Preparations almost complete for Mini GP Italy

Sailing from Talamone to Genova for the Mini GP Italiano was fraught with danger as I navigated my way through uncharted rocks as I sailed the RG 650 up the coast of Italy. As forecasted the wind dropped off early evening before filling in from the East to give us nice reaching conditions up the coast to Genova.

I arrived in Genoa with light winds and pouring rain, and coasted my way to the Harbor and into the marina only to be told that yachts were not allowed to sail in the port limits, this may explain the patrol boat that "escorted" me to port.

The rain has been intermittent and it has been unusually cold over the past few days but i have been kept warm and dry in my Zhik gear. As I have prepaid the boat for the race but the raining hours have been well spent searching the city of Genoa for equipment for the boat required for the ever stringent safety inspection. Mini 650 is very strict with safety requirements. The recent sinking of a prototype sailing from France for the race brings safety into realisation. Thoughts go out to the owner who has spent the last 5 years building the carbon prototype boat – this was to be his first race!

The good news is that my safety inspection is almost complete with only a few additional requirements for this race including a SSB radio receiver that I have spent hours trying to find but so far have not been able to source dispute new found friends helps me trying to find the require items. It has been a lot of fun exploring the streets of Genoa and meeting the local people while also socialising with the other Mini sailors in the fleet.

Tomorrow hopefully we can go for a quick training session in the morning before final race preps and a quick trip to Milan to get a new passport. It will be fantastic to get out for a sail tomorrow and test the modifications and new kit before the race and tune the rig for the light wind race that lies only days away.