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Coming Soon!....... The beginning of a new season of racing. Watch out for the 9 races in the 2008 /2009 series.

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Commencing October 2008.

Introduction to SAILING
Advanced Crewing

As demand for team building exercises and forming racing teams is increasing, a 2-day Advanced Crewing Techniques Course is being introduced to compliment the Introduction to Sailing course. This Advanced Crewing Techniques Course concentrates on crew roles, spinnaker handling and teamwork. Participants should have completed or have experienced the basic sailing techniques covered in the Introduction to Sailing syllabus.

AY is an approved member of ISSA

The weather forecast for the Qingdao Olympic Venue starts with light winds less than 5knots from the North East and predicted to swing further east and increase to 8knots in the afternoon. Already some controversy has broken out in the Tornado catamaran class. The Dutch team of Mitch Booth and Pim Nieuwenhuis have created a small, flat 'Code Zero' gennaker that apparently is able to be sailed upwind. This is a radically different sail which measures just 7 square meters compared with the fuller, standard kite that measures around 12 square meters. The Aussie's are trying to follow suite while others are trying to get the sail banned. The Austrian reigning Olympic champions are one of a number of signatories who have written a letter to ISAF asking that the use of the sail be disallowed. The Tornado measurement process continues until 12 August, so it will be interesting to see what is the outcome.

Talking to a few Team Managers in the hotel lobby they say their sailors are a bit nervous at the start of competition and worried about there light weather performance. It's like going to a casino out there. Windguru has the breeze reaching double digits for Sunday and Monday afternoons but dropping right off during the coming week days. An interesting scenario arose on the first day with only two classes racing on the same course and nearly one hundred media boats, race officials and coach boats crowding in around the start and finish lines. Throw in a few inexperienced boat drivers that have trouble communicating with the photographers and you have a big problem on your hands. Fortunately there where no bad accidents and the photographers managed to get a few good shots away.

Regardless of the surrounding powerboat mayhem the competitors got on with the racing and the two scheduled races races where completed in five to six knots of breeze from the East to South East. All eyes were on the King of the Finn class UK's Ben Ainslie who was quick of the start, led around mark two and three only to choose the wrong side on the last downwind to finish race one in tenth place. Emilos Papathanasiou from Greece put in a blinder on the last leg to claim first place. Zach Railey from the USA came from fifteenth place to pull up in second place. Poland's Rafal Szukiel also played the left to jump up into third place and was followed by India's Nachhalar Johal in fourth place who is competing in his first Olympic games.

Race two saw no slipup's this time with Ben Ainslie taking the lead from mark two and never letting it go. Second place for Poland's Rafal Szukiel added onto his third place in race one, puts him on the top of the leaderboard after the opening two rounds. Canada's Christopher Cook snuck into third spot by a whisker and as a minute separates the first fifteen boats in a 26 boat fleet is a sign of the closeness of the competition. China's Peng Zhang finished well down the order in both races to trail the fleet.

The Yngling class also had the honour of racing on the first day of competition. Krystal Weir's Aussie team progressively improved on each leg to take the race one honours much to the excitement of the big Aussie media contingent assembled here. Sarah Ayton's very fancied British crew jumped up into second place and Ekaterina Skudina's Russian entry slammed it home with a third place. Although they are all ladies sailing in this class judging by the language heard at the mark rounding's, there is no love lost on the water.

In race two Mandy Mulder's Dutch team led at every mark and scored a resounding victory by a minute from USA's Sally Barkow that had a shocker in race one. Sarah Ayton's UK team scored third place and being the most consistent over the two races leads the pointscore in front of the Canadians and Dutch teams after the first day of racing. Seventh ad fifth place for Xiaqun Song's Chinese team has them in sixth overall.

Tonight there is a opening ceremony to be held on the waterfront in Qingdao. The tall buildings are already a kaleidoscope of colour and a nightly laser show brightens up the evening for the local residents. The fireworks and beating drums is a treat thrown in for the sailors that missed out on the big ceremony held in Beijing last night.