European Championship

.Hi everyone,
We have no wind yet here in Liepaja. So about 100 sailors are waiting on the shore.
All the Top sailors are here, just world champion Albeu is missing.
There are 3 fleets - 2 for men and one for women.

So today we had 3 races for every fleet. Conditions were chalenging: wind from 13 to 16 knots and wave about 1 -1,5 meter high.
I was in the same fleet as ISR 1, AUS 0, NED 52, POL 25 and many other very fast guys.
I felt very slow on the water because it was the first time in my life when I was sailing in such big wave.
I hope that I will qualify for Gold fleet, now I am somewhere around 20th place.
I am also the first youth in my fleet I hope in overall as well.

The first difficult thing was to get out of the shore break - it was pretty big and pretty angry. It has taken a lot of battens today.
Second difficult thing was to go upwind. The wave was very steep and it was very hard to keep the board on the water. It was trying to jump on every single wave and if you let the board to jump after you land you stop or you get a spinout. I haven't found the way to go over this wave yet.
The third difficult thing was to go downwind. The wave was quite messy so it wasn't possible to catch the wave and ride it. You had to have a good speed and to fly over the most of the waves and to ride down the biggest waves.
And last difficult thing was to do tacks and jibes - the board was trying to kick you of all the time just like a wild horse trys to kick off the rider.
I hope for smaller wave and less wind tomorow.