Poland, Puck, RS:X pumping contest

Aloha amigos!

Nearly a two weeks ago I had a quite good event in Poland, competing in their some kind of championship.
On my way to Puck yacht club I was a bit worried as I have heard that polish guys are RS:X pro's, so to tell you the truth I was wondering on how many laps they will beat me. Heh, unfortunately they weren't so angry on me and actually I kicked most of their asses :)

When we arrived, we had one day of rest in about 10m/s wind. Yup, day of rest, because the following days with no wind were really demanding and exhausting in both physically and mentally.
In overall there were 29 competitors, 1 group. I guess judges made 1 group, girls and youth men together, in order to make more competitive atmosphere. It was really nice to see that almost all polish guys and girls had brand new rigs which made me try even more harder to keep the same pace with them.

We had 3 days of racing with wind range from 2m/s to extremely howling 4m/s. I wish the mills would have generated some wind from the sea as they did the day before the races. But, unfortunately, the mill workers didn't manage to come to work on time and we hadn't been pleased to feel some nice wind breezes.

Actually, the whole competition went quite good. I upgraded my technique in downwind and upwind courses. Made several stunning 360's (after protests). I got acknowledged of polish windsurfers. It was quite unusual to see that some of them was pumping differently that we did. But after analyzing that they were going with almost the same slow speed as we did I didn't pay much attention to that specific boom braking technique.

Even though there were a lot of positive matters I just couldn't get my self in front of the starting line... In some way when the clock starts to countdown 20 secs until the start signal my board loses courage and starts to run away from the starting line... That's why I often remain in the shadow of those RS:X woman and youth sailors. In this way, as usually I guess, my whole races depends on how many racers I will catch after making such a crappy start. But, lets look at the bright side - I have to try harder to overcome them.. :)

In those three days I was almost always in top 10. With each day I was promoting a little bit in results and after the last race in extreme conditions (2-3m/s) I remained 6th overall (maybe in top 5 of youth men).

As far as living is concerned, it was quite cheap, we were living in apartments with a balcony which provided us a stunning view of our - yard.

All in all, I am really looking forward to come back to those Poland roads and beat those girls and boys one more time as soon as possible. Of course that's not the only reason... I noticed that while competing there I'm pumping up my technique and with every single race I find out something new. For example, in Poland I got my first protest! Ech, there wasn't a lot of room what could I do.. Anyway, I had a really great time thanks to Juozas and Gintas Bernotas and can't wait to make my first normal start in Poland! :)

See you soon, take care!