Saturday, December 30, 2006

Everything's Coming Up Roses

I set myself a goal: finish in the top half of my age-group fleet in the Laser Masters Worlds in Cascais, Portugal in July next year (2007). Then the class association threw a spanner in the works by announcing in October that they had been unable to agree with the proposed hosts to hold the Masters Worlds in Cascais. During the last few weeks three other potential sites in Europe have been evaluated and yesterday it was announced that the regatta will be in Roses, Spain at the end of September.

According to the official tourist website for Roses...

Roses is an essentially Mediterranean town with a notable tourist and seafaring tradition. It is situated in a unique natural setting, at the north of the Costa Brava, less than 30 kilometres from the frontier with France, 65 kilometres from Girona and 160 kilometres from Barcelona.

Apparently we can expect an interesting variety of wind conditions with nothing too strenuous for us old geezers.

50% thermal wind SE (6 to 15 knots)
40% thermal+gradient wind ENE (6 to 15 knots)
10% gradient wind N (12 to 25 knots)

Sounds good to me. Not too far from where I was sailing in Menorca in 2006 at exactly the same time of year. Hmmm -- maybe I could go early and tune up for a week or two at Minorca Sailing? We haven't visited that corner of mainland Spain before and Tillerwoman is already talking about art galleries in Barcelona. Sounds like we might be in Spain for several weeks. Hey, it's a tough job but somebody has got to do it.

Roses, here we come.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Roses is beautiful: Dan and I went there in April of this year as it's also the nearest biggish place to El Bulli. We stayed at the Hotel Terraza which was lovely and overlooks the fort on one side and the sea on the other.

There's also a restaurant on the sea-front which makes an amazing seafood paella and rather lethal sangria - the name has slipped my mind, but Dan might remember. Sadly, because we paid with cash I can't even check a bank statement to see what it's called!

Have a fantastic time.

Tillerman said...

Thanks for the tip Scheherazade.

Tillerwoman just reminded me that she didn't enjoy our trip to Cadiz for the 2003 Worlds so much because the sailing site was close to a cigarette factory and the smell from the factory bothered her. She said she'll come to Roses as long as there is no cigarette factory there!

Anonymous said...

That is great...I love the idea of the tune-up at the clinic first. You need to hook up some sort of transponder so we can track your races on the internet.

Pat said...

You should have a whole mess of fun Catalonian adventures with Menorca, Barcelona, and the Laser Masters to while away the weeks.

Anonymous said...

Hey Tillerman,

I just passed the news onto my Dad who is in Hobart at the moment sailing in the Aussie Nationals. He just got a new boat so here's hoping it helps him!

He and Mum are looking forward to meeting Tillerman and Tillerwomen in Roses! They are so excited (about the worlds) and Mum said she is going to start looking at flights now!

OG.

Tillerman said...

We look forward to meeting your Mum and Dad too, OG.

Anonymous said...

You can reassure Tillerwoman that there is no cigarette factory anywhere nearby - Dan and I have rather sensitive noses and would have noticed.

Also bear in mind that getting to Roses on the weekend can be a rather interesting trip requiring you to take a train and then a bus (we were going from Girona rather than Barcelona) - keep bottles of water handy because the buses aren't necessarily air-conditioned. If you're driving then it looked like a realy nice road all the way.

Girona is really nice as well once you're well into the city centre: there's a canal and lovely ice-cream places and shops along the canal. They have a chocolatier which has some of the most amazing looking chocolate figures/houses I've ever seen.

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