Diary From Qingdao
August 20, 2006
Sally Barkow, Carrie Howe and Deb Capozzi of Team Seven write:
It is Sunday, with just one day before racing starts at The Good Luck Beijing - 2006 Qingdao International Regatta. Yesterday was a big day for us, moving into the venue at the new Olympic Harbor, towing the boats over to the new harbor, getting our security clearances, setting up our favorite mast which had arrived late, making it out in time for a practice race and then going out with the US Sailing Team members to a team dinner on the eve of the regatta. Call it a disciplined rush to the regatta start line.
The team organization is excellent. It's a lot of fun, working like a well-oiled army. All the US boats towed over to the venue yesterday in a long tow that allowed us to fully appreciate the wonderful Qingdao skyline.
The venue is really cool. There are still two years to go before the 2008 Games, but already it looks like an Olympic venue. It's absolutely incredible. It is huge. It is organized and it is very efficient. We got our security clearances for ourselves and our boats and got our accreditation with fancy passes to hang around our necks.
Our second container, which went on to Hong Kong in error, came back today and we were really excited to get it through customs, get into it and retrieve our favorite mast. This was the spar we used at the Worlds in La Rochelle, France, and it was good to get it stepped in the boat. We had a bunch of things to organize on the boat, playing with grease and sandpaper, pulling the rudder to work on it, and generally doing lots of last minute tune-up stuff.
Finally we got out on the water for a quick hour-and-a-half sail check in light and lumpy conditions. It gave us an opportunity to work on some of the crewing tactics we think will help us in Qingdao.
We got back ashore, just in time to rush to the official US Sailing Team dinner. We ate in a revolving restaurant 35 stories above the city and looking out over the course where we'll be racing next week. It gave us a chance to scope out the course from a different angle but only whenever the restaurant crept around to that quadrant. The city is beautiful, with a skyline very reminiscent of Chicago but with the added feature of high, green, surrounding mountains. The views were perfect because the weather has been incredible for the last couple of days. The smog and haze vanished and we are now able to fully appreciate the beautiful skyline.
This was a Chinese dinner, of course, and with the chefs visible in the stationary central portion of the restaurant. There were sushi and stir fry stations and a wonderful selection of fish and seafood. But the biggest section featured rice dishes in endless variety. Yesterday was James Lyne's birthday. James is here as our private coach, working on boat and sail development, but everyone in the US Team surprised him by singing Happy Birthday.
The organizers set up a practice race this afternoon, which gave us an opportunity to experience the long 45-minute tow out to the race course. For us, this was mostly about working with new gear setups that we expect will be favorable for the local conditions. After fiddling with gear, halfway through the race we found ourselves at the tail end of the fleet, but settled down and demonstrated some good boat speed to move up through the fleet before the finish.
Tonight is the opening ceremony where Sally is joining Laser Radial sailor Anna Tunnicliffe as flag bearer for the US Team. Tomorrow, Monday is the first race day. Stay tuned. We hope to provide you with a report from every day of racing.
