Bonjour!

Ah France.

After a long night/day's worth of traveling, we found our destination safe and sound, but only after a couple of unexpected detours along the way (for the "cultural experience"). Tonight will be spent at the Hotel Parc Euromedecine in Montpelier. Tomorrow morning we will head to Port Camargue, about 40 minutes away, to pick up the Grand Surprise that we are delivering from Camargue back to Marseille for the SYWoC organizing committee. The 60nm trip should take between 10 and 12 hours, hopefully a little quicker with a forecasted breeze out of the SSW at 20-25kts with gusts higher. We are all eager to get into the Grand Surprise for the first time and see what the beast is really like.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates, pictures, and videos from our first few days here in France.

Team Makes Scuttlebutt Photos Of The Week

These two gems made it into Sailing Scuttlebutt's Photos of the Week for last week. For the article check the link:
http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/photos/09/1016/
Photos from Photoboat.com

Great Pics From Larchmont

Great Shots of Day 1 at Larchmont from Photo Boat

http://www.photoboatgallery.com/lightbox/index/category/gallery%7C2009%20Storm%20Trysail%20Intercollegiate%20Regatta%7CLora%20Ann/start/0/Lora-Ann.html

Sail For Hope Photos

See this and other photos from Sail For Hope at http://www.cohenphotography.com/ under the 'latest" tab

Big Weekend at Larchmont For the Rams

This weekend the Worlds Team travelled down to Larchmont Yacht Club to compete in the 2009 Storm Trysail Intercollegiate Regatta. Many of us did this event last year and had such a great time that we had to make it back for round 2. Having placed second overall last year at this event, we decided that we could not settle for anything less than first. For the second year in a row we sailed with Rich du Moulin on his Express 37 Lora Ann.

The first day of sailing was an exiting one on Long Island Sound. We saw a strong cold breeze out of the northwest. The breeze started in the morning at about 6kts which quickly built to a solid 16-22kts with gusts up to 26kts. The Rams handled the breeze well and managed 3 bullets.

The second day of racing was much lighter and extreme shifts gave us some scares but patience and teamwork prevailed and today ended with 3 more bullets. Results put us first in class (1st of 4) and first overall (1st of 40) winning the Hoffman Trophy.

Results Can be found at: http://www.yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=302

Pictures from the Sail For Hope can be found at: http://www.cohenphotography.com/ under "Latest"

Rams 5th in Division at Sail For Hope

The Rams participated in the Sail For Hope Regatta around Jamestown on saturday. Despite the unpleasant weather, the Rams made the best of it. With a great start at the boat, the Farr 30 had a tough time making it upwind against the much bigger boats in its class. As soon as the boat hit the tip of Beavertail it took off down the West passage tight reaching the lenght of the island. Rhody rounded the northern end of Jamestown in very good position but lost it upwind on some bad shifts. A great regatta for a great cause and thank you to North Sails Rep, Mike Coe, who was on the boat coaching for the weekend.

Results:http://www.sailnewport.org/npt/c/cnt/down/sfhpdf2.pdf

Practice video...more to come

Some Footage from a light air practice last Thursday. This film was taken and edited by Carl but URI has expressed an interest in filming and doing a series of articles about the team. This past sunday we had someone from URI out filming our practice. More details to come but hopefully we will be providing daily video updates from France! Available right here on the blog.

Light Air Practice from URI Sailing on Vimeo.