Paul Foerster and Bill Draheim left for Palamos, Spain on December 23rd. After two days of not hearing anything I received a fax from Paul and Bill early this morning (12/26/97). They have arrived and are (frantically) getting ready for their first race in the Christmas Regatta which begins tomorrow, 12/27. As expected, approximately 70 470s are registered. Here's the news from their travels over to Spain and their preparation for racing.
Hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas!
Carrie Foerster
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December 24, 1997, Wednesday, 8:40 pm
(Bill? Paul?) Well, we made it. We actually got here four hours earlier. Only one of four bags made it though, another flawless overseas adventure. Bill's clothes are here but none of Paul's stuff and no sails. We hope to get them tomorrow. The weather in Palamos today was sunny 49 degrees and blowing 10 - 15 mph. That may not sound bad but from where I was standing it seemed mighty cold. This is an incredibly popular regatta. More than 400 Olympic class boats will be here and about 70 of them are mens 470 teams. We have already noticed some of the top competitors from the worlds. The top Russians and Ukrainians were in the parking lot today. Our boat should show up tomorrow and the races start on the 27th. Paul made some horrible potatoes and noodle things but it did the job.
This town is not the sleeping fishing village I imagined. It looks like metropolitan Anywhere, World. Some of the old buildings are still here and the huge fishing fleet of small boats is still here. These boats are about 14 feet long, have inboard engines and are totally open and go blasting out in the Mediterranean. I'm sure they must sink a few.
Well, goodnight. We are very tired.
December 25, 1997, Thursday
(Paul) The town center is pretty neat and all lit up for Christmas. Lots of shops and bakeries. It's about a 10 minute walk to the club and that's what we have been doing because it's hard to find a parking space. Our apartment has only got one little space heater but it has a separate kitchen and two bedrooms. We put the space heater in the kitchen and close the door to have at least one warm room. I think Bill's going to sleep in the kitchen tonight.
Well, I'm ready for some clean clothes. Merry Christmas!
Paul
December 25, 1997, Christmas, 8:12 pm
Day 2
(Bill) Paul's day started early, about 2:00 a.m.. I guess he got enough sleep so he went over to the club to look for luggage. No luck but he said the bars were open. You know Paul, always looking for a party. My morning was ideal. A cold shower and no towel, yummy. At noon we had no boat and no gear so off to the airport. It was here our luck started to turn. A bag man who helped us yesterday said he has seen our luggage. It's not in our possession yet but it's in Spain, I guess people don't work on Christmas over here, they stop for the smallest holidays. When we made it back to the club, after getting lost in Barcelona, again, our boat had arrived. It is brand new and looks like a keeper. The French guy who chartered it to us would smile a lot and we would smile back, sort of a communication gap. Anyhow the smiles helped the three of us get the boat together. He doesn't seem to know a lot about 470s, but is a junior coach. He probably knows more about 420s!
If our luggage arrives tomorrow we can go sailing. The sails are part of the missing stuff. Racing starts the day after tomorrow so I think we are in good shape. It wasn't as cold today and not too windy. I like that. After abusing Paul's cooking skills I became chef, an equally funny joke. We had gourmet spaghetti, with fresh onion and a fine apple juice to wash it down. Well, that's all for now. I better go try to talk my way out of the evening fun.
(Paul) We have done a lot of driving trying to find our luggage. It's about 1 hour and 10 minutes to the airport and 2 hours to get back because we keep getting lost. Hard to read the Spanish street signs and we keep going through Barcelona instead of the highway around it. Bill had to rent our car because they noticed my drivers license had expired.
I got our computer hooked up to a phone at the regatta office and it would connect but then it would disconnect before it would do anything. So we are going to try and fax tomorrow.
Merry Christmas!
Paul
Following the boys' report is a news release from the Spanish press that can be found on the Internet web page for the Christmas Regatta. Here is that address if you would like to read more: /www.netconsult.es/palamos/news.htm.
Results from the first day of racing are out there as well.
