Leonard wins the US Nationals !!!

I am sitting in the lobby at the Hotel in London as I write this. It seems so long ago that the racing at Houston finished but unfortunately we were unable to get onto the internet at the end of the regatta so I have some catching up to do sorry. Straight to the good stuff, Leonard has cleaned up winning the regatta in convincing style, with Markus close behind in 4th and Isaac clawing his way back up to 13th. (note from Rob here: you will notice that Isaac had 4 bullets/bananas/hats and, if he had of sailed the course properly and got the top group finish he should have had in race 1, we would have had 3 in the top 5). Well done guys you have made us all so proud, and thank you to all the well wishers who have facebooked, texted emailed etc, it is much appreciated and brings a smile to everyones face when they get them. So a brief summary of the last few days. First the racing then the goss.

Race Day 4 - Texas Houston

The race committee had plans of doing 3 races on the last day with an earlier start of 9am as opposed to the noon we were getting used to, the warning signal for the last race had to be made by 2pm. The weather gods weren't playing ball though, the breeze hadn't really been coming in until noon and today was no exception. We went out on the water at around 10am as there was some breeze, but it proved to be inconsistent and the Race Committee struggled to lay a course. Finally we got a race underway at 1pm in a lighter breeze of around 5knots, this was to be the only race for the day and the final one for the regatta. Isaac ended up with a win in this race, Markus came 12th and Leonard 32nd.

For full results click here.

https://sites.google.com/site/optinationals2011/results/results/nationals2011finalresultsgold

The lads about to head out on the last day.



Out trusty spectator boat.

Couldn't resist this one 'Hamilton Yacht Club' wouldn't that be nice

The Goss

One of my big 'must do in Texas' things was to have some spare ribs, they say every thing is bigger in Texas, so that suited me bring on the big ribs. One night at the buffet the theme was prime beef, I got all excited and thought here we go here is my ribs, well there was ribs but they were no bigger than my little finger :(. Anyway we get to London and sit down for a meal, I look at the menu and whammo 'Spare Ribs' so I got my spare ribs but not quite as I expected, in London as opposed to Texas, all good though..

Yesterday was a long day for everyone we got up at 8am and headed for the mall, all the kids and some of the bigger kids were looking forward to a little retail therapy, unfortunately the NASA space station lost out to the shopping. With this done we headed to the airport for our flights out, this is where we said goodbye to Chris as he headed back from Texas to New Zealand, all was going well until we were about to go through screening at the airport. Isaac went to take my laptop out of his carry on bag to place on the conveyor and realised he only the had the case with no laptop inside, he had left the laptop in the rental car. With very little time in hand I had to exit the controlled area jump on a bus head back to the rental car company, once there they informed me the van had been sent to get serviced so they rang the service department, they found the laptop drove it back to the rental car company gave it to me, back on the bus to head to the terminal go through all the security drama again and meet back up with the team whew!! what a mission. All was looking good raced onto the plane sat down and started to relax, Rob looks over and says can you remember when you last saw me with my sunglasses on, we tracked back through the day and after all the drama it ends up Rob left his sunnies at the airport while waiting for me, oops!!, so now every time we got off a plane or out of a car Isaac gets"Isaac have you got the computer".

Anyway we flew out at 4pm from Texas to Frankfurt a 9 hour flight then from Frankfurt to Heathrow another 1 1/2 hours. Once in London it took us about an hour to organise a mini bus that was big enough to carry all 6 of us plus our oversize luggage to our Hotel, this ended up being an hour and a half drive, so when we finally reached the hotel there was many sighs of relief. Mark (Markus's Dad) has caught up with us in London and will spend the rest of the trip with us, we are here for two more days before heading off to Pwhelli -Wales. Our list of sights to see for the next few days was discussed tonight over a pie and a pint so should be a lot of fun and a well earned rest for the guys. I am sure I will have some good blog material up over the next two days, till then talk soon.

They will sleep anywhere when they are tired.

Some tired travellers waiting to check into the Hotel in London