & Paul then Mark.

For those who believe that post by sailwave about Mark drinking more sea water than bear.
I can assure you that Mark is doing his best to keep a balance. To that end, the first thing Mark did
when he hit the beach was to go off to find a liquid lunch.

The Bar-B-Que that followed later that evening was great.
You were given 8 plastic chips and a wrist band. The wrist band was for the food and the chips for drinks.
The food was great and as people left they would give their unused chips away.
Towards the end of the night we had a table with myself,Geert, Marcus, Paul, Anne, Gill, Kathlene, Matt, Bart,
John, & PaUL and Mark and all the remaining chips from everyone else that attended the function on the table
and were doing our utmost to work our way through them. Several of us jumped up to drinking spirits like Rum
and JD to aid the cause of working our way through the chips. Alass around midnight still with a pile of chips
in front of us they through us out.

It was great to sit around and talk and drink and talk and drink- in fact if they hadn't wanted to close and
the chips held out we'd probably still be there.

No sailing today- the wind has blown the dog off the chain and is now trying to blow the chain away and the seas
are huge.