Carrie Foerster
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December 26, 1997, 10:41 pm
(Bill) We woke up to rain and 10 degree C temperature (50 F). The weather got worse but our day was remarkably similar to the first two days - hunt for luggage! By now, one would think we could make the 3 1/2 hour round trip to the airport without getting lost in Barcelona. Well, Paul and I are not afraid to experiment with the map and we seem to keep coming up on the failed side of the experiment. Today, two of the three missing pieces (of luggage) arrived: the sails and most of our hardware. Now only Paul's clothes and some other useful stuff are floating around Europe. We had enough stuff to get the boat in racing order so we installed our various rig modifications. Although we did this in driving rain, it was satisfying to know we can actually go sailing. Today there was no wind so we didn't miss out on any practice time.
The races start at 11 AM tomorrow and it looks like we are ready. All the stores were closed today, it seems like they are open every third day or something during the Christmas holiday, I don't know. We were forced to eat our as a result. Food not worthy of our cooking talents but edible.
December 27, 1997, 8:06 pm - First Day of Christmas Regatta
(Bill) We were the first ones in the water but had to stay in the harbor until a Z flag went up. I think it is so cold here they are worried about people freezing to death. The wind was really strange. At first, nothing. Then trapezing breeze (10 - 15 knots) for about 45 minutes, then nearly nothing again. We got off no races. The few moments it did blow we got in some good training and every time a teaser breeze came in we sailed up and down. It is safe to say the Foerster/Draheim team got in more sailing than any team on the water.
Back on land we continued to rig our boat, it's going to be perfect soon and as a result we may charter it for some other regattas. It is a brand new Italian built boat. Not rigged too well but a good boat. We are experimenting with a bigger spinnaker and are a little nervous about its reaching ability. We are not sure it will point as high as the smaller, flatter spin. Will know more if we race. We learned a new spin (spinnaker) take down trick.
Paul must feed at the old sheet or the spin has trouble going in the bag. Anything to help old shaky legs Bill is of great value. The Pyrenes mountains are about 40 miles inland and seem to affect the breeze. A British coach was trying to explain to us why we had no breeze today even though the isobars were pretty close together and he blamed it on the mountains. He thinks it will be the same tomorrow, put a bow tie on that guy and he's Britain's answer to Troy Dunkin.
Today's health report: One small cut on right hand.
(Paul) I finally got my clothes bag today. The big yellow sail bag. Feels nice to finally have everything. Things going ok here. We are getting over jet lag ok. The grocery store was open this morning so Bill got to cook some more of his spaghetti and onions. Well, we're off to find some dessert.
THE CHRISTMAS RACE STARTS ITS FIRST DAY'S JOURNEY
December 27, 1997
Spanish Press Release - Palamos, Spain
www.netconsult.es/palamos/news.htm
Also, the Portuguese team who took first in one of the two 470 fleets won a bronze medal in the 96 Olympics as well as at least one 470 Worlds. According to the press, Hugo Rocha, skipper, said this is his seventh Christmas Race and will not be the last. Not a bad crowd to train against in any conditions!
Carrie
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December 28, 1997, 7:04 pm
The World According to Paul: We sat on the beach today waiting for the wind. Finally at noon we got a little puff of wind and they sent the whole fleet out. But when we got out there the wind was still too light to get a race off. Bill and I did get some practice in the few puffs that came through. Even though there's no wind there is a lot of wave action. 1 to 2 foot swells, so the apparent wind is always changing. So, steering and sail trim is very tough.
Well, they finally gave us a starting signal about 3 pm. We were the 3rd start so we didn't get off 'til about 3:30 pm. The course we sailed was the Outer Trapezoid.
They split the 64 boat 470 fleet in two. So our fleet had 32 boats. Our first start was a general recall, but the second one got off OK.
We had a very good start about 10 lengths down from the boat. Right at the start we got a big left shift, so we tacked and were crossing all but one boat so we tacked back. The right side looked good so we kept trying to go right but we eventually got pinnned and forced left. Well we found a big hole with no wind and ended up rounding 2nd to last. Nothing much happened on the reach except that the wind got lighter.
We did catch a good puff on the run to pass 7 boats that found a hole. On the next beat we again found a puff and shift and passed 6 boats. On the run again we found another puff and were going pretty good and passed one boat then we got two more at the jibe mark. The last reach was very light and I'm not sure if we passed or caught boats but we ended up 15th in the race. Not very good considering our start, but a good come back from the first beat.
So we finished the race about 4:45 pm and we had an hour long sail in, to finally reach the dock at dark.
