The International 5O5 European Championship (Pre-Worlds) was completed Thursday with the Tampa-based team of Ethan Bixby and Erik Boothe winning two of the six races to take the title. The regatta was sailed at Club Canottieri Roggero di Lauria in Mondello, Sicily in light breezes from four to ten knots generally from the north / northeast. Jens Findel and Johannes Tennel of Germany finished second and were the top European.s Howie Hamlin and Mike Zinn of the US took third.
Team Interstate 95 finished the regatta with a similar result as the other five races with a score in the upper 60s. Overall, we finished in 51st. At the awards ceremony, the presenters read out every participant (all 70+), which ended up taking quite a bit of time. 51st is certainly not the greatest of finishes, but hopefully we’ll do better when / if more breeze rolls in. Ethan switched boats with us (John hopped in 8715) for a few minutes after the race yesterday and pointed out a few things (tighter jib, moving the cars back two spaces) that should help with the upwind speed and pointing, which so far have been our weakest areas here. Additionally, during the layday today, John and I installed a ram up system, as we’ve switched from a Glaser to a North mainsail. The latter relies on ramming up as opposed to increasing the shroud tension in order to prebend the mast in lighter breeze. Additionally, we took the centerboard out and fixed a few ruts that had become worn in it. Neither bit of boatwork should make a huge speed differences (if anything the first should be more influential), but we did find ourselves with not much to do today. Andrea’s friend, Fulvio, has already suggested that he give us a private tour of Palermo along with his architect friend (who knows the historical and cultural significance of the churches / buildings, etc.) on the next layday (Tuesday).
Today is the first day of the World Championships, with about 120 boats registered and ready to go. Last night was a huge buffet dinner and a (fortunately) brief skipper's meeting, complete with wine, as usual. One aspect of 505 regatttas that I've generally enjoyed is the eating component. 505 crews are hungry specimens, and I think the prime example of this is Drew Buttner, crew of 8830 (Creamsicle). Sadly, the dinner / skipper's meeting had been delayed about 1.5 hours last night, and Drew sat patiently waiting. Finally, one of the waiters was kind enough and had noticed Drew's hunger and informed him (before anyone else) that dinner was ready. Needless to say, I've never seen a 215 lb gentleman move that quickly towards a buffet.
Okay, coffee is finished. Time to walk over to the boat, get dressed, and go yachting.
As I alluded to earlier, Thursday featured only one race, as the RC decided to not start another race in the weak 3-6 knots of breeze. We ended up back ashore relatively early (16:00 or so), and following the award ceremony, we headed back into Palermo proper to meet up with Fulvio (Andreas’ friend). Fulvio showed us his wonderful ground floor apartment that includes a garden and own private garage. According to him, it at one point housed the entire kitchen staff of 3 Chinese restaurants in the Palermo area that were run by one family. The garage was actually a chicken coop at one point. Fulvio commented that it took a long time to renovate and clean up the place upon moving in. Anyways, Fulvio set us up with a table at a nearby restaurant whose owner (Giovanni) he knew. It was not in anyway tourist-friendly (not that we complained – that’s desirable to us). The menu was written on a whiteboard with all Italian, and we pieced together what we knew of Italian to figure out what to order. Having been pleased with the grilled squid twice before, I chose the “polpito” that Andreas indicated to me was squid. Well, it wasn’t squid; it turned out to be octopus. To be fair, I frankly don’t have any particular bias against any members of the Cephalopod class, especially when it comes to eating them. However, I characterize the presentation of this meal as being “aggressive.” The grilled squids I had eaten before had all been placed on their sides “rather gently.” The octopus was presented upright, as if it had been plucked from the floor of the Mediterranean that morning and delivered directly to my plate. The eyes had been removed, but the head was still completely intact. I gingerly ate the tentacles and left the rest as it was delivered. Fortunately, that was filling enough for me (the fish pasta as the first course was also quite tasty). I’ll be sure to post a picture of this dinner. Oddly, Andrea’s octopus was roughly twice the size of mine (Andreas is about 8 inches and 40 pounds heavier than me).
More thoughts on Italy:
- Driving: I highly recommend you don’t ever drive in Italy unless you're an avid go-kart racer. Rome and Naples are particularly bad; Palermo is comparatively tolerable. Not only are the cars flooring it constantly, but Vespas / motorbikes are consistently weaving in and out of other cars. I had one sailor tell me that he was driving downhill on a two-lane highway around a mountain and Italians were passing him by cutting into the opposite lane and blindly speeding by him. Anyways, I can’t help but to wonder where these Italians are going that’s so urgent. Most Italians I’ve seen are generally standing around or sitting talking and smoking. What can be so damn urgent about that?
- Security: A somewhat more depressing thought around Palermo and Mondello is the relatively high level of security around the apartments and villas. Almost all the villas have high steel fences with views of the property obscured by either bushes or the fence itself, and almost all windows to the outside have very thick wooden blinds and more thick steel gratings over them. As beautiful as they are, residential buildings are somewhat fortress-like. To top it all off, most properties have very large dogs (not like English sheepdog large, more like dogs you don’t mess with, like German Shepherds). Anyways, this was explained to me in that up until a few years ago, Sicilian police generally couldn’t be counted on (i.e., you’d call to tell them about bad guys robbing your house, and they wouldn’t necessarily come). Thus, it was up to private citizens to protect their own houses as much as they could.
- Dogs: Everyone has a dog here it seems, and there are plenty of stray dogs wondering around. If you’ve ever wanted a big dog as a pet, come here and take one home with you. Small dogs just don't exist. Boxers, labradors, golden retrievers, and those big dogs with really droopy faces are everywhere.
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