FTBD (31) & Kiel; Prestart 2

I was expecting empty roads travelling during the day trough Northern Germany. Their soccer team had to play against Croatia in the World Cup… But like me, there seem to be a lot of Germans not that into football. Not enough to take a day off from work. ‘Stau’ before Bremen, ‘stau’ after Bremen and road works before Kiel. Anyway, I arrived mid-afternoon and picked up my Sailing Instructions, sponserbag and clothing before the Jury-meeting at six.

World Cup Events now have a special set of sailing instructions, which supposedly – bar local differences in colour of marks – stay the same for all WC-events. They have been using them for four events now and still there is some fine-tuning in wording and specific instructions. But eventually we will get them right.
If you are interested you should be able to find them on the Kieler Woche Website.

It’s also Flog The Blog Day again – the 31st. Not that you have much to flog about, I’ve hardly been posting. But still, please go ahead – any comments, suggestions, critics, or remarks – feel free to write them. I might actually let them be published (EG).

I’ll be umpiring the first half of the week in the Woman Elliot 6 Match Racing. Again – like in Medemblik – 24 top teams competing. They could have had a lot more – 40 teams even, with separate courses and new format. Something the OA of Kiel week was willing to set up – but ISAF didn’t allow it. It still is a World Cup event.

The influence of ISAF will only increase next year – being a pre-Olympic year. More then half the Jury will be ISAF appointed, no doubt.

But lets get back to this year. 180 plus matches in five days = 45 plus flights with eight boats = 9 flights per day and no slack for weather-conditions. In other words – don’t be surprised if I don’t have time (or energy) to post every day. I’ll do my best….