Bill:
All that stuff about the race Paul mentioned was true. We need to get much smoother in the boat. Our mechanics at the marks are getting better but when we tack or jibe or even breath we are like a couple of bulls in a china shop. I feel like I'm wearing a straight jacket with all my gear on and I sound like my boots are made of cement. The 470s are all rigged with the jib turning block cleat behind the crews normal position. This means in light air I have to tack facing backwards. This is no way to help with tactics unless we are miles ahead of the next boat. In addition to being useless with tactics, I can't see the jib leach. We are going to re-rig our practice boat when we get home to try and improve our light air tacks and close quarter tactics. We are going to move the jib system to the front of the boat. To get more graceful I am considering listening to Barry Mantilow tapes and wearing knee-high leg warmers around the house. It was nice passing so many boats !!
but hopefully we will have fewer
to pass tomorrow.
Health report: body is good, mind needs a little help after the bad race.
Tomorrow forecast: light and crappy.
Day after tomorrow forecast: same.
Day after that: fly home.
Bill - It was a cool crisp morning, about 5 degrees C. My forecast was correct, no wind. We waited in the parking for the committee to get restless enough to send us out. While waiting, people starting coming over and talking to us. I think they are starting to remember that Paul is an F.D. (Flying Dutchman) legend. We are becoming friends with a number of the top teams from Russia, Greece and others. Some just came to show their sympathy for us traveling such a long way for so little racing. Last year they got in a number of races in varied conditions but still sat out two of the days. Well, the committee sent us out around 1 pm. There was enough breeze to tune with the good Greek guy going out to the course. He is ranked #1 in the world right now and is especially good in light air. He led us around the practice course most of the time, but we got the benefit of observing his boat handling and tactics.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we did some more parking lot rigging. We probably had enough breeze to race but didn't get any races in. Paul and I practiced the whole time we were out there (2 1/2 hours) and guilted a few others to train with us. We were pretty fast against the people we went up against and are getting smoother and less bouncy in the boat. Tomorrow it looks like there will be a little wind again, but the committee feels a lot of pressure now and intends to send us out at 7:45 am. At 7:45 am there will most likely be ice on the boats.
After the sailing, Paul went for a run to help get him down to fighting weight and I chose more of a low-impact exercise.
Health report: We are both in the best shape of the trip, slept more than half the night last night and tonight should be the best sleeping night yet.
Weather forecast: light and crappy
Analysis: Getting better and smoother in light air.
Paul - We actually got a tow in today. Usually we are left a couple of miles out with about 10 other boats, but today the Spanish boat felt sorry for us and let us be on their tow line. It was fun training today because the wind was very spotty but you could see the breeze very well on the water. So Bill and I would find someone going upwind ahead of us and work on passing them by hitting the shifts and staying in the puffs. We did the same thing downwind also.
Well, we need 3 more races to get in a regatta. The prognosis is not good for wind, but we will see.
Bill - It's 8am and while sending yesterday's fax I am writing a live up-to-the second report. The 7:45 am starting time meant we rigged the boat in the dark - the race would have been in the dark but we are under postponement once again. My fear of ice was not realized as it only got down to 4 degrees C. Well, time to go do some parking lot rigging. We need to take all the rig numbers off this boat to add to our catalog of numbers! They moved the last race back from 2 pm 'til 4:30 pm for maximum parking lot exposure!
Last Half of Last Day (12/30/97):
Still NO WIND, so the regatta is officially a non-regatta, just the one race (needed a minimum of four races to constitute a regatta). The regatta flyer said "Christmas RACE" and they meant that quite literally. We got some info from our competitors about upcoming events and look forward to those. It would have been nice to find out if the boat we chartered is fast, it helps with deciding what boat to use in Europe this summer. But you do what you can! Off to pack to come home, maybe I will have my first beer of the week, an end of regatta tradition.
A special thanks to Pete and Sandy Merrifield for getting us here with their air miles. That was the one thing that prevented this from being the most expensive single race in history.
Tomorrow's weather forecast: windy.
Paul is trying to buy mast rigging from our chartered boat owner. The guy is French and speaks no English. I can occassionally hear Paul bring up World War II. Must be some sort of bargaining tool.
Happy New Year!
Bill and Paul