Texas Houston - Race Day 1

Another look at the Houston house

The hard schedule taking its toll on the sailors. Now resorting to wheelchairs through the airports!

Well I think I started one of my earlier posts in Santo Dominigo saying wow it is HOT here, well I take that back, now that we are in Houston wow it is HOT here. Sitting at the Houston Yacht Club (HYC) should have brought my Hamilton Yacht Club (HYC) hat I would have fitted right in. Yesterday was a day of travel and we were all pleased to finally get here. All the travel was fine, the interesting bit was taking the rental vehicle our 7 seater Dodge Caravan from the Texas Airport to the Houston Yacht Club, Rob tackled it like a seasoned campaigner, the old I-phone with google earth was a real help also, it is about an hours drive from the airport to the yacht club. The kids were pretty zonked by the end of the day a combination of the travel and the heat. Markus is struggling with an ear infection at the moment, I think as a result of a few to many wipe outs on the Banana Boat. We managed to get him to a Doctor last night who has prescribed some antibiotics and ear drops. He woke up this morning feeling a heap better which is a relief.

We are staying at a house which borders on the perimiter of the yacht club which is just so handy. The Yacht Club is very upmarket, when we arrived last night all the parents were upstairs having dinner, Everyone was dressed up to the nines, we were a little underdressed in our shorts,shirts and jandals. It has been a struggle to get the kids outside to do their boats as all they want to do is vege out on the couch and stay out of the heat. Can't blame them really it is currently 37 degrees outside. I think that could be one of the big hurdles for them dealing with the heat everyone justs seems so lathargic, the parents included!!! We have been able to get Chris onto a coach boat with one of the local kids who is coaching two kids so that has worked out well. We have elected to stay onshore today but hope to get out on a support boat tomorrow. Kazuyo is trying to get us to relax and enjoy the day rather than trying to peer through binoculars at the specs on the horizon, she may win on this one today as I feel a nana nap coming on.

The morning was spent setting up the boats, it seemed to take forever in between getting out of the sun and taking on copious amounts of water. There was an opening ceremony with the overseas countries and all the states represented being recognised. The kids got out on the water at about noon and are currently completing their second race. No results coming ashore until the end of the day so will keep you updated as soon as we get them. There is a nice breeze blowing probably a good 15knots and a bit of a swell running, so may suit our guys, the only downside being the guys have pretty much been dropped on the racecourse with no time to get to understand the local conditions. Time will tell.

Update:
results here: https://sites.google.com/site/optinationals2011/results/results/nationals-day2-preliminaryresultsthroughrace7