Dan Ellis Reports from PWA Korea

The first day of racing saw a few heats under way in the fickle winds, plus a some Korean style celebrations.

“The racing kicked off today, as a sea breeze quickly turned on late afternoon and provided the first action here in Korea.

Dan Ellis

It was boiling hot all day and the wind went through every degree on the compass, before finally setting into the good thermal direction.

I got out on my 9.4, as all the other sailors were running laps or tuning up in pairs, and felt pretty fast, which was a relief as we don’t get too many light wind days in Maui.

I then ran though a few practice start sequences to get back into the rhythm, it’s a really tricky place to start as the wind is super gusty and shifts a lot, which can really mess with your run up and timing.

In the end the wind only lasted long enough to run three heats in which all the usual suspects went through, the luckiest of which, by his own account, was Arnon Dagan, who got a massive header on his run up to the start line and ended up being 20 seconds late. Amazingly, he had the speed to claw back to third and pass through. Ross was in heat four and looked pretty disappointed to have the racing stopped, as he was really flying in these conditions. I’m in heat 8 so will have to wait.

At 5 O’clock, we had “the mayors fun race” a non counting race with 5k price money. It was started by the local mayor as a full fleet beach start. By then the wind had virtually disappeared and by the first mark it was hard to tell which direction it was going. Pieter Bijl won this one over taking Ross and Gonzo in a magic gust on the last reach! I was just happy to make it back to the beach!

The mass start for the Mayor's race

Tonight we had the usual razzmatazz of a Korea opening ceremony, with the most cheesy pop stars you can imagine. My favorite of which did a cover of English man in New York by The Police, half in English half in Korean.

Dan’s report from the pre race day is on page two…