We ended up with 25 to 30 knots of wind, not great but because the canal is at the perfect angle the speeds were up there with some of the best of the year. It's only because it's Luderitz that the competitors want more.
I sailed my Evo 5 6.4m sail all day with my PD 43 and Black Project X50. Great combo and I was pleased to get 45.5 knots over 500m and peak at over 47 with such a big sail.
Most sailors were on 5.8 sails but I couldn't get going on my 5.8 in the gusty conditions. I have never witnessed so many aborted starts as today.
There is a new system with starting now that there are so many sailors. You get handed a stick, who ever handed you the stick is in front of you in the queue to have a run on the canal. You then hand the stick on to someone else and so on. The stick can change person 10 times in 10 seconds but as long as you remember who handed it to you then you know your position. It works quite well but you don't get as many runs in as last year and it's a bit more of a lottery if you get a lucky run in the gusty conditions. If you have to abort your run because you can't start before the corner into the strip then you have to go to the back of the queue. This could mean having only 1 run in one hour. It happened to me three times, it's quite intimidating when you have 15 of the worlds best sailors all queuing behind you waiting for a run.
Overall I'm happy with my speeds, believe me it wasn't easy conditions. Just waiting for more wind, so far it has been no where near the wind strengths of last year.
This is one of my favourite pictures of this year. Pierre working his magic again.
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