Entries by Paul Cayard

Day 3

Before the first race a batten pocket in our mainsail tore. We had a spare mainsail out there but it was the wrong one for the conditions. So I sewed the batten pocket back together 10 minutes before the start. Put me on Martha Stewart. The Meltemi prevailed again today, a bit stronger than yesterday. […]

Cadiz Race Day 5

It feels like the world is coming to the end then you realize that it is just a sailboat race. Today was the first day of the combined fleet. So all the best teams on the same race course. Race 1 toady, we led wire around all the marks, lost 4 boats on the run […]

Day 2

The shifty Meltemi conditions of yesterday continued today despite a sea breeze being forecasted. The start of race one got off at 1400 in 8-12 knots of wind. We got into a bad situation at the first windward mark and fouled the Greek boat and had to do a 720 penalty turn. That put us […]

Day 4

One race today that started at 1600. The Tornados were sharing our race course today so they got to start at 12:00 and we had to wait until they were done. The wind was 16-18 knots from 125.nice big waves for surfing downwind. We had a good start near the leeward end and going left. […]

Race Day 1

The first thing that happened today was that the organizers decided at 10:00 ( today ) that all classes could not race at the same time. There are four racecourses and 11 classes so some courses have three classes on them. So they told the Star, 49er and Tornado classes to stay in and their […]

Day 3

2 races were scheduled today. We got down to the boat early and changed masts. The one from yesterday is not bent badly.we can straighten it.but I did not want to screw around with that this morning. We also put our light air main on, which is quickly becoming our all-purpose main. As we had […]

Arrived

I arrived in Athens at 3:00 pm Thursday the 14th, after the standard 20 hour trip, to a pleasant 95 degree temperature. My crew, Phil, had gone to Italy on Monday to get our new Star boat and drive it to Ancona where they boarded a Ferry to Patras in Greece . From there it […]

Day 2

We got three races in today. The first one in 12 knots, the second in 18 knots and the last one in 22 knots. Then after the last race it was a 5 mile beat back to the harbor. I think everyone is pretty tired. It is 20:05 right now. We had our heavy air […]

Day 1

Too much wind! We had the “Levante” wind today blowing 25-30 knots so no racing for Stars. The girls in the Yngling class raced though, so the big macho guys from the Star class did not look to flash. The “Levante” is akin to the Meltemi of Athens. It is a gradient wind created by […]

Pre-Day 1

Phil and I got off to a good start here in Cadiz by having Iberia loose you bags. They tell me that is normal here. Anyway after considerable confusion and hand waiving we got the bags at 11:00 at night and only got a little lost driving back to the apartment. Thursday we rigged the […]