Hello all!

Yesterday [Friday] was our last and final day of racing in the Hobie 16 World Championship. We were sailing against 60 of the best teams in the world, with over 200 teams competing for spots in the final round. The day started out with another heavy breakfast (ham omelet, waffles, sausages, potatoes, orange juice and very strong Mexican coffee) (Thank goodness I can now go back to my bowl of oatmeal...). The winds for the first two races were marginal for double trapping - most of the time Bob was hiking out with his feet under the hiking straps, and I was on the trapeze. But for the first race we had tuned the boat incorrectly, and were slow slow slow. We literally got rolled on every leg. As the course was a 2G, that meant there were 6 legs...! Also, we hit a boat rounding the windward mark and had to do a 360. It was a slaughter. We ended up in 43rd in that race. It would have been worse, but there were some OCSs that pushed us up a little.

The second race was a little better -- we ended up with a 38. The third race was sailed after a very long postponement on the water as we waited for the winds to pick up to the class minimum of 5 knots. And the wind finally did come in with a vengence. In the last two races, the winds were blowing about 17 knots, and the entire pace picked up. Mark roundings were complicated, scary, total mahem events. People are screaming in all different languages so that you see them. Luckily, Bob has sailed in a number of World Championships in other classes of boats, so he remained pretty cool throughout.

Our last race turned out to be our best with a finish of 22. We ended up in 34th place in the World Championship, with the only other American beating us being Jeff Alter -- the son of Hobie Alter, designer of the Hobie 16. He came in 20th. The event was dominated by the Australians and the French. A French team won the event, and the second and third places were taken by Australian teams.

After the racing was another closing ceremony/show where we had a chance to see all the people who have been working for over two years to put the event together. They were a cast of thousands, it seemed. The event ran so smoothly that the competitors were completely unaware of the numbers of people running the show, and it was wonderful to have a chance to thank them.

The famous Cuban dancing show once again entertained the crowd, and rumor has it that numbers of race committee folk, competitors, and others stayed up until dawn drinking and dancing the night away.

All in all it was an event that was wonderful to be a part of.

Liza