North American Championships
Qualifying Series
Saturday August 7 and Sunday, August 8

Update, by Jason Werner
8/10/04

Day one had winds of 15-20 mph, but with 4-8 ft waves.  Race one was rather mild, but race 2 had tired folks, and of course more wind and waves.  There were about 15-20 capsizes with DNFs, including a LOT from Dixie!  Jamie and Nabeel made it through without a capsize, but the Constant brothers and Ed
Michaels (both from SSA) did not.  Both broke masts :(-   Interesting thing, normally most mast breaks are due to the mast hitting the bottom, but in these cases both were due to the mast hitting the water!  Now THAT is a hit!

Day 2 dawned with promise of winds of 5-10 mph from the SW. It was blowing 10 mph at first, and race
one got off.  In Race 2, though, it  was in a dying breeze, and the fleets had a lot of trouble finishing in the time limit.  The tail enders of the 3rd fleet really got nailed, with 20 of the 30 not finishing due to huge wind shifts and no breeze.  The RC should have abandoned, but of course that would have thrown things all out of wack....so they continued,  and gave these folks a DNF.  Again...this is something that NEEDS to be brought up in the ILCA rules...but that is for another day.

Today (Tuesday, August 10)  is supposed to have winds of 15-20 again, so figure on plenty of problems for them.  With a SW wind, the fetch is LONG, and the shore gets shallow quick. The waves are bigger than they should be due to this feature.  Sounds like carnage :)-